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- India Travels (2)
- Uncategorized (6)
- January 19, 2007: more pics!
- January 18, 2007: Back in Bhuj again - interviews finished!
- December 14, 2006: More on Bhuj
- December 2, 2006: Research accomplished!
- December 2, 2006: Shopping spree...
- November 26, 2006: The Scam Complex
- November 23, 2006: The sunnier side of India
- November 23, 2006: Arrived (and alive) in Gujarat
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Arrived (and alive) in Gujarat
We have finally arrived in the town of Bhuj - where Alice will be spending the next two months researching fair trade cotton practices in the region. We spent the first month and a half visiting the south (visiting Mumbai, Goa, Hampi, Mysore, Ooty, and Kochi). Now that we are aclimatized its time to get down to some real research, and hopefully some blogging (some attempts were made earlier but they were lost when I installed this wordpress blog software). I hope to restore them soon.
Bhuj is a nice quiet town that was devasted by an earthquake in 2001 (and 2 others earlier in the century). 5 years after the quake there remains a lot of evidence of the destruction. One of the old palaces was heavily damaged, and while there remain beautiful pieces of art inside, no attempts have been made to restore it. Pidgeons have taken over the palace, and its quite the site to see old paintings, chandeliers, mirrors and statues all covered with bird poop!
Anyways, enough of the boring stuff - on our way here we experienced our first near death experience (aside the normal rikshaw ride).
On our way up from Kochi our bus collided head on with a transport truck. It was enough to knock me out of my seat, but didn’t initially seem so bad.
Firefighters arrived fairly quickly (under 10 minutes, which is impressive since we were an hour away from any big city), but I’m not sure if the driver of the opposing truck made it.
No one in our bus was hurt. I hesitated to take pictures long enough for the rescue workers to finish - but ‘had’ to take these as the whole experience was quite shocking!
I’d have to say seeing death, and feeling mortal is one of the things that wake you up in India. I cant say its a good thing, but with so many people driving insanely on poor roads its no wonder over 20 people die each day in car accidents here.
(Opposing truck above, after the rescue?)
(Our bus above, again after the rescue)
(Opposing truck somewhat inside our bus before the two were seperated)
Ill try and balance out the next blog with more pictures of the great time we’ve been having. Its a real shock to see so many poor dying starving sick and wounded individuals, but thats only a small part of the experience. As one wise’ish person told us, “India is everything good and everything bad.”