The Early Bird... Gets the Fastest Rickshaw

I woke up at 6 am after a relaxing 11 hour snooze and went to the gym at the hotel, which is tiny and not that great, to be honest. Breakfast again at the hotel which is pretty good, and they change it up a little every day. They also have an instant coffee machine which tastes more like hot chocolate than coffee because they add so much cream and sugar. What I’d really like is a nice BIG American-sized cup of black coffee, but when the caffeine addiction kicks in, this stuff does the job.

We had our first rickshaw ride today. Pretty sure most of us thought we were going to die or be T-boned by a bus. Driving here is an art that must be mastered because in India, there is no waiting; you just go wherever you can. It’s rather impressive how in control they are of their vehicles and they seem to know the exact dimensions of their vehicles and if they will fit in the teeny tiny space that they see open ahead (and if not, they will go ahead anyway…). Traffic is chaotic to say the least; cars, busses, trucks (nothing even close to a F150 though), ox carts, rickshaws, and motorbikes (with 4-5 people on the back) added to swarms of people walking and of course cows aimlessly strolling about.

A group of us went to the shopping part of town and unloaded great sums money at a Fazil’s Silk and Sarre shop. AMAZING! Ali had us all sit at the counter and pulled out traditional dresses, one after another until he had piles of silk clothing about a foot high and four to five feet across. THEN his father brought down stacks and stacks of Kashmir scarves for us to look at. We probably provided a month’s worth of income for how much we all bought. The shop has been in the family for over 100 years and is run by Ali and his father, who have invited us for dinner, whenever we want to come. This is very customary for the culture to invite strangers, such as ourselves, for dinner which is similar to the Mexican culture.

Another similarity to Mexico as well as some other countries is that family is incredibly important. Tod and I spoke to some couples last night in the hotel restaurant (at about 1am after the bars…) who said they hear of people living near their grandparents or parents and they never see them. To the Indians, that is unthinkable. The families give up a lot to provide for their children and when their children become educated they are expected (and they do) provide for their families in return.

Some of the guys in our group went to a men’s suit shop where they were draped in silk fabrics to choose for tailor made (who has love for New York…jp. I can’t believe I referenced that. Yuck.) suits for about $100. Which reminds me of being in Istanbul where labor is so cheap.

After a long grueling day of shopping Gretchen and I tried to take a little nap but then ended up gossiping about ADMAR stuff and about the alliances of our fellow travelers. Oh, we also put up our pole ;)

Our formal welcome dinner was AMAZING. We went to one of the “smaller” palaces in Mysore which has been converted into a hotel. Dinner was wonderful and we sat at a table with Ramesh, the dean of students for the school (also Rajiv’s cousin) and two other professors, Malathi Sriram, who teaches information systems, and Rajesh Haldipur, who instructs finance; but we have him for a lecture tomorrow on “Incredible India”, hopefully there’s no finance mentioned...

I was beat after dinner but rumors started floating around of a couple of us going to a bar. When opportunity knocks… One of the students, Kalpesh, took us to a hotel bar where he knows the owner and they stayed open late for us. We took two rickshaws and I got to ride on the back of a motor bike, which was pretty exciting, as it was also my first time riding a motorcycle ever! I’m even kind of surprised it has taken me this long to do that. You think that would come before skydiving. We had three rounds of drinks and were in pretty good spirits by the end of the night.