Day two Beckie & Chintans Wedding - The Ceremony

Hi everyone,

So Saturday was the actual Wedding. The only reason we ventured over to India - it was D day!

Unlike English Weddings the "ceremony" didn't start until 6pm so we got a taxi over to the Gadani's for 4pm so we could get dressed properly (We needed help as our Sarees needed pinning on our shoulders) Beckie's family were there too, everyone looked amazing!

We all had lots of photos taken and it's a funny feeling wearing a Saree. I didn't like my belly being out, but everyone else did and to be honest it wasn't as bad as I thought it was, just best not to slouch sitting down - more rolls than Greggs bakery lol.
Beckie had her hair and makeup was professionally done and just as we were getting our pictures taken she walked into our room... One word. STUNNING! She looked great as an Asian bride! Like Princess Jasmine :)

After a few pictures were taken we made our way to the venue, and already set up was the two chairs on the raised platform for Beckie and Chintan to sit on and where the ceremony was taking place, there was chairs all around it for spectators and actually so different to English weddings, the family participated.

While we were waiting for everyone to arrive there was two young lads who were playing the drums, quite a few of the ladies got up and started a circle around the drummers and started a little step, clap dance. It was so fun! Everyone got involved; Beckies parents, Paige, Johnny and us. It was great to participate and feel welcomed enough to be able to join in with their traditions.

We were dancing a short while and Beckie and Chintan came out and joined in with us, I can't tell you how much fun it was.We danced until the sun went down :) maybe about an hour i'd say.

Once we'd finished the dancing everyone sat down and the ceremony began, it's not like in churches where everyone sits in silence, we sat down to watch but we couldn't see what was going on, so went to the other side where it was being filmed and took a few photos from there, I liked it how a lot of people are involved in it, very spiritual. 

I was standing up just watching and this young girl came over to  me called Rinku (think thats how its spelt) she was 14 and started talking to me, the sweetest girl there is, and her English was great! I think she wanted to practise what she's learning with someone, we ended up talking for hours and she was explaining what was happening and also traditions with Hindus. Did you know in the villages if a Hindu girl is set to marry a Hindu boy and he dies before marriage that she must not ever leave the house and is often killed by her parents?? That's crazy!

I learned a lot from such a young girl :) 

I absolutely love this photo :)

The gist I got was that everyone sitting in with Beckie and Chintan had to pour water onto Beckie's toe, and I think rice  (I could be wrong though) Don't be employing me as an RE teacher... seriously lol

So a cord was put around them and called upon Lora to help them put over Chintans head.

United as one

Once the spiritual events were over the chairs were turned next
 to each other and was an opportunity to take photos

Beckie and Chintan then went over to a stage and sat on thrones and everyone queued up throughout the night to have photos taken with them :) Food was then served by caterers at the back of the venue and Rinku my new friend (or Pingu as we called her) took me around and told me what each thing was and what was supposed to be eaten with what. It was really good food! Hundreds of people turned up to eat and then I swear they left not long after, but the only thing that we could have done with was a dance. After everyone had finished and the couple had all their photos taken, they finally sat down with their two families to have dinner and everyone else went home. 

All of us having our photo with the Bride and Groom (Pingu's in the middle)

So overall we had a great time at the wedding, we got taken home by one of Chintans dads' friends was a bit of a squeeze, Lora, Lee, myself and his daughter in the back and him and his wife and child in the front of a tiny car lol! (No laws in India like we have here!) I saw a scooter with a whole family on! 2 adults and 2 kids - one of which was hanging off the side being held by the mum in her arm :/

Sunday we didn't do much, packed up and was invited over to the Marriott where Beckie's parents were staying and had dinner with Chintan and her family which was lovely and resided by the pool after dinner for coffee and really was a giggle. It just proves that you don't need alcohol to have a good time (but it does help!!) One thing I will say though is don't book a room at the Marriott in Ahmedabad, the staff are useless! 

We got back very late as the hotel tried to rip us off and charge us 4x the amount the taxi cost on the way here so called our hotel and they sent a driver to get us. It was about 12.30 by the time we actually got back and we had to be up at 4am to leave for the airport!! 

Big thank you to Chintan's family & friends and especially his father for everything he did for us. Also thanks to The Sears for Sunday and was great to spend some time with you all :D we really enjoyed ourselves but we really were ready to get out of India, it was a complete culture shock and when Lee and I were standing outside our hotel people were just so amazed by us that they stopped dead in the street and stared, we just waved at them all and the look on their faces, they were so happy lol!! I wished I would have recorded it, just the strangest thing ever. 

Anyway over and out - we're in Thailand now been here a couple days. I'll put a post up when I've left Bangkok xxxx

Good luck Beckie & Chintan and congratulations xxxxxx

Day one of the Beckie & Chintan's wedding - The Blessings

Beckie and her parents Jo and Richard :D

Hi everyone :)

So Wednesday evening we arrived in Ahmedabad, we got picked up by the hotels' taxi man and he was no where near as friendly as the one in Delhi, his English was non existent and he stunk of BO... It was 10pm by the time we got to our hotel and all we wanted was something to eat and something alcoholic to drink. Ahmedabad is in a dry state so drinking alcohol is illegal and also they don't eat meat here, the restaurants just serve paneer (like cottage cheese) in dishes. So we've 5 days of being sober... probably a good thing for our livers!

