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formerly a blog about India.
now technically in the beyond
six months in Oz

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Spring Break: The End


In case you ever wondered what the inside of rickshaw looks like, it's pretty much a go kart. With wires everywhere. Yes, this is how you get around in the cities.


Our rickshaw driver, Hari, took us around to all the temples, to dinner, and then to random places like this temple built in honor of Japanese Buddhists. We are not sure why, but it was something to see, and when you start your day at 6 in the morning, sometimes you run out of activities by noon and just let your rickshaw driver take you somewhere for 100 extra rupees.


That's Liz and Hari in front of the rickshaw. We met his son, named Shiva, listened to Hari sing and dance while driving (very difficult not to laugh), heard about the economics of being a rickshaw driver (he rents the rickshaw for 150 rupees per day, and has five children, a wife, and lots of school and food expenses) and paid him enough to put one of his daughters through school for a month. As he was driving us to the airport on our final morning, he started crying and said, "I wake up tomorrow and no more Madam and Madam!" I found it difficult to hold it together at this point.


He also drove us to a yogini temple. There are only four yogini temples in all of India. This was an elephant headed tantric goddess, but her face got destroyed in one of the many Muslim wars.


This is the yogini temple. The inside has 64 unique tantric goddesses, and the caretaker of the temple described each one to us. Then two priests blessed us and gave us flowers and red ribbons to wear, and of course everyone wanted money at the end. They even charged us for parking our rickshaw under a tree!

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