After a quick lunch in the Leela, we headed off to Cauvery on M.G Road to pick up some souvenirs. Manish met us as we exited the car, but had to return to his car for a moment before entering the store. He trotted across 6 lanes of traffic, ignoring all vehicles on the road. On his return trip to the Cauvery, he started talking on his cell phone while dodging traffic. As you can imagine, we were all flabbergasted. How he managed to cross the road without being killed is beyond me. To be able to hear the other person on his cell amidst all the racket made by the cars on the road is phenomenal. When he arrive at the sidewalk, Manish shrugged off our shock and led us inside the store.

With wallets a few hundred Rupees lighter, we exited the Cauvery and crossed Brigade road. Across from us, the city was launching their new parking meter – the cities first – that will charge 5 Rupees per half hour and maintain a parking record for 10 slots. The meter was imported from France and if successful at decreasing parking issues on Brigade Road, additional ones will be added throughout the city.

As we continued down the street, we passed an advertisement for American Food Festival in Nilgiris. Nilgiris is a grocery store chain in India, and the stores are about the same size as a small MacDonalds restaurant. The store had a few shelves carrying highlighted ‘American’ food products, such as Skippy Peanut Butter, Casa Grande Salsa, French’s Mustard, chocolate sauce, and Heinz Ketchup. It’s strange to think that these products are considered to be American, since I’m used to seeing them in Canada, the US, Mexico, parts of the EU, etc.

The final stop of the shopping trip was in a factory seconds outlet for Designer clothing. Armani, Tommy Hilfiger, The Gap, Timberland, Nike, Calvin Klein, and Ralph Lauren lined the shelves. RL Polo shirts were selling for 250 Rupees each (approx 7.50$ CAD) and RL button down dress shirts were an amazing 425 Rupees each (approx 13$ CAD). Manish worked his negotiating magic and had the prices lowered from 250 to 200 Rupees per golf shirt and from 425 to 350 Rupees for the button down shirts. Since Polo golf shirts cost more than 50$ in Canada, and the button down dress shirts can cost as much as 95$, I grabbed a few for Drew and I. I wouldn’t be surprised if some showed up in people’s Christmas packages this year *hint*

After all this shopping, we’re worried that things won’t fit in our suitcases. Worries about going over the dollar limit for customs haven’t really entered our minds yet. After some quick calculations, we all determine we are still under the exemption limits for the US and Canada.

— break for work —

I’m beginning to wonder if Bill and Linda’s theory about the dogs doesn’t have some truth to it. While I’ve been joking that they’re chasing and barking at me because they know I’m the only one of the group who was forced to take rabies shots prior to traveling and that they instinctively know that I wear a picture of Thanatos (one of our cats, and my favorite) in a locket around my neck each day, even my own dog doesn’t seem to happy with me. When I called Drew today, I could hear Fenris (our dog) growling in the background and Drew saying ‘shush, it’s only Mommy on the phone’.

I will definitely need another carry-on bag or small suitcase. After some serious packing practice, I’ve managed to fit everything I purchased as gifts into my empty bag…but I will need a miracle to get my clothes, shoes and sundries back into my battered suitcase.

I couldn’t get out of bed this morning – the lack of sleep is finally catching up with me and I called Bindu to reschedule our trip to Iskon. Today will be a light day. I’m headed to Bindu’s for lunch, and then it’s off to work.

Traffic was heavy and I arrived at Bindu’s 15 minutes later than we had planned. On the bright side, we didn’t have to detour to get to her house today. The giant hole had been filled, and we were able to drive straight to her door.

Arriving late wasn’t a bad thing since Bindu had to go out and buy some orange juice to have with lunch. Bindu’s been trying to convince me to take a ride on her moped and I finally agreed. I hopped on the back of her moped (helmet less – I was sweating bullets the whole time) and we headed off to the pill and powder store. A pill and powder store is similar to a Shoppers Drug Mart in Canada, but on a much smaller scale. They fill prescriptions, sell makeup and hair care items, and strangely enough also carry OJ.

Bindu’s family are vegetarians, so lunch consisted of rice dishes, potato and vegetable curry, potato salad, curds (yogurt) and chapattis.

After a lengthy visit with Bindu and her family, I headed off to work.

Lance finally figured out the mess my site was in and fixed it so that last weeks journal entries appeared. Now that we know what went wrong this week, we can plan around it and avoid it on the next upload. YAY!

Linda and Anand have decided not to write travel journals, but Bill should have his site up and running soon. Last I heard, he was compiling mini novella’s outlining his adventures. As soon as I have the URL, I’ll post a link to it on the site.

Update: Bill’s journal is hosted at http://home.neo.rr.com/wspirit/index.html

When it was time to leave tonight, Anand and Manish weren’t ready. I joined Linda and Bill in their car – and we weren’t chased by any dogs! Of course, a few were lying in wait on the road, but none barked or gave any indication that they wanted to eat the occupants of our car for dinner. Strangely enough, Anands’ car was chased on his way home…

We met for lunch in the hotel restaurant at 12:30 before heading off shopping at the Cottage Industries Emporium in the afternoon. We went to a different location than the one Yasho and Gayatri took me to a few weeks back, and it was filled with rugs, jewels, precious metals, fabrics, etc.

