Chandigarh - Wedding festivities, Sunday morning

The wedding festivities continued on Sunday morning. The previous night's event ended around midnight, and Sunday's events started about 10am. The ceremonies on Sunday morning started out similarly to Saturday. People were sitting on mats on the floor and playing a drum and singing. I believe this is done to kill time while waiting for people. Since India runs on a vague sense of time, things usually start late.

There was Hindu priest who chanted, passed around water, and told people to say stuff. What that was, I have no idea. We also threw marigold petals on the bride and groom separately. N had her wedding bangles put on, I believe with her eyes closed, and they were then covered up because the bride is not supposed to see them until certain point. There are also other things put on her wrists with beads. At some point she shook these and broke the beads over the heads of the single women there. I have no idea what any of that meant.

The priest is sitting to the left. You can see the bowl of water and marigold petals on the mat.

You can see N's bangles are covered and A's sister is placing dangly things on her wrists with the beads.

After the first ceremony, we went to find water for the bride and groom to bathe in. Again there was use of a drum and probably some singing, but I'm not sure. We crossed the street and wandered around a neighborhood looking for a water source. It appears that the water at the temple may have been out, but a man pointed the group to a tank where they filled up the water jugs below. Two women, who were tied to their husbands, carried the water on their heads. We were also fed some sort of sweet. After that, the parents of the bride and groom had to haggle with them to purchase the water for the bride and groom to bathe in.

Women with the water jugs and someone being fed a sweet.

After the water ceremony we all headed to the hotel to get ready for the main event.


 

Chandigarh – Saturday wedding festivities

Saturday afternoon included a ceremony for the wedding.Someone played a drum, people clapped, and people danced. We all placed somehenna on the bride and grooms hands and then did a little dance after. Each person placed some money by the henna bowl to be donated to charity. TheIndian guests thought white people trying to do Indian dancing was hilarious.

Drum playing

Placing henna on the groom's palms

The henna bowl with donations for the poor

After the ceremony, the women all got henna on their hands.N, being the bride, had henna put up to her elbows (we only got it up to ourwrists) and on her feet. We then waited a couple hours before scraping thestuff off. We then had to avoid washing our hands for several more hours.

Afterwards we had the actual Mehendi party. I think thatusually the henna portion and the party are done together, but this way wecould enjoy the party without waiting for our henna to dry. The party was muchlike a wedding reception. In fact, I couldn’t imagine how the wedding was goingto be any different (I was way wrong which you will see in a future post).There was deafening music, lots of food, and a sort of talent portion wherepeople performed choreographed dances. 

Talent show portion

The roommates plus our honorary member

Chandigarh – Friday and Saturday before Wedding Festivities

On day four we started our journey from Jaipur to Chandigarh. We took the minibus to Delhi which took about five hours. We stopped briefly at A’s family friend’s apartment which is four stories and very modern. There were several servants waiting to offer us coffee or water. We then jumped into two separate cars for the remaining journey. The total time from Jaipur to the hotel in Chandigarh was 12 hours. The roads from Delhi to Chandigarh were actually quite nice, and the towns in between a lot nicer than Delhi to Jaipur. We had a quick meal at a rest stop where I had a delicious dosa.

We arrived at the Gaur hotel on Friday night where everyone was staying for the wedding. The hotel is really new and very fancy. There were still finishing it while were staying there. They had amazing showers, although ours was made of a frosted glass that could be seen from the main room.  You can see photos from my previous Chandigarh post.

Chandigarh is the capital of Haryana and Punjab. It’s a planned city and considered to be the cleanest in India. Instead of hectic, traffic filled streets, Chandigarh has wide streets that allow traffic to move freely. There is landscaping and even sidewalks.

On Saturday I went with a few of the other wedding guests to the shopping sector. We took a rickshaw for a couple dollars which was surprisingly pleasant. We wandered around trying to find Fab India (an awesome Indian store) for about 30 minutes. After asking about 10 people who don’t’ speak English where it was, we finally found it. It turns out we were sort of spiraling around it. White people are somewhat of  an intriguing site here. Children are either very excited and try to touch your hand or they are terrified of you. Generally, everyone we have met here is extremely nice and helpful. 

This is the shopping area. Having wide open space is very different than the other cities we visited. 

We randomly came across dozens of notaries in the shopping sector. 

Day 2 & 3 - Jaipur

After getting some actual sleep, I met up with A&N (friends getting married), Timm, as well as N’s family. We rode in a private minibus for 6 hours to get to Jaipur, which is in Rajastan. Although old and a little uncomfortable, the minibus was a great way to travel. On the minibus we sighted several camels pulling carts, as well as monkeys and an elephant.

We stayed at the excellent Jas Villas (I posted photos earlier in the blog). It was a beautifully landscaped hotel with poolside service.

Jaipur is a bustling city with old world charm. On the second day we toured the city fort and city palace. There is a magnificent fort wall surrounding the area, dipping up and down with the hills. We rode elephants to the top of the city fort which was a lot of fun. There are many people taking your photo on the elephant to sell to you later. After city fort, we had lunch and went to city palace. After coming out of city palace, someone had gotten a hold of our photos from city fort and tried to sell them to us again. The persistency and ability to recognize us in the photographs was impressive.

After we were done touring the city, we headed back to the hotel for a refreshing swim and beers. 

It's common to see multiple people on a motorcycle

Typical buses in India

Camel pulling a cart. Very common between Delhi and Jaipur.

Camel parking lot

View of Jaipur from the elephant

It's common to see people pulling oversized stuff on bikes

Jaipur street

N and I on the elephant

The crew at city fort

Elephants entering city fort

Ganesh at city fort

Fort wall

Elephants in Jaipur

City palace

City palace

City palace

City palace

Day 1 - Taj Mahal

After about 24 hours of traveling I made it to Delhi andtook a car to my hotel. I managed an hour of sleep before it was time to wakeup and head to the Taj Mahal with Timm. We had a driver with a nice car withAC. The traffic in Delhi is nothing short of astounding. All driving in Indiais chaotic, but Delhi takes it to a different level. Once we were out of Delhiwe took a new expressway tailored to tourists going to the Taj. It waspractically empty and as nice as any US freeway.

Once we got to Agra, a guide jumped into our car. As far asI can tell, it’s standard practice for the hired drivers to pick up one of theguides off the street. The Taj grounds are full of ringneck parakeets. 

One of the many parakeets

The Tajitself looks unreal. It’s made out of white marble and inlayed with thousandsof different types of jewels. The Taj itself contains no painting, which is whyit has been preserved so well. Since it is a mausoleum, there’s not much to theinside.

Our first glimpse of the Taj Mahal from one of the gates

It was exceptionally hot, but not too crowded. 

Some of the carvings and inlay work

After we were done touring we headed back to Delhi for thelong drive. We experienced a rare thunderstorm with pouring rains. Since manypeople ride motorcycles here, all the overpasses were crowded with peopletaking shelter. We got to Delhi and experienced probably the worst traffic Iwill experience in my life. The good news is that it has made all the othertraffic seem negligible. 

Morning in Darjeeling

Henna