Dearest friends and family,
It’s been almost a week since we last were able to jump online and get some photos and stories up – but SO much has happened. We’ve been to some amazing places and met some truly wonderful people on our journey from Southern Gujarat to Rajasthan.
Firstly we wanted to say how wonderful it was to log in today and see all the comments and emails about our last post. What a brilliant surprise! Its so lovely to know that you are traveling with us on this adventure. Everything has gone so smoothly – we are both well and safe and very happy.
Since we have been in India we have only been able to wash with cold water in a bucket and have not had the luxury of flush toilets. It sounds tough but it honestly hasn't been a problem because when we see families living on the street on a piece of cardboard we know how lucky we are to have access to water in any form.
Despite all their hardships, we have found children to be exceptionally polite and have a strong sense of values and respect for their family and their faith. Every child we meet just wants to learn or practice english so we have tried our best to help them as much as possible by sitting and talking with them. All the children ask for is "one pen" and when we hand them out its almost like we have given them a brand new computer game. Life is simple here and we feel very at home.
Here is what we've been up to since we last posted...
Amdavad, Gujarat: (NB: See the Amdavad photo gallery for the photos which accompany this update.)
When we last updated we were about to leave Diu in Southern Gujarat by overnight sleeper bus. We were heading back to Amdavad to find the family with the tiny baby in the Styrofoam box and to see what we could do to help them.
It cost us £2.50 to travel 12 hours in the bus which was kitted out with 10 double beds – like nothing we had seen before! It was all fun and exciting until we started off and realized the rumours that this is one of the worst roads in India proved to be true. We were thrown about all night on the most bumpy bus journey ever. Cisco was concerned all night about his camera gear being smashed to pieces en route.
We arrived in Amdavad exhausted but excited to be back there and hopefully able to find the little family on the street.
The best thing about our bus ride was meeting our new friends Mihir and Jyoti. Cisco greeted them with Namaste (Hindi for hello) and we ended up sitting and chatting with them all night. When we arrived in Amdavad the next morning they invited us to their home and made us extremely welcome. They offered us their bed to sleep in, made us a delicious Gujarati breakfast of Poha and chai.
Before lunch Mihir took us on our mission into central Amdavad to try to find the family with the tiny baby. The three of us piled onto his motorbike and headed through the crazy Sunday markets and traffic like we have never seen before: rickshaws, scooters, cows, bikes, carts, camels, buses, and wedding processions. After about an hour we found the family on the same street corner and Mihir spoke with them in Gujarati and found out that the baby wasn’t sick, just very weak and dehydrated, and had been since it was born. We then left for the bazaar and bought them rice, oil, blankets, baby bottle, rehydration salts, flour, and clothes for all the children. They were extremely grateful and we will never forget the smiles on their faces. It was hard to walk away when we wanted to do more- but the system here in India prevents this (more on this later). It was definitely worth changing our plans to come back and make sure the baby was ok and had the medical treatment it needed.
Back at the house Jyoti prepared an excellent lunch of dahl and tomato and potato curries which we ate on the floor with our hands. After lunch they insisted that we wore their traditional Gujarati outfits (see photos in the gallery) which we both loved.
In the evening they took us shopping for Gujarati clothes and we ate corn and masala on the side of the road. It was a wonderful day and it was sad to say goodbye to our new friends as we boarded our train for Udaipur, Rajasthan at 11pm that night.
We love Gujarat- which was made special by all the wonderful people we met, especially Mihir and Jyoti.
