Lucknow family visit

A week ago I had one of the most wonderful experiences of my time in India - a visit to Shilpi's family in Lucknow. We were absolutely embraced by every family member, and I had the chance to speak Hindi, eat tons of homemade food, and live a few days as part of an Indian family.

Here we are at the airport with Shilpi's cousin Sonu. We were greeted by two families and received fresh flowers.

We stayed with Shilpi's mom's youngest sister, her husband, and their two sons Kittu and Vicki. Here we are with aunt (mausi), uncle (mausa-ji) and cousin Vicki.

The first day we spent lots of time shopping for clothes.

Here we are examining chikan, the famous embroidery of Lucknow.

Next we went straight to the tailor. Shilpi's mausi has been going to this same tailor since she was a teenager.

In two hours, I had a new kurta!

Later we went to the mall. Lucknow is a city changing rapidly, and the first four malls have been built in the last year. At the mall you can buy everything from clothes to veggies.

Sometimes the veggies are mis-labeled...

That evening, we began the major highlight of our trip - visiting ALL of Shilpi's relatives. Here we are with her Dad's oldest brother and his grandkids.

Next we visited her dad's next oldest brother and his wife and son.

Our final stop was at the home of Shilpi's maternal grandparents. Nani and Nana-ji. They were fantastic! By this time we had been fed three huge meals of food.

At this home live Shilpi's mother's brother and his wife and their four daughters.

Here we are with all the cousins!

And home at last in our newly purchased nightgowns.

The next day we were very tired.

But we got ready to go again! Here we are with another little cousin.

We went to visit a beautiful Moghul palace and mosque.


And took a ride in a traditional horse-drawn tonga.

That evening we went on a tour in a bike rickshaw - very common in Lucknow.

Here are two bike rickshaws.

And our final stop was a birthday party at the home of Shilpi's uncle's sister.

I got to wear my new suit!

And we danced a lot.

Here's the whole gang all dressed up.

And finally, it was time to go. We stopped on the way to the airport to say a final goodbye to Shilpi's nani and nana-ji. So sad, but hopefully we'll return one day soon.

Monsoons and Waterfalls

We were supposed to take our first trip to Kerala this weekend, but because of intense flooding from the monsoons, we spent a crazy 12 hours at the airport and ended up back at home! A fantastic example of Indian bureaucracy, we spent 6 hours on the plane on the runway then 6 hours in the airport waiting in lines and arguing for a refund.

The floods were quite bad, with people swimming in the streets and cars and trucks racing through the waves.

Undeterred, we decided to take another trip to the beautiful waterfalls of Lonavala - a two hour drive from Bombay.

It was glorious to see the full intense greenery after a month in the crowded city.

Because of the heavy monsoons, everything was coated in bright green.


We raced around and got soaking wet along with the the other Indians who were loving the fun of the water.

Here we are - my roommates Shilpi and Jenn and our friend Pablo.

Next we looked down to find this huge dam with an enormous crowd dancing and playing in the water.

Everyone was fully dressed and soaking wet. There was such a sense of joy and celebration in the rain.

Here I am sitting in the rush of water.

Here's Shilpi (you can see me in the background).

Alongside the water, people everywhere were selling roasted corn.

After a beautiful and exhausting day, we changed into dry clothes and drove home enjoying the last moments of greenery out the window.