Bringing you up to date :)

So, what do I owe you guys news of? Besides Munnar (as I promised long ago :) there's our historical walk through Ahmedabad and a few other details.

Have I mentioned that the battery on my bike is dead? It doesn't hold a charge overnight, but it gets some charge while riding during the day. It's getting worse though and I am losing the horn (not something you want to lose!!! It is a necessary bit of the bike here!). I tried to get a replacement and they do not have one in stock at the Bajaj dealer or at the Exide battery shop - they said it would take a week to get it at the Bajaj dealer and a month through the battery shop! I will call ahead to get it somewhere else we are riding through (we didn't know we were going to be here for a week or I would have ordered it :)

So, back to our walk :) Lonely Planet mentioned an historical walking tour so we called up to book it and went to the appointed place at the appointed time (a big Hindu Temple at 7:45am!) and I was immediately sent home to change :( We were going into some temples and my shorts did not offer enough coverage! I asked if there was a place to buy a piece of fabric and the guy just stared at me and said it was way too early for anything to be open. So I rushed off, hopped an auto rickshaw back to the hotel (we had walked over) and told the guy to wait while I changed into my jeans (not ideal for the hot weather, but it's all I have :). While I was away A was asked if "sir" would be back...now I understand the weird look when I asked for a piece of fabric :) I was back in a flash and when I got back the place was just crawling with people!!!! So much for a nice quiet walk in the narrow backstreets of Ahmedabad, there were 50 students with the group.

I was not a happy camper with this crowd! My hearing is a bit dodgy as it is, and I need to be close to the guide to hear...and students are so chatty....ugh. As it was they were very well behaved and the guide was fabulous - he hurried the slow ones and did a great job of keeping us all on track :) A was one of the slow ones as I listened to the commentary and she waited for the crowd to disperse so she could get the photos :)

It was a very well planned walk, put together by the Corporation of Ahmedabad (this is a great town! we know of no other town that loves itself enough to show itself off - the walk and the museum we already told you about). It covers the old part of town, shows the history and innovativeness of the town planners (all those years ago) and also hits on all three religions that are represented in Ahmedabad - Hindu, Jain and Muslim.

We started at the Hindu temple, but we just got a bit of it's history, we didn't go in. We dropped right into the backstreets and learned about the structure of the city - it is a city made up of Pols and Ols. A Pol is a small sealed off living area containing everything that a group of people need to live (it was usually a group of people in a similar line of work - weavers, potters, merchants, etc.) - a temple, private living areas and common courtyards, water, a bird feeder (more on this later :) all enclosed by a gate. The gates to the city and the gates to the Pols were all opened at dawn and shut at dusk - to the sound of music (and singing). There was a blackboard at the entrance to display the news to the members of the Pol as they passed the gate. The structure of the buildings was such that the air flowed through the streets, all narrow and twisted, and into the houses to keep the place cool in the summer and warm in the winter - wide streets and narrow at the tops, so the building look like they overhang. An Ol was a market street that was open at both ends - no gates. The shop owners lived above their
shops and locked their shops from the inside at night so there were no locks outside.

As we walked through the area we could all see how much of an amazing design it was - secure and very well thought out! In the Pols there was usually a haveli - the biggest house around usually owned by the richest person - and it's structure was a mini version of the Pol inside! The first level in the front was reserved for visitors and the second level in the front for the accommodation of visitors. The back of the house for the family.

The bird feeders and the built in bird houses in the walls. There was a definite awareness that the people were displacing the birds and that the presence of the birds was a benefit so they provided accommodation and food to help keep them alive! How cool is that? I think it's great :)

The Pols are packed in tightly and we passed from one to another on the walk - most of the main gates are long gone, but the Pols are still visible and recognized. There were secret back entrances to other Pols so there wasn't only one entrance/exit in case of emergency. We started at the Hindu temple, went into one Jain temple and passed many others on the walk and ended up at the Jama Masjid (the main mosque). A has some great photos!

One of the cool things we saw at the Jama Masjid was an Om carving in one of the windows. Om is the "sound of the universe" to Hindus so what is it doing in an Islamic mosque? Apparently the artisans that built the mosque were Hindu and they left their mark :)

So, enough about the walk :) One of the things I forgot to mention about the road trip we took through Gujarat is the birds! There are quite a few bird sanctuaries and other animal sanctuaries that also have tons of birds (and one of the things I am disappointed about now that we are giving it a miss). They have lots of flamingos, but we haven't seen any on the side of the road :( and they are supposed to have some nesting cranes this time of year as well. However we have seen loads of egrets and large numbers of blue herons - in flight, on the side of the road, in ponds...they are everywhere. And there are a lot of predator birds as well - we have seen some eagles and ospreys? Not sure. There are also tons of kingfishers and some birds that look like oriels as well as loads of smaller birds, like tits or house martins (not that I can say for sure :)

A is working on photos and I am updating the map so you can see our progress....don't forget you can send your questions and queries to us...see the sidebar for the email address :)

Catch you later!!!!