After riding around in India for 2 hours yesterday we can confidently say that the driving is more spirited (reckless) than in Thailand. Horns are used more liberally and sometimes without any apparent reason. The roads are full of bicycles and tricycles, and also lots of stray cattle that seem unconcerned by the cars.
There is an astounding amount of garbage everywhere, with small mountains of it piled up around the area where we are staying. People rummage through the garbage, and also dogs, chickens, pigs, cows, and flocks of egret-like birds.
Today is Holi, a festival designating the start of the harvest season, where celebration consists of coloring each other with power and paint along with lots of water gun and water balloon activity. We went out and celebrated with the locals for few minutes and received some color along with food, drinks, and best wishes for our stay.
We'll be working at a school for slum children with a few other volunteers and supposedly have a lot of freedom regarding what we want to spend our time doing with the kids. Our host family is great, has a nice place, and they speak good English. We do have limited wifi access here and expect to be able to check in every few days.
St. Patricks Day was a complete non-event in Thailand, and not surprisingly, the Cricket World Cup is trumping March Madness for sports coverage. India goes up against the West Indies today so everyone is excited.
We, too, were intrigued with the treatment of garbage - no one seems to have a concept of 'picking it up', it's treated as a common resource, put out front, & it eventually gets concentrated in windrows as its picked over. The same in Kathmandu - not what we were expecting in Nepal, but not a surprise in N. India.
ReplyDeleteMy specific question is whether those are Gob's regular glasses.
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