gardens are for lovers

i was sad for my last weekend day in india! one of my other colleagues, gaurav, came to fetch me in the morning. we headed 40km to another temple – chattarpur temple. this one was huge, and pretty crowded. it was crowded more with people worshiping than with tourists, which was kinda cool. again, no photos of idols unfortunately. i did get a few photos outside the temple though.


after the temple, we headed to the garden of five senses. on the way, we saw something called the rose garden, so we stopped. it was not as great as portland’s rose garden! i also learned something funny… gardens in india seem like they are almost exclusively full of couples. in almost every other part of india, you will never see any PDA. in fact, it’s way more common to see two men (friends) holding hands than to see a couple holding hands. however, in the parks and gardens apparently these rules don’t apply. gaurav said that couples come to places like this because they have nowhere else to go. i guess it’s true that they can’t indecent like this at home, since they all still live with their parents before getting married. walking around a park full of couples with one of my colleagues is only slightly uncomfortable! ha. i should have known the garden of five senses would be more of the same, but i wanted to go. since india is full of such beautiful flowers growing in some pretty awful looking places, i thought a purposeful garden would be amazing. unfortunately, the garden was a bit of a letdown. i still contend it only engaged four senses (unless some of the flowers were edible and i just missed it). i suppose if i had been there by myself, it would have been a good place to sit and read a book, finally finding a quiet place in noisy delhi. instead, gaurav and i just walked around for awhile before heading back.

we had south indian food for lunch, which is quite different than north indian. most of the indian food you find in the states is north indian. south indian is a bit lighter, and i really like the thing called a dosa. the dosa is like a giant, thin crispy pancake. it can be filled with various things, but i liked the version with potatoes and onions in it. it can get a bit messy, and i’m still trying to get used to eating with my hands sometimes, but it was delicious!