EDIT: Link for Colin’s pics (since he told me I didn’t put them in!)
http://www.pbase.com/cmclaughlan/craftmela&page=all
Yesterday Colin and I took this guy named Bill, who happened to be on business here in Haryana, sightseeing. Colin deals with Bill, so he’s not some random businessman. :p
We went to the Surajkund Crafts festival that will end on the 15th of February. It’s a bit of an upscale craft type of festival, but crafts in Indian is completely different from craft in America. Craft here is their trade – pottery, iron works, tapestry, etc. Not like back in the US where it’s usually all about scrapbooking, knitting, crocheting, etc.
Here are some pics I took…they’re nothing like Colin’s lot, but still, it’s kind of cool enough!
Hopefully the pics will work. I am trying a new thing I discovered on Photobucket (go go n00b me) where I can click pics in my album and then it generates a code that lets you see the picture and can click for a bigger version of it. Let’s hope I got it right!
For the grand price of entry 50rs (you know, $1.03), it was worth it. It wasn’t necessarily what they had there, but to experience something that wasn’t aimed at tourists was quite a breath of fresh air. I did purchase 2 mega packs of sandalwood incense for a whopping 80rs (a bank breaking $1.65)…and I got to eat some very lovely potato street food which I usually know the name of but it currently eludes me for 20rs (41 cents). We stayed for a couple of hours, but I got some nice snapshots. As soon as Colin uploads his pictures, I’ll be putting the link here for everyone to see.
The drive there had to be one of the worst things about it. It was so close to the house, but the road our driver took made me want to hang my head out the window and barf. I did my best to ignore the rising nausea, thank god. The road was much shorter than I thought, but still so bumpy I am a little queasy when I think about it.
This sign caught my attention:
Now some of you know that I play an application on Facebook called My Fairyland — in it, I basically go around watering people’s flowers in their gardens and I save some flowers/plants from wilting. Well, because I’m such a dork, I saw these wilting flowers and had to post them because they reminded me of some of the fairy gardens I’ve visited. yea, nerd alert…nerd alert. :p
Here’s a picture of a camel…that I did not ride. I wanted to get a picture of the whole camel, but there was an aggressive beggar woman who kept tugging on my clothing and she would’ve been in the picture. I already posted one pic of a woman beggar and that was wholly inappropriate, but it is everyday life. You only need to see one of those, in my opinion. Isn’t the camel cute all decorated up? It was funny watching some kids scream the moment the camel stood. I would be screeching, too, to be honest.
Here is a local dancer…I didn’t get the other dancers that were situated at other parts of the market. They had more ornate costumes and I think Colin got those. 😉
This was a shot of the market just as we were about to leave…love the sea of people on a Thursday afternoon? I would hate to see what it would be like during the weekend!
In the morning before Colin set off for work, Gauri (our cook for those of you who are new to reading my journal) asked if we wanted dinner. We both said no because we didn’t want Indian food…so for dinner we took Bill to…oh the irony — Indian food. But it wasn’t homestyle Indian food, this was restaurant style curry goodness. I was chatting with Colin on the way to pick up Bill from his hotel and commented that here in India I seem to be eating a lot more veggies than when I did back in the US. I think it’s because I like how the veggies are spiced, but sometimes it’s so spicy I can’t eat the food. 🙁
Oh…and yesterday (Wednesday) Colin stopped off at the house on his way back to the office after doing some errands. The sweet man that he is brought me food — McDonald’s. LOL He got me a Chicken Maharaja Mac. That sucker was SPICY!!!! Like so spicy I couldn’t finish it. Who would’ve ever guessed that spicy and McDonald’s would be in the same sentence?! Sorry, no pictures for this. 🙂
xoxo
Carina
PS — notes for myself
+ power outages – oh the frustration
PPS — Sorry for the mangled English in the entry. It’s late and I’ll come back later on in the day to fix it. I just wanted to get this all out while it’s still fresh in my mind.
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