We miss you Mama!

Mama, we hope you have a safe business trip in India! We miss you! Please come home soon. We love you!

Yes, I'm back in India for a follow up visit to my visit in September. Since I never finished my post then, I figured I'll update you on that visit here.

In September I wrote:

I hope I can copy from word into the blog. I thought I should take a few minutes while I had it to write about my thoughts of India.

Vineeta and just about everyone else said that when I got off the plane, it would smell. Well I guess if you are coming from the US, this would be true. Coming from Shanghai, the stinky capital of the world, I could smell nothing out of the ordinary.

We worked a lot this week and didn’t get much time to tour. It would take an hour to get to work, and some days two hours to get back to the hotel. There is so much traffic here. The roads are not the best, so this makes for many traffic jams.

I have eaten some really good Indian food. They talk about food in two ways, veg or non veg. Many people here are vegetarian or they honor their favorite gods by fasting and not eating meat. They, of course, never eat beef since the cow is sacred. They also do not eat pork. Chicken and lamb are the only meat they eat.

They love music and dancing. In fact, one evening, I watched a wedding procession in front of the hotel. They had a lot of singing and dancing and bright lights. I didn’t know it was a wedding procession at the time, but the next day, one of my hosts Rajiv explained it to me.

The Indian culture is very big on building relationships. This is a different mindset than most Americans have. We met with suppliers and customers and they both were very generous in offering tea, coffee, soda, water, and other munchies. It would be seen as rude if you didn’t have a cup of something while you were talking. I always went with the tea or chai. Many times our business discussion would only take 15 minutes of the hour and the rest was spent in just socializing over tea. Most of the people I met were well traveled and experienced in business.

Thank goodness I talked to a few people before I went with regards to attire. Although it is very hot this time of year, the Indian women dress conservatively. Not that I don’t already dress conservative, but I left all the sleeveless shirts at home. It was a strategy that worked well for me as I think I would’ve been uncomfortable.

We finished all our work on Friday so that Saturday before my flight we could tour. My other host, Rajesh, took me around Delhi. I would’ve like to travel to the Taj Mahal, but that is at least a 3-4 hour drive and timing wouldn’t allow it. I will definitely have to come back to check that out.

Rajesh took me to the Lotus Temple. The Lotus Temple is relatively new and is a place for all religions to worship. It is surrounded by beautiful gardens. You cannot wear shoes into the temple, so you must check them before you walk in. It is a place for calm and peace. No cell phones or cameras allowed. The floors are cool marble, a nice break from the heat outside. We walked around the temple and then sat for a few minutes to pray.

The next place we went was to the Incon (I need to check on this name) temple. This is a Hindi temple which is dedicated mainly to the Hindi god, Krishna. Again we had to remove our shoes. It was much smaller than Lotus Temple and was decorated with many paintings as well as statues. Here, there were a group of men chanting.

It was starting to get hot now and really humid. I guess I didn’t realize it during the week because we were in the office with air conditioning.

The final temple we went to Akshardham Temple. It was by far the most beautiful place I have ever been to. This is a Hindi temple that was recently build and it was the vision of a Hindu person, kind of like a really holy guy. I have to look this one up on the internet. Here, we couldn’t even take our phones and cameras into the facility. When you walk in, first you pass through security, then you walk down a pathway that is outside. You pass through an area that is surrounded by structures with water falling down and when the wind is blowing, you feel an awesome cool breeze. You can see perfectly manicured lawns and shrubs. Then you walk through a building where at the entrance the pillars have hand sculptured statues of Hindi god servants going up and down the pillar. This building houses a gold statue of the person whose vision it was to build. There is also history of what makes up the temple and how it was built.

After you pass through this building, you go back outside (in the sweltering sun) and walk down a wide sidewalk toward the temple. One thing I noticed is the perfect symmetry as you look at the temple. The gardens, the pattern on the wide sidewalk, the temple itself is perfectly symmetric. I like symmetry, so I thought this was especially beautiful.

Once again, we have to stop and take our shoes off and check them. Oh – you also have to wash your hands before you enter. Now the pavement is reaaaalllly hot! They have carpets that will shield some of the heat, but still hot.

The inside of this temple was all marble. Marble sculptures, marble floors, marble ceilings, just beautiful. We walked around, and had to be quiet the whole time.

http://www.akshardham.com/

You can paste this link into your browser to see pictures. It was breath taking. After this temple, we stopped for a road beer and went to do some shopping. We went to the department store that Ghandi founded and bought some wraps. We also bought some spices there including saffron.

I flew back that night and was glad to be home.

That was the end of the September trip. This trip is a quicker trip since it is hard for Kirk and the kids when I am out of town.

Mal is in town, so I'll get to see her, but I not sure how much shopping I'll get to do.

I really would like to see Taj Mahal, but it is about a 4 hour car ride so you really need a whole day to devote to that. I love India. I think it is an amazing country whose people are gracious and respectful and hard working. You definitely see a lot of poor people and the roads and infrastructure aren't good, but they are working on it. I think it will be a good trip to bring the kids when they are a bit older.

BTW - I really miss the kids too!!!! I miss Elizabeth waking me up and I miss watching Alex run everywhere as he doesn't know how to walk!