Still alive

Hanne Marie, Revanna, Lisa and Nisther admires the buddhist temple in Madikery.
This is the artwork they were admiring. The temple is called "The Golden temple".

From now on I will write sporadicly in English so others than the 4.6 millions norwegians in the world can read my scribblings.

I'm still in India, travelling around. Sadly it's been all too long since I managed to put up an update. Since then I've been to Mangalore, Madikery, Mysore, Bangalore, and now I'm situated in the biggest city of India, Mumbai (Bombay).

Experiences have been many, and that's probably part of the reason I haven't got myself to updating the blog. So much is happening I really don't know where to start writing. So now I will just mention things from weeks ago briefly, and maybe write a bit more about recent happenings. Goa was sadly rainy when we visited. The train trip from Goa to Mangalore was fantastic, crowded and then boring in the end. In Mangalore we experienced bandh (generalstreik), the power of the mob, curfew, meeting with the university and indian students and a lot more. In Madikeri we had the coldest weather so far since we arrived India. We actually had to wear long pants and sweathers, and it still was a bit cold. In Mysore we saw the extravagant Mysore Palace, and I performed one of my interviews regarding my exam article. Bangalore was a big city with more western influences. Shopping malls, western food and western clothes on indian bodies.

Now we're in Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay during colonial times). The city is very big, and we have so far just seen very small parts of it. But still we have experienced quite a bit. Since Daniel Drageset is writing an article on the ethnic group parsis, yesterday we got invited to a parsi wedding. It was very nice to get such an invitation. With about 600 guests the wedding was quite big. The wedding was like a big party. It started with a religious ceremony which seemed to just be a formality. The ceremony was going on while guest walked around talking and mingling. The only ones really interested in the ceremony seemed to be the priests and the
photographers (including me...). It's worth mentioning that the parsis are all part of the religion zoroastrianism. The religion and the people is a minority in India with only 70 000 people (in a country of over 1 billion people). Later on when the party really got started it was all a strange mix between western and indian/parsi culture. With professional DJs and a big PA the dance floor in the middle of the venue was filled to alternating western and local hits. At each side of the venue there were placed respectivly a bar and an eating area. In the bar there were served both alcohol and soft drinks. The eating area was big, and people ate in turns. The parsi food was served on banan leaves, and was very good. When leaving the wedding party we were actually told this was the last of four days with ceremonies connected to the wedding. So the parsi weddings are big :)