We have been in India for two months now!! WOW! It is strange to say that! It seems at times like we arrived just a few days ago! Just this morning as I was riding in the car to go work out I thought to myself… “I live in India!?! That’s crazy!!” The month of June has been a full month with many different things happening and us getting more settled into life here in India! This month’s blog is going to focus on some daily things we experience and see as well as a stop off at the Taj Mahal! Join us as we journey!
So the month of June started off much like the month of May ended… HOT!! Im not sure what the hottest day was but I know that it hovered around 115F for the first couple of weeks of June with heat indexes exceeding 120F. The vast amount of concrete and pavement in the city aid the temperatures remaining hi! During this time period overnight lows would dip into the low 90s occasionally falling into the high 80s.. With that being said we are so very thankful for the good working ACs here at our flat as well as those in our divers car and at Kaysi’s work! One thing that would be nice during this time would be a nice cool shower… the only problem is that water for most houses and flats are stored in tanks on the rooftops to help create water pressure in black tanks.. needless to say the water, even with the hot water heaters turned off, can be a little on the HOT side. Kaysi insisted for a week or so that I was just being a baby and not liking hot water in the shower. Her opinion was changed one morning when she too had a rather HOT shower with the hot water heater not even on… although she did admit the water was hot she still claims im just a baby…(I think she may be correct about that!). Most of our activities for this month have been done in places where you can be inside or at the pool which is always a nice break from the heat!
In mid June the clinic hosted another course for the Indian Physio Therapist taught by Kent Keyser. It was fun for me getting to know him and get to try a few new restaurants while he was in town. One thing we did do that was outside was to go and see the Taj Mahal which is in the city of Agra which is about 200km away (about a three hour drive) with Kent and also Foster one of the other American Therapists at the clinic. We left at 3:30 am so that we could arrive at the Taj right around sunrise and be back on the road home before it got too hot out. We arrived around 6:30am and were immediately approached by numerous people who wanted to take us on a tour of the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal is beautiful! Words cannot fully describe how beautiful it was. So here is a link to a photo album of our trip there! Taj Mahal Photo Album Our tour lasted almost three hours and thankfully we were back on the road before it got to incredibly hot. One thing that was tough was the barrage of people trying to sell you things as we were leaving the Taj walking down to the parking lot where our driver would pick us up. There were kids probably as young as 7 or 8 and many adults trying to sell you magnets or little trinkets. Our friend Foster got the worst of it with two little boys following him for several minutes trying to get him to buy things. One other thing that was interesting as well as stinky.. was the camels that would give you a ride to and from the parking lot. We passed on the ride.. we had no desire to be at the back end of a camel in that hot weather…I’ll just leave it at that! Overall the trip was a great one and something definitely worth seeing if you are ever in India (my suggestion would be to not go during the summer tho… its a wee bit hot!)
One thing you quickly learn here in India is that there is a large portion of the population that is vegetarian. My assumption is that most of this is because of religion but others are by choice. Thankfully we have found good and reputable butchers to purchase meat from, although we have not purchased beef. Anyhow, because of the large vegetarian population almost all food items have a symbol on them that indicates if the product is vegetarian or non-vegetarian (veg or non-veg) The symbol is a box with a solid circle inside the box. Also, menus at restaurants are categorized by these symbols as well. Often the labels can be a little redundant and at other times quite humorous! For instance a bottle of Coca-Cola has the veg symbol on it.. Often times on menus items that are clearly meat as in Beef Tenderloin have the non-veg symbol.. It has been fun for me to look or the different labels. We did realize that snickers are a non-veg product.. this is due to the use of eggs in them.
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| Good ole Coca-Cola! (Its made with real sugar and its ohh so good!!) |
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| Menu at Johnny Rockets |
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| Baconater at Smoke House Deli |
One other daily site is the numerous Autos (or Auto Rickshaw which is CNG powered three wheeled vehicle). It is amazing how many people they can fit inside an auto!! Also what can be carried in one! The other day I caught a picture of this auto..
There also rickshaws (man powered tricycle) that carry people and then other tricycles that carry a variety of different things (they may also be called rickshaws..) Sometimes you see them carrying refrigerators.. other times huge tanks.. bricks… often I'm not quick enough to pull out my camera to catch the funny sites! I will be more diligent in doing so.
So overall the month of June was great!! We are looking forward to the weather changing and getting a little more rain! It should cool things off a little bit as well! Thanks again for hanging with us to the end of the blog and we look forward to sharing more and more with you all!! Love you all and miss you all back home!
Also here is another link to a photo album of just random pictures around Delhi!
