Our Reputation Preceeds Us

It seems that our biggest fans somehow found out that we were coming to India and they follow us from city to city taking photos with us and getting our autographs. It's crazy but true...we've probably been in somewhere between 30-50 family photos during our travels and the vast majority has been in our last 2 weeks in India. (And Ben is particularly popular in India, he's probably been in twice as many photos as me) Usually someone comes up to us and asks for a photo. At first we thought they wanted us to take a group photo for them, but we've since learned that they just want a photo with us. The whole group then piles in around us and we all smile and pose for several photos while the photographer changes to allow everyone to have a photo with us. Sometimes this draws an even larger crowd and then we have to start over taking more photos with the new group. Kids love to say hello to us, shake our hand, and have our autograph. The favorite questions are "which country?" and "what is your name?" It's been quite amuzing and we are wondering where all these photos will end up?

In the last few days we have seen goats, cows, dogs, chickens, pigs, camels, water buffalo, peacocks and elephants. Sounds like a strange mix between a zoo and farmyard, right? Well it turns out to be just the city streets of Jaipur, a city of 1.3 million with animals, people, and vehicles all sharing the streets. Cows scavenge through the trash on the streets just like the pigs, dogs, and goats..occassionl we see someone has feed them something green, but not much. It seems crazy to us, but it seems to work okay for everyone here. The animals mostly look healthly and nobody seems to mind stearing around all the wildlife.

This is a city of forts. It is close to the desert and has 300-500 yr old forts built on the hills. They are actually more like places with defensive walls. The are huge and elaborate and very interesting to wander through. This is the region of India were Maharajas used to live and I can just picture them in the forts and with the elephants and camels. We visited the old Maharaja's palace, which was in use until the 1970s.

Tomorrow we are off to Mumbai!