The People of India

This is a post with lots of pictures....I had such a hard time narrowing it down.  But considering there are approximately 1,155,347,678 people living in India, I don't think I did too bad posting only 28 pictures!

Part I
Seems appropriate that I start this post with a picture of Mr. Khan, our driver.   In case you are unsure, he is the one on the left.

The afternoon we left, Mr. Khan invited us to his
house for lunch with his family.  

 

While at Mr. Khan's we spent time on his roof.
Kids were getting ready for the upcoming kite flying festival.
There were also many families and kids on each roof of the surrounding buildings.
I felt like a character in The Kite Runner (if only it had taken place in India).

People selling goods outside of various monuments or just along the side of the road.

Some sights from the road

                        

This guy is sitting on top of a huge truck while driving down the road

                          

Why ride your bike when your friend will give you a lift on his moped?

All kinds of transportation were allowed in every lane:
walking, bikes, mopeds, cars...

Not sure if you can tell, but there is actually a van under all of these people.
There are only 10 seats available inside the van,
but hold on tight and you can catch a ride on this highway too!

Haircut and a shave on the side of the road

I am mesmerized by this man.  Don't know why, I just am.

Man, snake...it doesn't matter.  Beth can charm them all!

We were greeted by friendly faces

 at each hotel

Part II
We were set to depart on our 5 hour journey from Agra to Jaipur with Mr. Khan. I was not thrilled about being in the car for so long, but was excited to get to the Pink City.  We quickly found out that the one major road leading from Agra to Jaipur was blocked.  In a much simplified explanation: people were protesting and refused to allow cars to pass through.  Our 5 hour journey, we were told, was about to become 10 hours.

For those of you that have had the pleasure of sitting in meetings with me or pulling all nighters, I am sure you will remember my inability to sit in one place for long periods of time...although I can do it, it is a challenge for me!  I was DREADING this car ride.  We were told we would have take back roads and go through tiny villages in order to avoid the blocked road.  The pictures below are from our journey through the villages.

It is amazing that something I dreaded so much turned out to be my favorite part of the trip. I don't even know how many hours it took to get from Agra to Jaipur because I was so caught up in seeing all of the people and how they lived.  Their reaction to the chain of cars parading through their villages made it quite evident that they usually didn't get a great deal of traffic. This was a big event for them.  But honestly, I think it was a bigger event for me.