Ujjain and Surrounding Experiences

After an overnight train ride from Agra to Ujjain, we took breakfast in a dirty place, then found a taxi to the address where we were staying and the wedding was to take place. Ujjain is a religiously important place in India. This is where I could copy and paste several paragraphs of why, but I assume that all of you in the US who are sitting on your couch would simply skip over it. There are a wide variety temples, mosques, and holy places intermingled throughout the city. One interesting point to note about this areas was that, because of the constant warring and destruction that occurred in history, many of the temples moved underground. We visited a temple in which looked nice from the ground up, but as we negotiated the stairs downward, we realized that the real beauty was safely excavated several floors below ground. Another strategy was to build phony replica temples so that the enemy would topple these instead of the real ones.

The temple that we stayed at and the wedding occurred was very new. I think it had been built in 2006. It consisted of a very large temple, a building in which religious officials and devotees would live, and a nicely furnished guesthouse. The grounds were well kept and beautiful. My cousin is part of the Hare Krishna movement. From an outsider's view, it may be considered a sect of Hinduism, but when laid out side-by-side, it is really a unique religion. www.krishna.com/

I think that because of the vast amount of religious connections, Ujjain has always remained a relatively wealthy place. In addition, it has evolved into a home town for many that make up the upper echelon of society. Just across the temple there were several street packed with enormous mansions.

When I say enormous, I mean 10 bedroom, 5 bath, and 5 car garage type mansions. It was like nothing we had seen while in India (or Thailand). The whole place was rather peculiar.


It was really great to see my aunt and uncle and cousins. They live in North Carolina which make seeing them quite difficult. I don't think I had seen my aunt since the days of bowl-cut hair styles and loop, swoop, and pull lessons. Seeing my family in such a strange place is hard to describe. Its different than all the exciting and surprising sites and experiences of traveling. Because with traveling, all that is sensed is grouped in a tidy little (or very big) mental folder labeled "the 5 senses of India". It is easy to accept outrageous things when very few things are stable and predictable.

But what really makes me stop and take a deep breath and blink a few time in order to accept as reality is to click and drag into that folder an image, hand shake, and hug from my family; the family that, for my entire life, I've seen exclusively and my cottage or Grandma's house!

The Wedding. Hmm. Maybe its better if Megan writes this one... After all, I'm a guy and will probably skip all the good details that you women want to hear!


Corey