Week 47

30 June

Further travel adventures in India—our goal was to ride on train 19224 from Jodhpur to Abu Road. Although the original posting directed us to track 5, eventually the information was changed to track 3. With few English speakers around, we were afraid we might board the wrong train or the wrong car. The only individual who truly helped us was an elderly man selling chai (tea). He said in very good English that this is where your train will be, and this is where to stand to get on the right car. He didn’t even hang around to get paid.

After seeing the exquisitely carved Dilwara Jain temples at Mount Abu (where we were not allowed to take photographs), we relaxed for the afternoon and walked around Lake Nakki.

1 July

Hawa Mahal is a distinctive landmark of Jaipur. The Palace of the Winds is a five-story, delicately honeycombed, pink sandstone structure built to enable ladies of the royal household to view the life of the city.

2 July

Doing laundry in our apartment includes turning on the hot water heater a few minutes in advance, scrubbing the clothes with detergent in a bucket, rinsing them, wringing them out, and hanging them on the lines outside our balcony to dry. The next critical step is to listen for the rain to start so we can dash out and retrieve the clothes before they become even wetter.

3 July

Here is the group of BYU students joining us in our apartment for sacrament meeting: Rachel, Megan, Kristen, Julia, Matt, Bonnie, and Elizabeth.

4 July

We went with the students to Nick’s restaurant for apple (and raisin) pie and ice cream to celebrate the Fourth of July. The pie was very tasty (even though the crust wasn’t particularly tender and flaky). We especially love and appreciate our country when we are away from it.

5 July

This little device is called a tata photon⁺, a mobile broadband service. After a frustrating week, it now enables us (more or less) to get on the Internet in our apartment (and supposedly throughout India). The locals are not particularly knowledgeable about getting it to work with Macintosh computers. Now we don’t need to go to an Internet café or a Wi-Fi café to send or receive emails, post on my blog, check the state of our finances, etc.

6 July

Besides being the Dalai Lama’s 76th birthday (we are living in the same town where he resides), it was Shagrun’s 3rd birthday. She is the daughter of Rita, Stephen’s Hindi teacher, partially visible behind Shagrun.