Montage Monday: India

Going to India on my own in February 2010 was a HUGE step for me. I had absolutely NO idea what to expect and coming from the comforts of traveling in Burma with my family the month prior to my arrival into India, I was quite shocked in the beginning by some of the things I saw.

Once I got over the initial freak-out, India really grew on me. I have nothing but great memories of that place and here they are for this week's Montage Monday!

One of my early excursions out sight-seeing in India was to Ellora. I was really pleasantly surprised by this place. As mentioned earlier, I really had no idea what to expect in India but I definitely didn't think there would be caves to this caliber! I spent the day exploring caves on my own, meeting some friendly locals who kept wanting to take photographs with me and chatting to some young school children who were eager to practice their English. It was one of my more memorable days in India!

When I traveled through Nasik, I met an incredible family who took me into their home and treated me just like family! They fed me delicious hom-cooked Indian food, tried to teach me how to make chapatis and even took me to visit their grandmother! For a laugh on the morning of my departure, the ladies thought it would be fun to dress me up in one of their wedding sari's. The dress was absolutely gorgeous, though it weighed almost a ton! I can't imagine wearing one in the heat of India! As I said my goodbyes, the ladies completely humbled and rendered me speechless when they presented me with a stunning yellow sari as a gift...

Which I later wore to the Indian wedding Matt and I were invited to! I was super excited to attend this particular wedding because Indian weddings have always held some strange fascination over me. Perhaps it has to do with all the colorful saris or maybe it was all the intriguing rituals, I'm not sure but I had always wanted to attend an Indian wedding. As the wedding we attended was a Muslim wedding, women were not allowed to participate in the actual wedding itself. I spent most of my time at the house of the groom's with his family. So I didn't get to witness first-hand an Indian wedding (turns out that the weddings I was thinking about were Hindi weddings) but I did get to spend a few afternoons playing with some of the sweetest kids in India!

© Connie Hum 2011