Thursday, March 29, 2007

Farewell Singapore, hello again Austin!

We are leaving Singapore tomorrow, Friday, 30th May after staying here for 9 months. Time went by really quickly! We had fantastic adventures here in Southeast Asia and we will treasure heaps of fond memories.

We are heading to the Australian outback for a week before returning to Austin. We arrive home in Austin on Saturday, April 7th. We can't wait to see our house and our doggies and all our friends and family.

Goodbye, Singapore! We will miss all the adventures!

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

New Delhi, India

In early March we went to New Delhi, India to attend Vivek Chopra's ( a colleague of Darin's) wedding.

Nothing prepares you for the sights, smells, sounds and absolute chaos that awaits you the minute you touch down in Delhi. Driving in a taxi is a white-knuckle ride as there are no road rules, and regular obstacles include elephants or camels walking along the side of the road and trucks and taxis coming towards you on the wrong side of the road.

We saw some jaw-dropping sights - people transporting heaps of petrol cans with passengers sitting on top of the cans, 3 dozen people riding on the back of a delapidated donkey cart and so on.

We stayed at the Hyatt hotel which is a regular 4 star hotel and in the US one wouldn't even pay more than $150 for this type of place. In Delhi, the Hyatt ran $375 a night. And this was the least expensive "real" hotel we could find!! From our room, we could see people living in shabby hovels and tents right across the road, sitting around camp fires at night with no electricity. This is very depressing and disturbing on many levels.

We went to the Taj Mahal one day which was a 3 and a half hours' drive from Delhi to Agra in a small "bus". The driver had excellent skills in dodging camels, elephants and wandering pedestrians on the crowded streets. I could not tear my eyes away from the road, and quite a few times I had to gasp out loud from the sheer horror/then relief of narrow escapes by a goat/dog/person/other taxi.

The Taj Mahal was commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Shāh Jahān as a mausoleum for his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The sad part is that she died before it was completed and never got to see it. While the white domed marble mausoleum is the most familiar part of the monument, the Taj Mahal is actually an integrated complex of structures and it is surrounded by beautiful gardens.

That day we also visited Agra fort which is a powerful fortress of red sandstone. After crossing an extremely smelly (dry) "moat", you enter through a very impressive gate called "India gate". We took some stunning pictures here.

The next day we went on a tour of the old city appropriately called Old Delhi. We visited the Red Fort and the mosque of Jama Masjid, and also Raj Ghat, the cremation site of Mahatma Gandhi.

The wedding was a tradional indian arranged marriage. It was absolutely amazing! We attended the ring ceremony the first night, which is a whole night affair and ends in the wee hours of the morning. It is at this ceremony that the two families of the bride and groom meet for the first time. Darin and I were the only westerners at this ceremony (because it is really just for the families) so it was extra special for us to see this. The women were all dressed up in stunning colorful saris and there was a lot of music, dancing, eating and celebrating while the bride and groom got engaged.

The wedding ceremony was also very spectacular. In a procession of dancing,loud trumpeting and drumming, the groom rode in on a white horse to the wedding ceremony. This procession is called the "barat" and lasted about 45 minutes. The bride arrived about an hour after that and was exquisitely dressed in the finest fabrics. Her hands were very intricately henna'd and she wore a lot of gold jewelery. And there was also the biggest buffet of indian food I have ever seen. They also had a traditional tandoor oven in which the chefs baked fresh naan and roti. The food was delicious. In fact, all the food in Delhi was excellent. Our friends, Mike and Sara, another US expat couple living in Singapore who also attended the wedding, took us to two restaurants in Delhi - both had some of the best indian food I have ever tasted.

On that same day, we got chased down a street by naked children begging for food and water, and Mike got firm with a pushy tout. We also had fun with Mr. Singh, and a very good laugh about a human scarecrow. For maximum impact, these stories have to be told in person my Mike/Darin/Sara. =)

To see more pictures, including pics from the wedding:

Delhi, India