Indian Wedding - Part II

All right guys: we're in Mumbai now, and we promised to tell you about what we were going to see and hear and experience at this wedding in Piparyia. It's quite difficult to make a summary of this big event...we even were not able to make an entry in our own travel-diary...and this means a lot!!! That's why we decided to upload a small fotogallery and try to explain what is going on on these scenes...

10th february - one of many ceremonies
Indian Weddings last five days. On the 4th (the day we joined) the grooms family has a lot of traditional ceremonies and the priest gives his blessings for the grooms future. It's a very chaotic occasion! And evceryone needs a lot of patience, specially stufabi...

Lots of dancing
After the ceremonies EVERYONE is dancing his ass of. The Swissies were the major attraction on the dancefloor...of course because moving to the Indian Beats is a science...Each song has his own steps...

Freetime

which we had plenty during the second day...waiting for the program to be continued, waiting for a transfer to the next place. And as you can see, we even did nanny-jobs...


11th February - our wedding dress
Some women 'put' Fabi or better 'wrapped' her in a traditional Sari. Stufi wore his Rajasthani-souvenir-shirt, his best piece of clothes in the backpack.



The grooms dress
Anurag looked like a Maharaja...like a king !
Tooks ages till the turban was sitting on the right position.




Street parade
On the way from the dressing place, everybody gathered and accompanied by drums and trumpets (like a Guggemusig), we marched dancing towards the wedding garden.
In Langetau heit dir denn grad Fasnacht gfiiret und so isch's ues oeppe ou vorchoo:-)))


The wedding couple

At this point, groom and bride met for the first time since we arrived !!!



Fotoshooting
Towards midnight, it was pretty chilly, the poor couple had to pose on the throne with all the wedding guests...


That's it from the wedding part.
We hope we could make you see how colourful and busy and happy this all was.

On the 13th we boarded the train to Mumbai. After spending 2 hours in the cyber-cafe we are unable to write about big-city-life....so more about that later on. Hasta luego !!!

We are invited to a wedding!

Yesterday night we got invited to a wedding! Because at the lodge where we were staying the last two nights there was a ring ceremony going on. Of course we joined this party and the groom, his dad, all uncles immediately invited us to the real wedding party on the 11th of February in a town called Piparyia.
So, we had or better wanted to change our plans again:
- cancel the ticket from Bhopal to Mumbai (8.2.2008)
- buy a new ticket to Mumbai (13.2.2008)
- buy a return ticket to Piparyia (7.2.2008 / 12.2.2008)
Despite the already mentionned difficulties to sometimes get traintickets, we are so happy to say that we got them all !!!!!!!!!!!! Guess, it's a very lucky day for stufabi !!!!!!!

Delayed Birthday Greetings

Eigentlech haett das Foeteli am 5. Februar , denn wenn naemlech der Geburi vom Mami bzw. vor Silvia isch, soeue erschine. Chrampfhaft hei mer versuecht vom ruhige, idyllische Sanchi das Bildeli ufezlade...aber nid emau ilogge hei mer choenne ! Hett wahrschinlech ebe doch oeppis mit der kappte Leitig z'tue. Eh nu, besser jetz aus gar nid !

For our mums...

Delhi - Mandawa - Bikaner - Jaisalmer - Kuri - Jodhpur - Ranakpur - Udaipur - Pushkar - Jaipur - Agra - Jhansi - Khajuraho
bis jetz und ab morn
Sanchi , Bhopal und Mumbai
naer
...we'll let u know
Viu Vergnuege bim Charte studiere
Kisses from son and daughter
stufabi

Sanne

Hallo Sanne, wie laeufts bei dir ??? Kommst du klar mit bloody, incredible India? Wo auch immer du stecken magst...Varanasi oder sonstwo...lass es dir gut gehen.

Janiels

Sorrrrrryyyy, muesse oeich enttuesche waege zuesaetzleche Fotos...es geit STUNDE zum uploade...gruz - stufabi

About Indian Wedding, Taj Mahal, Train System and much more...

The last entry is 10 days ago. That's actually not much time but travelling in India, we can tell you, makes it feel like much longer!

INCREDIBLE INDIA! The Slogan of India Tourism...
INCREDIBLE INDIA! The truth...!

Indian Wedding

It is wedding season in India. And we had a lot of luck that on our arrival day in the two million city of Jaipur, next to our lovely guesthouse, the preparations for a wedding party were going on :-)
Yeah! Amazing we thought, because we always have been curious about how colourful and lively and funny those indian parties would be.
First we carefully watched the happening from the above balcony, with the Tandoori-oven for Naans, hot plates for Chapatis and frying pans for Puris right below. After a while some sari-dressed women showed us to come down and join the fiesta!
So did we...lucky ones...it was just amazing to be witness of all that kitsch like geese and doves swimming in an artificial, lighted pool, the boys dancing to Punjabi-sound, the groom arriving riding a horse and finally not to forget the huge buffet, from which we filled or better stuffed our stomachs.


WHAT A GREAT EXPERIENCE



Taj Mahal

The Taj was built by emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial for his second wife who died giving birth to their 14th child in 1631. 22000 men built it up during 22 years.

Standing in front of this white marble building let us realize its dimension. All the well-known pictures of this world famous monument do not submit its real beauty!!!
Goosebumps is what we had and speakless is what we were...and still are!
The 750 Rupees (15US$ / 22SFr.) entrance fee are justified. But it is just impossible to write down in words what we saw and felt!!!

WHAT A GREAT IMPRESSION


Train system

Agra-Jhansi: our first trainride. The ticket was already booked in Delhi two weeks ago, which was a good decision. We realized that when we tried to get two seats on the train to Ahmedabad on the 8th of February. Ahmedabad is the train gateway to the less touristy state of Gujarat which we wanted to explore. The next seats available were one week after our scheduled date.

Oh shit, we thought!!!!

We had to take a time-out and left the busy, confusing, overcrowded, piss-smelling trainstation to have a refreshing, creamy banana Lassi...
Mmmm...yummy for the tummy...

After a little brainstorm, a new plan was born: instead of Gujarat we travel south to Mumbai, the beaches and flipflops, away from freezing nights in Indias north. Fortunately we got the last two bunkbeds on a train from Bhopal to Bollywood on the 8th of February.

To get a first glance at Indias trainsystem, the booking forms, trainclasses and numbers, we spent at least two hours at three different counters in the smelly trainstation and 1.5 hours on the internet.
One of the major realization is that on certain (most) of the train lines, it's impossible to be spontaneous. So booking days or even weeks in advance is essential...

WHAT A TIRING DAY