We had a bit of "Delhi belly" so we have tried to steer clear from hot curries as we didn't want to encourage anymore spells so we've been eating fruit raita (its like sweet yoghurt with fruit in) that's pretty much been our breakfasts for the last couple of days.

Anyway back to what we did... Wednesday night just went to the hotel after getting some food and slept until lunch time Thursday, we contacted Beckie and arranged to meet up. We went over to Chintans parent's house and met his family, ohh they were so nice and welcoming :) Johnny and Paige (Beckie's brother and his "wife" were there too and oh my gosh it was so nice to speak to other English people!) We went off for a coffee and our taxi driver took us home via a shop so we could get Indian attire for the blessing which was happening the following day.

Friday Morning we had to be at Chintan's house for 9am, the same unfriendly smelly cab man drove us over there after being half an hour late; the first blessing was in full swing.

First blessing - morning session

Chintan's house 

Everyone looked so good in their Indian wear and again lots of friends and family of the Gadani's were at their house welcoming Beckie into their family and the Hindu Pujari (priest) was chanting to Beckie and Chintan, i'm not so sure what was going on but a couple of the younger girls there were explaining it to us as things were happening. We participated in the rituals that were being done throughout the day.
There was probably about 40/50 people in their house during the day and everyone was so nice to us :)


After the blessing finished we were all invited over to the Hindu temple for lunch and there was religious significance to this trip too, the men had to pour water over a statue in a worship area of the temple (sorry i'm not describing things well and any Hindu's reading please don't take offence lol)

After lunch (which I couldn't eat as my Delhi belly hadn't settled and my appetite was lost) we went back to the house where the second blessing was done. There was quite a bit of waiting around and the blessings did go on for quite a while so we hovered around in the room for a bit and went off as it was hard for us to understand what was going on. The Pujari was chanting a lot and there was a goddess that went into this body at one point.   We spent the afternoon on their roof terrace to catch the sun. 

Chintan's parents organised a caterer to come in for the evening and served us all South Indian cuisine, this was lovely but very spicy and luckily my appetite returned lol :)

After dinner one of Chintans Dad's friends dropped us back to our hotel in Old Ahmedabad and I went straight to sleep, such a long long day as we didn't get back until 9ish

Will post up the actual Wedding later on today, internet is very slow here! :) The best is yet to come! xxxxx

First few days in India

Well Hello :)

So the 11th January saw me embark on a new journey in life, I left my mum and sister at the airport and a lot of good friends a home to start my travels.

First stop was India. A lot of emotions running through my head, a lot of things I'll be missing being away from my friends and family for a long period of time, excited but nervous and apprehensive for what I was going to experience in India.

We arrived on Saturday lunch time in New Delhi, our taxi man Baljinder Singh was waiting for us at the airport with my name on a sign (always wanted to be one of those important people with their name on paper lol) 

Lora, myself and Lee waiting for the flight to take off!

Baljinder our taxi man

My mums friend Kiran arranged for us to see her Aunt to help us plan our time in Delhi as she lives a few houses up from our hotel, but as we'd not slept much on the plane and it being a night flight we got to the hotel for a nap! 

A quick nap turned into a full on sleep and we woke up at 7pm. I asked our hotel reception to call Koshi and we arranged to meet the following morning. We had room service and went to bed. 

Sunday we were up at 9am to meet Koshi and she showed us a few things on the map to do and showed us her house and invited us in for tea and biscuits, tea is exactly the same as England (I was worried :/) 

Baljinder picked us up at 10am and we went on a tour of Delhi. He showed us several cool buildings like the India Gate, the Lotus temple and a Sikh temple.

The gate of India

Lotus temple, I cut my arm on the barbed wire on the fence protecting it.... apparently it's good luck?

Sikh temple on Sunday was crazy, but a good insight into Sikhism

We went shopping for Sarees as we have a Hindu wedding to attend on the 19th and had lots of fun trying those on... but when the total came to £800 for the 3 of us, we had a heart attack each but handed over our cards.

We had lunch out in Pindus and outside there was a snake charmer... little bit scared I have to say when he put the snake round my neck and charmed a python out of his box, it was attacking him whilst I was sitting right next to him :/

After the day, we went back to the hotel room, put on G.I Jane on my netbook, ordered room service and went to bed. 

Monday saw us go to the Taj Mahal, we had to get up super early as was a 4 hour drive. We met our taxi man at reception, made him wait 40 minutes while we had  some breakfast and then set off at 7am,  he had brought his 13 year old son along with him :) 

We literally couldn't see anything on the way, I've never seen fog quite like it in my time... we couldn't see the car in front unless right behind it. So that turned into 5 hours drive but we got there!!!

We had a guided tour of the Taj which was really interesting and then had a late lunch. On the way home we got stuck in really bad traffic as apparently there were some protests going on in Delhi, so our 4 hour drive turned into 6, so asked Baljinder to stop and get us some beers. 

Got back to the hotel late around 9pm, had 2 Kingfishers each (8%ABV) chucked on some music and just chilled for a few hours. 

Today, we needed a lie in, so woke at half 12, got ourselves ready and its just gone 2 now and we're off out to get some food and have a wonder. 

Overall conclusion on India so far... It's very noisy, dirty and complete culture shock, but I've never met so many people who can't do enough for  you and most importantly, they are very happy :)

Love Hannah xxxxxxx