India: day 4

so today we spent the whole day in bhadohi and visited most of the factories that we deal with. picked out some new rugs to potentially be introduced into our running line collection and looked at some new constructions that i will probably send designs for development when i get back. technical jargon aside it was an extremely educational trip. i got to see how exactly each of our rugs are made, from how the yarn is harvested to injecting the rug with the yarn or knotting it within the canvas. this is probably boring for anyone who isnt familiar with the rug business but i thought it was pretty cool.

the majority of our day was driving, which proved to be an interesting topic of conversation. its hard to figure out if honking the horn does anything but our driver sure loved it. the trucks have really complex horns, like those rv’s that play ‘la cucaracha’ or something. i have a short video on my phone when we were pulled over on the side of the road of one of them passing. for some reason at the time steven and i thought it was hilarious.

speaking of driving, we had quite the number of near-death incidences, our driver frequently started driving on the wrong side of the road which apparantly is something that’s ok to do here, especially for motorcyclists. but its a little different, i think, when youre in a minivan and theres a semi truck coming straight at you, wailing his horn and flashing his brights.

needless to say im alive. just about.

tomorrow morning we leave varanasi to go back to new dehli at 2pm, and at around 1am we leave new delhi to go to beijing, but we wont get there until around 3pm. ive no idea what were going to do from 2pm to 1am but i guess, like most of this trip has been, ill find out when the time comes.

ive had my fill of curry, dahl and biriyani for a while and im ready for a pizza. but not until ive eaten all kinds of chinese food! steven said they used to put snakes heads on their sandwiches there and they call ketchup ‘jam’ so when i go to subway i have to make sure to ask for ‘no jam’; why you would put ketchup on a turkey sandwich is beyond me.

well, that’s enough for me. i think im going to send a few emails to my parents, letting them know that im alive and whatnot. i miss everyone, and i will update you from beijing! ni hao!