The Wedding

Yeah, the wedding was first rate. Really. Lots of giving gifts to everybody and their brother, Literally, and a nice ceremony. Don’t forget the excessive dancing to loud obnoxious music in the HOT sun.

One of the neat things was that all of the people coming from the groom’s side walked him into the bride’s village. Then the next day when everything was over and done with, her family and friends walk the new couple to the end of their compound and then the groom’s people walk the new bride and groom through the village and to the edge of town. It was kind of a neat, symbolic thing.

Hot, but neat.

But more memorable than that was the traveling. Lets just skip over the hot bus rides, autos, cars and focus in on the train rides. Our “going” train was due at 10 PM. We were there by 8:00. Then it was LATE by 3 ½ hours. How many hours is that sitting in a really grimy and REALLY stinky rain station? (The latrines in the train are just holes that flush everything onto the tracks below. They recommend you don’t go while the train is stopped at stations, but like, yeah, anybody follows that rule.)

We passed the time watching the rats run a round the track and thought about Templeton from Charlotte’s Web.

Coming: Midnight train. O. was staying and traveling by car so he took an AC room at a hotel. We got to take a quick bath and then as we were ready to leave for the station we got a call that the train was 2 hours late. We slept for 1 1/2 hours. Got up. Dragged our kids to the car. Finally arrive at the place where everyone else is waiting for the train and get met with groans. The train wasn’t coming til 5AM. Well, no use going back to the hotel. The girls slept on. The rest of us laid around or talked all night. The train eventually pulled in at 8:30 AM. No sleep that night. Then a 12 hour train ride in the heat where we lost 3 things.

Everyone is now vowing to NEVER ever go to Rajasthan for a wedding ever again. I wouldn’t go that far, but I am NEVER traveling for a MAY wedding again, let me tell you.

Night – Mare.

I didn’t even tell you about the 2 hours (Ha!) ride from the village to the train station. First, our car’s accelerator wire broke. Then the bus carrying the groom’s family had a flat. Then the groom’s car had a clutch problem or something. We got in so late the groom’s family missed their bus back home. That was the demon of car problems.