Gujarati week-end
This is the end of our first week and we finish our last meeting late. After a quick dinner, we’re going to a walking tour in the old city.
It starts for me with a 15 minutes tchouk-tchouk ride in tiny but crowded streets with a local who explains that all what I’m seeing is normal in Ahmedabad!
Then, we enter in a traditional old house and I try to understand explanations from our guide (English Indian accent is not so easy to catch). But the most important part of the tour is walking in the streets and discover the incredible architecture, full of details in sculptures!
Before the final stop, we cross a food market where we can smell and see the beauty of India.
Before getting back to the hotel with a tchouk-tchouk driver speaking English (the 1st one so far), we hear traditional music.
On Saturday, after a good night and a late breakfast, we stop at the alcohol shop to prepare Saturday night.
Gujarat, the state where Ahmedabad is located, is a “dry” state, this means that alcohol is forbidden. Nevertheless, foreigners and Indians from other states can buy a limited quantity of alcohol. To be able to do so, there is a strict process with a lot of papers (passport, boarding pass, letter from the hotel …).
Then, we go to a big mall but it’s really not interesting since we find almost the same shops and brands than any other mall in Europe or US.
The night market with its colors and the dinner (too spicy for me) are much more interesting.
Even if it’s 10pm, the day isn’t over since we’ve been invited to the birthday party of one of the persons we work with.
We meet his family (mother, father and sister) and his friends in his apartment and we have really good time with extremely friendly people: nice discussions, good games, live music and songs, good food and drinks!
I’m heading back to the hotel in the middle of the night (thanks Uber!) and the final adventure of the week-end is on Sunday afternoon: a cultural visit a few kilometers away from Ahmedabad.
We start with the Adalaj Stepwell built in the 15th century to provide water. The details of the sculptures are amazing!
We finish our week-end with a visit to the incredible temple Akshardham. Phones and cameras are forbidden so the Internet images below show a part of what we’ve seen.
Let’s see what the 2nd week will look like!
