28 January 2015 - Effluence: just a step away from affluence - an interesting day of smells and sights again.

Tim, Annika and I ventured out in search of our orange juice man from yesterday and found him just wheeling his cart into position.  Delicious!  Tim did noticed him flick out a wayward ant prior to pouring the juice though!  Opposite this cart was a smiling lady cooking flat breads with potato filling for 10 Rupee each and they, along with the juice comprised our breakfast today.

Breakfast!

Who'd have believed there was a sense /code of order.?

On our short walk back to the apartment we saw the street barber shaving in a completely grubby setting but doing their best to present neat and tidy. We saw another man squatting by a drain pouring probably cold water over himself and washing himself as best as he could.  Despite the poverty, these gentle people really do their very best in adverse and near freezing conditions.  Little street fires burn along the pavements with people huddled around the flames to  keep warm.  At least it is not raining....and there's great wafts of stale urine odour emanating from cracks in the pavement and lots of dollops of "stuff" you don't want to stand in.  The mother's mantra: "Watch where you walk!"

As the plumber/electrician was here trying to fix a hot water unit, we couldn't leave the apartment until he had gone.  The kids willing decided to start some Distance Education work which was terrific.  They felt like they were achieving.  While I was supervising Tim and Annika, Karl was doing fractions with Luke who understood all about them once slices of pizza were brought into the analogy.  Good work everyone!

We went by train and a short walk to Bikaner House to buy our bus tickets to Jaipur.  No crowds, nice service and the Volvo bus to Jaipur leaves from there.  So, 0900 hrs, on Friday we will leave on the 6 hour journey to Jaipur.  The tickets cost a total of 3400 Rupees (about $65 AUD) for all of us.  There is an option on board for an extra 100 Rupees for entertainment packages so we will probably take advantage of that.  It should be noted that Karl is feeling triumphant about his scam protection scheme yesterday which saved us some money on our bus fares. We saw lots of monkeys and chipmunks en route!  Always a bit of fun to spot a wild monkey and always endearing to spot a chipmunk!

Strangler figs strike again - Bikaner House

Luke posting post cards.

Indian postbox

Monkeys - even with a choice, they seem to like being behind bars.

Oh so sweet!

As we were in the vicinity we walked along the other end of the India Gate boulevarde and came across a delightful, peaceful children's garden.  It was a haven from the hawkers and smells, clean and tidy and FUN!  We all loved it, especially Luke who really does need to have the space to be a kid and just play away from this wild place of sensory overload.

Children's park

Luke having a ball!

See saw with three kids.

Mucking around.

Children's Park fountain - off for the Winter.

Luke loving the park.

We walked to the National Museum but we were all really hungry by this time.  The problem was our notes were too large and the vendors only deal with small value notes.  We managed to find enough for the kids to have some chips from the vending machines and I decided to check out the "snack bar" in the basement of the museum.  For 15 rupee in a ticket system, I had a delicious cup of chai and two pakoras.  I immediately went back and bought 8 more pakoras and took them out to the kids and Karl who were in the courtyard playing.  Indeed, they were so delicious that we all trekked to the snack bar and Karl and I had a coffee each, the kids all had old fashioned glass bottled soft drink and we bought 8 more pakoras for a grand total of 105 Rupees!!  Tummies full we then looked around some of the museum.  I couldn't take any pictures as I didn't pay the camera fee!  We saw a history documentary on Buddhism which was interesting and then saw amazing ivory carvings and artifacts.  Most impressive of all was the jewellery section of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires and other precious stones.  Sensational and beautiful.  One belief is that women need to adorn themselves to become beautiful.  The jewellery certainly was!  Personally, I feel unadorned with only my wedding and engagement rings!  Annika  assured me I was beautiful anyway...aaawww!

Crunchy, rice salad mix - delicious!

We walked back to Khan Market Station and had a brief look around there before hopping on our train.  We couldn't resist some more fresh orange juice and I only noticed a dead fly at the bottom of the container of peeled oranges after we had accepted the cups of juice!  One of the many slight risks we take daily in order to eat and drink delicious local food! Tomorrow will reveal all! I also couldn't resist some more of the salady crunchy rice mix I had yesterday which wasn't quite as good, but yummy none the less...again time will tell if it was worth it!!

The foggy evening light quickly descended over Lajpat Nagar and Vipin, the housekeeper, brought us another heater for which we were VERY grateful.

Monkeys seem to find anywhere to live - like possums in Melbourne.

Hello, cute little fellow!

Marching band getting ready!

We trekked home, glad of the sunny, cool day for our exploring and even gladder of the crispy hot fried potatoes from the street cart near the station and the fresh veggies from the veggie cart man! We are indeed blessed.