We sat in the main show room looking at rugs, and I was hauled off to a smaller room to look at the 2×3 prayer mats. Nothing larger would have managed to fit in my budget. The small Kashmir wool rugs started at 170$ USD, so I figured that I’d just be looking at them, rather than planning on purchasing any. The rugs were beautiful, but I’d other plans for the spending money I’d budgeted for the trip.

The salesman offered to sell a rug for 140$ USD, but that was still a little rich for my liking, so I headed back to the larger room. While the salesman was attempting to tell me what an amazing deal 140$ USD was, Manish and Bill arrived on the scene. Manish began haggling – attempting to get the rug down to approx 100$ USD, which was about the top end of my budget. During the back and forth arguing between the two, Bill became my hero. He piped up and asked what the price would be if he bought a few rugs in addition to the one I’d liked. After a bit more haggling, the price had been dropped to 90$ USD and the gavel were down on the sale before the salesman had time to blink. I’m now the happy owner of a 2×3 prayer mat to hang on my wall. Bill picked out two of the smaller rugs and added a 6×9 floor rug to his collection. In the end, the rugs were sold at a 47% discount, with no sales tax, and no shipping charges. The salesman looked like he was about to burst when Bill informed him that shipping the rugs via DHL was a deal breaker and that he’d have to ship them FedEx. After quickly agreeing to FedEx the packages, anything to keep Bill happy, Bill told him it was ok and that they could use their normal carrier to ship his package home.

The smaller rugs will be carried home in our luggage, while the larger one is being shipped back to his home in the US.

While we were busy haggling our way to a deal, Linda was viewing two amazing silk on silk area rugs. Manish stepped in again, and after much debate and gnashing of teeth, the salesman sold the rugs to Linda for less than 50% of their ticketed price. As with Bills’ rug, Linda will have her rugs shipped home (free of charge) and they should arrive in the US about the same time she lands back home.

As Linda was finalizing her purchases, Anand, Bill and I roamed the rest of the store. I wasn’t really interested in the jewelry, so I headed off to the textiles section. Manish came to the rescue again, and bargained the items I was interested in purchasing down by 40%. Loaded down with bags, we headed off to work.

I caught a ride home with Bill and Linda and we were chased by a number of barking dogs for many blocks. At one point, a pack of dogs was lying in the road and all got up to give chase. Both Linda and Bill swear that they’ve never been chased by dogs before and are firmly convinced the dogs were after me. To add to the theory, we learned that Anand hadn’t been chased by dogs on his ride home tonight!

I bypassed lunch with Anand, Linda, Bill and Manish and headed off to meet up with Bindu.

It took forever to arrive at her house. Workers had dug a giant hole in the middle of the road and we (Shanta – my driver) and I drove through a number of back alleys in an attempt to find a route to her house. Once we arrived, we picked up Bindu and headed out shopping for Gold.

Originally, I had planned to pick up matching 22k gold rings for Drew and I to use at our renewal of vows ceremony. Matching men’s and ladies rings aren’t common in India, however, many people had told me that rings weren’t difficult to have made – I just needed to pick out a style I liked and they’d make a mans or woman’s ring to match it. Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out that way. I finally narrowed my choices down to two very nice rings only to be told that the rings were originally made in Singapore and that the jewelers’ staff wasn’t skilled enough to make a second ring. In order to have one specially made and imported from Singapore, I’d have to wait up to two months. Guess we’ll be falling back on our original plan of Celtic rings imported from the UK…

However, I’m not about to turn up my nose at jewelry made in 22k gold for approx 17$ CDN a gram. I just have to find a suitable bracelet or chain for Drew, and pick out something nice for myself while I’m at it. Since we’re running short of time, we’ll be returning to shop for gold another day.

I drop Bindu off at home and head off to work. I’m beginning to think I might have to start paying rent for my space in this building – for all the time I’ve been spending here!

Anand has graciously volunteered to assist me in picking something suitable for Drew on the jewelry front.

I attempted to wear my silk saree today and gave up after an hour of trying to get the top portion to drape correctly. Unstarched silk sarees slip and slide everywhere and not simple to get in place. I know there has to be a secret to wearing this thing, but I’m going to have to call it a day and wear something else before I start screaming in my mirror. I’ll ask the girls to help me sometime later in the week.

I settled on my kurta pajamas and toddled off to the hotel lobby. Anand and I headed into work early today. We met up with Linda and Bill in the lobby – where they were headed to lunch with Manish.

Our graduation, party and pooja took place before work this afternoon. Bindu surprised me with a Ganesha for my car, and Divya immediately arranged to get it blessed. Bill and Linda had their laptops blessed – luckily, mine was safe downstairs in the training bay and wasn’t in any danger. Unlike Bills’ laptop, I’m certain my Ganesha will be even more likely to function correctly after the prayers said over it.

At the end of the pooja, Linda, Bill, Manish, Rajesh, Jaspreet, and myself were invited to light the lamp.

Bindu and I agreed to move our trip to Iskon and lunch to Thursday, since both of us were feeling a little tired. Instead, we’ll take a quick trip out to look at the famed 22k gold sold in India.

As we were headed home, I learned that Bill has a direct view of the cows from his room. It’s hard not to break out laughing when you imagine the look on his face the first time he stepped out onto the balcony and looked out into a field of our bovine friends.

Outside of work, it was a pretty uneventful day. Sleep…work…return to the hotel to sleep. Once again, I’m up to watch the sunrise as I’m not able to get to sleep until the wee hours of the morning.

I think I need another weekend just to recuperate from the last one!