My goldfish pond

[callingcolleen1]

Wow they got lots of marble. And I would have loved to try all the different dishes! Expecially the Indian twist on "Chinese " dishes! ! Sounds Yummy!!!

Just watching live right now the GOP Debates and laughing my head off, any minute now the gloves will be off and Trump and Rubio will be fighting it out ! Ha ha ha

 

[MitchM]

Colleen the food there was amazing. Every morning the hotels we stayed at would have a large buffet breakfast that was very good and extremely reasonable. They had Asian, American-English, and Indian dishes so there was a lot to choose from. I think the best Chinese food I ever had was in a restaurant in India at a Holiday Inn we stayed at in Jaipur....a really nice Holiday Inn! Another interesting thing we saw was mountains being cut for marble in Rajasthan. There were hundreds of dealers selling slabs of marble on the road we were on and lots of large trucks carrying large chunks of marble to factories.View attachment 89385

Ok, how many of us are drooling at this picture right now?

Thanks for the pictures Keith!

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[addy1]

It is hard to believe those big slabs become so beautiful. I love all the natural stones.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Too big to move. I still like to drool over the odd big old rock...

 

[CometKeith]

Thanks Colleen. Mitch, and Addy. It was a really interesting trip. We saw a wedding in the streets of Mumbai with a band playing trumpets and drums very loudly, and we also saw a funeral procession in Rishikash with loud music and people carrying wood for the fire. Colleen, speaking of politics... people there liked Obama because he had recently visited India however we did get some negative feedback about Trump. Its funny that because there are so many languages spoken in India, English is considered the only common language and you see it on all the commercial vehicles and signs. Many people wanted to know where we were from but US was about as far as many people knew and was sufficient. We were surprised how many German's there were in our hotels and around tourists sites but we learned that German companies do a lot of business with Indian companies. Also when we were in Hardiware we learned the largest motorcycle plant was owned by a non profit company that was run by a swami and he also built the largest hospital in the region. Incidentally there were so many factories there it was difficult to breathe the air even in the hotel. When we were in Delhi, driving was permitted by certain vehicles every other day because of pollution. We were always taking pictures of local people, but one day I found it very funny that an Indian couple got off their motorcycle and asked a Westerner to pose in a picture with their baby

 

[callingcolleen1]

I wish I was there, that's all I can say, I would love to see all that you saw and take with so many different people and different traditions. I would be busy sampling all the local food too cause I love Indian cooking.

 

[CometKeith]

Thanks Colleen. Yes it was interesting. The food we had there was amazing. I like really spicy food but even I had to take it easy at the end of the trip and switched to continental cuisine like toast and jelly for breakfast. One of our guides said that the people there say the food can never be spicy enough!

I started up my water pump the other day when it hit 72 degrees. All the ice melted and I finally got to see my fish after a long winter. My fish all like great and I didn't see any problems at all. They don't know it but they will all be moving to a larger pond when we move later this year!

 

[callingcolleen1]

I'm like a freak when it comes to spicy. Never met anyone like myself who can eat super hot peppers. I have the world's hottest pepper plant growing in my window, the Ghost Pepper, and I just love them and the ultra hot orange Habanaro peppers. They make Jalapeno peppers look mild!

I can't wait to see your new pond. I'm sure you have lots of big plans once you get new house!

 

[CometKeith]

Thank's Colleen. So ....you would love India because all the food there is incredibly spicy. I have never had trouble eating any dish on the menu in the US no matter how many little peppers are on the menu next to it, but in India it's a totally different ballgame. I ordered chicken and went with the hot version versus mild and I could barely eat it and drank like 10 glasses of water!
Thanks about the new pond. Where we are moving we will have a fairly wide yard for a city lot and I am thinking the pond will end up something like 9 x 18. I want to have enough room for some nice landscaping around it so these measurements may change somewhat, but it will be significantly bigger than what I have now. Yey!!

 

[callingcolleen1]

Sounds very exciting! When are you moving?

 

[CometKeith]

Thanks. If we are lucky November or December. We still have a whole construction project to do that includes gut rehabbing a 2 flat and building an addition. The project will take quite a bit of planning and execution so the pond work will come at the end unless we sell our house right away then I'll have to figure out the pond so the fish have some place to go

 

[CountryEscape]

The pictures were amazing, Keith! I have to wonder how many you took, and if these were the best of the best, or if you are REALLY good and only took really good pictures?! When I'm on vacation, it seems I take hundreds of photos, but maybe use 10. LOL
The last picture in the large group, the one by a river ... it looked like a man near the wall on the left, but then it also looked like horses otherwise. What was that a picture of? Maybe a tent near the river, too? Thanks so much for sharing your photos, and some descriptions. When I see names of cities or countries, I wonder how people remember how to spell them! LOL I love it when my kids plan a vacation. They go into all the details of planning, and I just sit back and enjoy.

 

[CometKeith]

Hey CE, That's so funny. I definitely took way more pictures than 10. Maybe around 800! I didn't want to bore everyone with too many pictures but I could maybe post a few more. The last picture I posted was up in the mountains by Rishikesh. It is at the basin of the Himalayas not to far from Nepal so it's pretty remote. Also we were there off season so it was very quiet. Families live in the tents by rivers all over India. The people living there work in in the fields or with animals and their children go to local school. It's my guess that some of the people in the tents also help at the hotels. When the rivers swell around monsoon season and post monsoon they move to higher ground. The river provides water for drinking, cooking, washing etc and even a means for waste to be removed. Obviously living up river is preferred to down river

One thing I noticed was that the poor people we saw other than the street beggars were generally very kind and well mannered. There were no instances where we felt any threat of crime no matter where we went. Unfortunately I can't say the same for poor communities in Chicago. Also for many of the people we encountered whether they were Hindu,Jain or something else, spirituality was very important to them.

Riding elephants to the top of Agra Fort

A bull running through the market in Pushkar

Eunichs on vacation in Jaipour

Our daughter taking pictures of monkeys at Monkey temple with the temple caretaker.

Some of the many UNESCO heritage sites we saw.

The bridge we had to cross to get to our hotel. No cars allowed but donkeys were!

At a park in Mumbai. Often Indians were as curious about us as we were in them!

 

[CountryEscape]

Love the elephant picture! You have some amazing photos, Keith. Your daughter, from the side profile I could see, looks very much like your wife. Isn't it great when our kids plan everything for a vacation for us, we just need to go along ... and typically pay ... ?! My daughter is a BIG planner, always wants a full itinerary before we get there. Me ... I would probably wing it, and miss a LOT by doing so.

 

[CometKeith]

Thanks CE, Our daughter will be graduating as an engineer in a few months and likes things very organized. It actually works out better that way and there is less lost time when traveling. She booked our driver for 8 days and put together our itinerary for the trip. The only downside was we didn't like our first hotel in Rishikesh, but that wasn't her fault because we were the ones that booked it. Overall it was an interesting trip but I wouldn't call it a vacation by any means!