The Manchester of South Asia.

The last city my journey took me to was what is called the "Manchester of South Asia", or the Missouri of South Asia as Haley would say. It's a far stretch from MO, but it is flat like the plains of the US. This is a city where old meets new. The centre is packed with Moghul ruins and spaghetti streets, but in the midst of so much history there are HUGE malls. Like I'm talking US malls. The city is about 7 million people, and there is an interesting mix of the traditional with the modern. You have women walking around in nationals dress, talking the national language in a place that looks like it's in America- VERY strange. There is this one store called Reliance Mart, which was nicknamed, Wal-mart on steroids. It really was like a superwalmart. CRAZY! Along our travels we went to some cool handicraft places, and some historical sites. We went to one step well, which is basically an intricate hole dug in the ground, with a well at the bottom. It was made in 1555AD, and it was constructed by both a Moghul and Hindu ruler, so you can see the difference in design depending on who was ruling at the time! (If you look closely at the top two pictures you can see the steps that lead down to the well and bathing area. )
Because this state borders the desert we saw camel pulled carts all over. It's interesting to see the different modes of transportation depending on the location. In this city it was Camels and Elephants where as in the north it's more horses and donkeys!!!
I feel like I'm writing a report for Lonely Planet or something, but this city is definitely a cool place to go. The airport is even nice and clean and orderly!!!
I leave again today for yet another adventure, more pictures to come soon....

Artiste.

My room mate Haley, has recently been on an artistic streak, and has been drawing pictures of random things, including myself. Apparently I have an unusually LARGE forehead, which being a barreth-let's face it, isn't exactly news. I thought the interesting part was the peach and pink rainbow oozing out of my head. More pictures and updates soon of our trip to the "Manchester" of South Asia.

Traveling

So, this morning I woke at 4:45am go dressed and headed to the train station to come to the capital. Tomorrow I will wake up probably at the same time, maybe earlier to go yet again to the train station to continue the mad traveling that is about to ensue. We will be traveling for the next couple of weeks, so internet will be somewhat limited. One quick funny story to start the journey....we arrived at the capital station and went to the International tourist office b/c that's where we figured we should buy tickets (usually I don it online). Well we arrived and it was so organised we didn't know what to do, so after waiting around looking stupid for about 5 minutes we filled out a form and sat down. After a lot of confusion and some smooth Hindi talking an hour later we had the train tickets. It would have been a lot easier to just stand in the regular line.
so we exit the station and get into a taxi that isbumper to bumper with about 5 other taxis. Now in the states you would wait and everyone would get in their cars and pull out so you can get out without doing damage to the other vehicles, but today he put the car into gear, rammed the car infront, out the car in reverse, rammed the car behind, put into back into first and rammed the car infront out of the way! Haley and I looked at each other, laughed and continued on our journey.
Ok well I will get back to you all when I get back.