Champagne Tales

I captured this photograph while we were touring a palace in the city of Jaipur. This photograph is a perfect image to describe the people in this country. If I had to pick one word to sum up the people, it would be hospitable. Friendly and kind were other words that came to mind, but the word that describes almost every Indian you encounter is hospitable. People want you to feel welcome wherever you go. You are offered beverages in people's homes and stores. The wait staff at restaurants is so attentive to your every need. The hotel staff will bend over backwards for a simple request. The people go out of there way to make you feel welcome. Even today a group of children ran over towards us and kept saying hello and were grinning at us as they waved us good bye. As we drive the narrow streets throughout the cities, all ages of strangers wave at us with a huge grins on their faces. The woman here in the photo is wearing bright colored clothing which is typical of the Rajasthan regi...

Outside my window are tall sky rises, shops, and advertisements. Ahmedabad is bustling with activity. Everywhere there is noise and crowdedness except for right outside my window. Directly below my room is a scene that seems it was shipped from the countryside. Nowhere else is there a large plot of grassy land with two shacks. A clothes line holds a few articles of clothing that a cow walked under a couple of hours ago. New to the scene is a man who seemed to have come from the beautiful house next door. He is standing on the roof and talking with another man. I noticed that there is a gate surrounding their plotted land, except the gate is open. Soon after I notice this I see the white skinny cow walk outside the gate and down the street. Is that a wild cow that just roams these streets? Or does that cow know to come back at the end of the day back to where the food supply is. I noticed another baby cow nervously standing by the wall for a long period of time. I could sit here and sta...

Today I did something I have always wanted to do. Something I had put on my life's bucket list. Today I road an elephant. An elephants has always been one of my favorite animals and I even have an elephant hair ring I purchased in Africa when I first saw the beautiful animals. I not only got to look at these beautiful animals here in India painted with bright colors all on their faces, but go to sit on top of one. An advertisement from the book, Branding India, describes these elephants perfectly: "Just how do you paint a canvas that's 10 feet high, over four tons and does not stand still." I slide on top of my elephant named Lachea, 45 years old, strapped on my seat belt, which consisted of a metal road hooked in front of me, and road for thirty minutes to the top of a mountain. Naturally, the elephant moves slowly, which was just perfect in order to soak in the views of the beautiful area we were in. We were just outside of Jaipur overlooking green lush mounting and...

My alarm went off at 4:30am and I crawled out of bed to meet our group at 5:00am for our excursion departure. There wasn't a tired eye on our bus as we drove to our destination: one of the 7 wonders of the world. The sun was still tucked away on the edge of the earth as we walked down the pathway from our bus. One of the first times thus far I have been out in this country and have not sweated my body weight. The anticipation was building as we walked along the path and our tour guide Madan pointed out to our left the top of a beautiful structure. I gazed through the archway of the entrance and there before my eyes was the perfect, the beautiful, the one and only: the Taj Mahal. As we stood there and listed to Madan telling the story of how and why the Taj was built, the sun started rising and the color of the marble starting to change even in those few minutes. 21 years over 20,000 men. My ears perked up and I smiled as I heard him tell the story that the Taj was built by the Mug...

We are driving down the crowded street on our way from Delhi to Agra. Car horns of the most unusual noises are a constant. It is the first time we have left the crowded city. My mind is on overload with images that keep flashing by my window. As I sit safely inside our air conditioned coach bus, chaos surrounds me. A man with crippled legs pedals a bike with his hands. Trash is everywhere and continues to pile in the streets and water. For the first time I am starting to comprehend that, "more than 4 billion people live at the bottom of the pyramid on less than $2.00 per day." My mind is slowly grasphing this concept as I see someone filling empty Fanta bottles with well water, men sleeping on wooden beds near the road, children playing naked except for their shoes, and 10 people piled into a small car. My stomach gets queasy at times on our journey as I continue to see scenes I never even comprehended until this trip. Scenes from the road: someone helping another person clea...

My prediction of being not "out of my comfort zone" but "thrown out of my comfort zone" here in India is the perfect way to describe the time I have thus far spent here. Immediately you are overwhelmed by the large amount of people in the city of Delhi. It is not uncommon to see men showering in the street, auto-rickshaw (taxi) drivers pulling over to the side of the road to urinate against a wall, a barber cutting someone's hair, garbage piled high with someone eating immediately next to it, boys playing cricket, tarps being used as a roof for someone's home on the side of a busy street, motorcycles swerving in between buses and cars, or even babies being held on the back of motorcycle down a busy street. In Delhi alone, there are around 2,000 traffic fatalities a year and now that I have been in this city I understand exactly why. The streets are bustling and bursting with people, unusual smells and energy everywhere. Before I left the States, I read from ...