Monday, June 9

A Day of Shopping


We started our day with breakfast at "Cafe Coffee Day." Jana's breadfast looked yummy, but my "Italian Foccocia" left much to be desired. Spicy carrots on panini bread at 8:30am isn't my idea of a good breakfast. My second shot at a breakfast item was the chocolate doughnut. It was just like Daylight Doughnuts, a sure win.

Today we met up with our friend Raji who took us to several bazaars to buy jewelry pieces. Here is Jana and Raji walking to the bazaar.

Jana spent many hours picking out just the right pieces of silver, beads, and crystals for the jewelry business.

The street bazaars were CRAZY!!! I've never been stared at more in my life! There were billions of people, all crammed into tiny alleys, with motor scooters, bikes, rickshaws, and cars, all trying to go different directions. I was almost run over about 35 times (which barely beats the amount of times I saw a man "relieving himself" on the sidewalk. eeeewwww....) If you look closely, you can see the monkey on the wire above the street. It was so Indian Jones-esque!

As we were walking I spotted a drinking station where they serve the lowest caste of people (the Dalits) water from small clay pots. After the Dalit drinks from the pot they are required to throw it on the ground so that no person might drink from the same cup as a Dalit.

This doesn't begin to show how incredibly dirty and sweaty I was after eight hours of non-stop shopping. I had a "second skin" of street scum and pure sweat!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You are brave! Your shopping experience looks like so much fun, but a lot of work. The true Indiana Jones of bead shopping!