Wednesday, October 31, 2012

What another amazing day in Nagpur, India!! We were hosted by the Rotary Club of Nagpur Ishanya for the day and they showed us a great time.
We met at the Deekshabhoomi temple and learned all about Dr. Ambedkar, an important figure here in Nagpur. Part of the temple is a huge room where you can make an echo 7 times if you stand in the exact centre of the room.
From there, we headed to the 0 mile marker, the geographical center of india. We then visited a Hindu temple where we each made a wish to Ganesh.
We had an amazing visit to the Miniature Engineering World of Iqbal Ahmed – he is an incredible engineer who created the world’s smallest steam engine – it is literally the size of a thumbnail and the miniature train can pull 3 adults. That, among his other miniatures, was really the highlight of Jean’s day!
We then visited another Guiness Book of World Records holder, the smallest woman in the world (2009, 2012, 2013), 19 year old Jyoti Kisanji Amge.
After a delicious Rajistan-style lunch at the home of Rotarian Anand Mohata we visited a shop full of beautiful saris and an upscale jewelry shop to see some amazing traditional Indian jewelry. It was lovely, but quite out of our price range!
We visited a train museum that included a park full of children playing and we saw some bats – just to make us remember it is Halloween today! The bats were much, much bigger than we have at home and there were a lot of them!!
We then drove to a nearby town to visit the Buddhist Dragon temple. It is a beautiful structure without any beams (made in a triangle shape) and it was very serene.
After an exciting drive back to Nagpur, we briefly toured the outside of the High Court, a very imposing building, and headed to a club for a wonderful meal. We learned all about jugad – how to get things done without any resources – an admired Indian trait.
We are very thankful to our wonderful and energetic hosts and their families for today. It was a day packed full of interesting sights, tastes and experiences!
(I will hopefully post pictures soon - I'm having some technical difficulties!!)
- Sarah.

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