I am still trying to process everything from India. The first day a group of us went out. We actually got pictured in the paper!!!--as drivers were ambushing us! We caught a rickshaw, which is a motorized scooter that holds two people. On the way to a market we got in a fender bender—also minute one. Our rickshaw driver was talking to the other rickshaw driver and a car pulled out in front of him and he swerved into us and we got sideswiped by a van in the oncoming lane, but we were all ok. We went to a consignment store (which drivers are tipped for if they take us there) and so everything was really over priced. Then we went to a restaurant and had yummy food and then we went and got silks. I didn’t opt to have a sari made because I would never in a billion years wear it in Portland, but I got lots of scarves! Some of the girls I was with got beautiful sari’s made... really beautiful! Then we went to a Temple. We left our shoes with our driver and bought flowers as a peace offering to leave at the shrine. I don’t know very much about Indian Culture and so I just kind of followed the group and left the flowers at the alter to be blessed and they took them and then I was blessed and then they hand you this mint type leaf and then there are candles and incents and whatnot. It was nice. My first impressions of India: Crowded, busy, poor, beautiful…takes your breath away by how many scents, sounds, colors, textures, garbage, rubbish, children, and poverty there is. India is like no place I have ever been before and I don’t think it will be like any place I will ever go. This was day one.
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