I Left My Tooth In New Delhi

It's 114 degrees in New Delhi today, and Hamish has an ice pack clamped to his face. We are so thankful to have a room with AC!

It's been a hectic few weeks: we've explored Jaipur and Jodphur in Rajasthan, visited the Taj Mahal, attended our first Indian wedding and have been in the middle of designing/editing/trying to navigate the printing process of the photo-documentary book we've been working on, 100 Days of India.

Jaipur is Rajasthan's capital, and a very majestic place, steeped in history. It's also known as India's shopping hub, so it's where we got clothes made for our friend Sonal's wedding (which was a few days ago) and part of her wedding present.

Amber Fort

Amber Fort is 11km outside the city, and one of Jaipur's main attractions. Built by Raja Man Singh I in 1592. It's an enormous yellow maze, full of stairs and hidden levels. Typical Hindu architecture, with beautifully decaying old murals and a full-on ceiling of mirrors.

Painting on wall, Amber Fort

We got lost!

Amber Fort

Mirrored ceiling, Amber Fort

We also explored City Palace, which is in Jaipur proper. It's similarly grand, but not nearly as gigantic as Amber Fort.

Warring elephants on the floor of City Palace

Carved marble. City Palace has both Indian and Italian marble.

Wall! City Palace.

More warring elephants (and people), City Palace.

City Palace, sleeping dogs

Another highlight of Jaipur was a street the locals call Pig Street. It's full of pigs. And a cow.

Cow on Pig Street

We took a night bus to Jodhpur, the Blue City, about six hours away. We loved Jodhpur; it had more of a small-town feel to it than Jaipur, and it really is very blue. It's bustling, but somehow more peaceful than most other cities we've visited. Maybe it was the calming blue walls.

This blue!

Biker chick

Jodhpur is also home to its own fort, Mehrangarh. It's carved into rock, also gigantic. It's never been over-thrown, but armies have tried; the second stop on the audio tour (narrated by a despicably posh english fellow) was a pock-marked section of the outer wall. Cannonball marks! Inside there was a museum with spectacular  examples of palanquins, elephant howdahs, swords, daggers, long guns etc.

The view from the top wasn't bad either. If we had come a day or two earlier, then we could have tried zip-lining over the city, starting from the battlements of the fort. Unfortunately the season is officially over now. Too hot. 

Mehrangarh Fort

Don't look down!

Mehrangarh Fort

These hands represent the hands of the royal satis who immolated themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands.

Door at Mehrangarh Fort

These girls gave us some of their candy... thanks!

The second most magnificent cow in India.

So blue!

A couple of our friends

Jodhpur at sunset, from our guesthouse rooftop.

Fancy pink fabric

We were back in Delhi for a quick moment to organize the scanning of Hamish's film, then on to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal. We arrived on a Friday, and the plan was to wake up at 4:45 the next morning to see it at sunrise, when the light is nice and there are fewer people. But we made the error that night of choosing a non-AC room (to save 200 rupees... that was dumb) and barely slept all night, it was that hot. So we stumbled to the Taj in the morning, and it was stunning, but we were kind of too exhausted to appreciate it, and the sunrise was one of those where the sun doesn't really rise, it just becomes day.

Fast forward to the next day, and we find out that it's free to get in because it's the 359th "death anniversary" of a Mughal king. We were happy to get a second shot, and enjoyed the better light and the festive crowd.

Our new house

The line was long and slow to view the mausoleum. We'd gone in when we went in the morning, and while it was cool to be there, it was a little too dark to see much.

Taj! Ah!

Happy... death anniversary?

Some strong men

Back to Delhi, where we've been working hard on our book! We re-learned InDesign last week, with help from our friend Ellie and a man named Terry White who has wonderful instructional InDesign videos (thanks Ellie and Terry White!!!). The design is pretty simple (a photo and 100 words per page) so once we decided on the basics, it went relatively smoothly.  

Sneak preview! Here's Hamish's hands and the first page of the book.

Working on layout, do you like his t-shirt?

Now, we're in the midst of ironing out the final details with Pragati--we had to make some changes to our initial plan, due to budgetary and aesthetic constraints. We'd hoped to use handmade cloth for the cover, but the glue Pragati uses would have seeped through, which would have looked terrible. The book is going to be square, 9x9", with some other snazzy features... we're excited to see the end results. Our design is now completed, the PDF exported and sent to Hyderbad for printing. The books should (fingers crossed) be finished in a few weeks.

Page from Lauren's planner... hectic times

It was our friend Sonal's wedding last week, and it was a lot of fun. 350 people were there, which is small for an Indian wedding apparently, but it felt pretty big to us! Beautiful garlands of flowers hung everywhere, the place smelled amazing, and Sonal looked like an actual queen in her red, crystal-studded wedding dress. There were two teams of photographers; both the bride and groom's families had organized, so there were a lot of photographs going on. There was also a stage with big velvety chairs in the center of the hall, where everyone could take pictures with the newlyweds. 

The food started with appetizers--a limitless supply of spring rolls, falafel, paneer tikka, lightly salted tempura vegetables. Delicious. Dinner was unveiled around 10pm--huge stainless steel containers of innumerable curries and amazing bread, salad, desserts. The religious ceremony was at 2am; Sonal and her husband, Manu, circled a fire seven times while prayers were read aloud. We brought Lauren's camera to the event, but realized quite quickly that we'd left behind the memory card, so sadly we don't have any photos to share. Hopefully one of the many photographers will pass some along to us, don't hold your breath though; apparently they can take up to a year to process the pictures!

A couple nights ago, something else exciting happened: Hamish officially became a dental tourist! He had an impacted wisdom tooth that needed to come out. We went to a place called Olive Dental in Chittaranjan Park, right around the corner from SV Photographic, where we got Hamish's film developed. It cost 3000 rupees (£30), which we thought was pretty good.

Unfortunately it was a more complicated procedure than the dentist had anticipated; he'd said at first that he would split the tooth in two, then remove it, but he ended up having to drill it into five pieces to get it out! Over two hours in the chair. Fairly substantial.

Hamish and what remains of his wisdom tooth. He looks happy because Novocaine. Note the consistency in t-shirt (we're at the wear-the-same-shirt-for-a-week phase of the trip; Lauren is also guilty).

On a serious note, if you need dental work and getting it done in the US or UK is too expensive... we have a contact. Dr. Mayank Ashok. (We only charge 50% for referrals).
 

Tooth And Travel Dot Com!

We head to Ladakh tonight and will be there for two-and-a-half weeks! We'll be in the Spiti Valley, volunteering with an organization called Ecosphere to help build a solar bath and also doing things like "yak treks." Ladakh is near Tibet, which means there will be Tibetan food, which is thrilling. Momos! Thenthuk soup! It's at 4500m, which is a bit daunting given our recent history of altitude sickness, but we're armed with medicine this time. We'll be staying in the highest village in the world!