Theo's Kick@$$ Proposal

In case you haven't heard from our Facebook page, we got engaged! This was the best part of our trip to India. Theo proposed in front of the Taj Mahal, and I was so surprised! He had the foresight to videotape the whole thing, so we could share it with you.

Just chatted with "Garfield" creator Jim Davis in the security line at the airport.

Wedded Ink

The day before Ami's wedding, we attended a morning ceremony and reception hosted by her uncle. During the ceremony, he presented gifts to Ami. There was also lunch, music, and of course, dancing. (Theo's dancing in particular became the talk of the wedding.) There were also women there who painted designs in henna on all the women's hands, called mehndi. This is the part of Indian weddings I most remember from movies and one of the things I was most looking forward to. We watched Ami have her mehendi done the day before, along with her mom and sister. They all had more complicated designs that took hours to put on, and Ami had a specific bridal pattern on her hands, arms, and feet (shown to the left). The rest of up just had simple designs done on both sides of our hands, which took only about 5 minutes. The henna comes out of a small tube in a paste that feels a little like mud and takes over an hour to dry. If you remove it beforehand, of course, the color won't stay. It was incredibly hard not to use my hands for all that time. Theo even had to help me eat! Once it does dry, the color will continue to get darker over the next 24 hours. The warmer your body temperature the darker the henna. All of Ami's friends told me that they use Vicks VapoRub on the mehndi at night; it heats up your hands and helps to make the henna darker. There are also a number of folk sayings involving mehndi as well. The darker your mehndi is, several women told me, the more your husband/boyfriend loves you. My mehndi lasted for about two weeks and faded shortly after we returned to the States. But I was able to take some pretty great pictures with my engagement ring before that happened.

Last message before we head home. We loved traveling to India. Expect lots of blogs in the next few months. Happy reading!

Theo caught me snacking on "lime n' masala masti" chips as we waited for our train back to Ahmedabad. We've found most drinks in India to be super sweet, but there are some great potato chip flavors here. We had spicy tomato salsa earlier today. This is pretty much the only food available in the train station, so we'll take what we can get.

Bus station fun

Ambi and I get a bite to eat before we side the bus south to Jaisalmer. We had a great time in Jaipur, but were disappointed we didn't get to take the Jaipur by night bus tour. More on that later!

Eating vegan in India

Theo and I had two delightful curry tofu roti rolls courtesy of SpiceJet. Here I am enjoying my second spicy roll on our flight to Delhi. We've been remarkably lucky with food thus far. Ami's family practices Jainism, a very vegan friendly religion, and we ate very well there. Everything that was served at her family's house and the wedding functions was vegetarian, and aside from avoiding some cheese, we could eat everything. Because of the number of Jains in Gujarat, the food in the whole state is vegetarian. I actually thought I may shed some pounds during the trip. Uhm... not gonna happen. The Modis and Shahs fed us too well.

Here in Delhi, we've enjoyed some delicious and amazingly cheap food from our hotel. More people eat meat here, but the menus at the restaurants are divided equally between veg and non-veg food. We both agreed that the aloo gobi was the best we've ever had. I'm afraid I'll never enjoy the Indian food in Champaign the same way again. Unlike Chinese and Japanese food, you'll find pretty much the same items on the menus here as in Indian restaurants in the States, but you'll also find a wider variety of menu items with more complex flavors. We're looking for a nice restaurant tonight for a New Years Eve dinner. In this town, we know we'll eat well.