Palatial Adventures

On this past Sunday, we woke up somewhat early and headed to the AIESEC office to go on a tour of some attractions in Baroda. Our lovely tour guide, Bharat, who is an AIESEC’er, was very enthusiastic about everything we did that day. It was obvious that all he wanted was for us to have a good time. I went with Karan, Rachel, Peter (New Zealander), and Brina (Canadian) first to the Palace of Baroda, which is in the picture. The Palace was massive and impressively contrasted the chaos, clutter and apparent disfunctionality of India-general. It was one of the most expensive palaces of its time, and artists from all over Europe and India worked on it. It is very ornate on the inside (of course, no air conditioning even for the royalty) complete with big stuffed animal heads, paintings and weapons rooms. The area surrounding it is perhaps the only maintained lawn in all of Baroda, and it even has its own golf course (I want to play, but 115 degree golf probably doesn’t suit me).

After this we hopped back in the rickshaw, got some ice cream, then walked back to the AIESEC office through the garden of Baroda. This walk back was very interesting, but not for the reasons that you would think. It was home to one of the more concentrated areas of Indians that I’d seen in a while, and with that come the awkward stares at the white people. The strangeness of seeing every head in your peripheral vision turn and follow you wherever you go just cant be described. In unison, dozens of people would stop conversations and watch as 3 white people and 2 indians strolled down the pathway. At one point a group of boys even came up to us and started taking pictures with us, and a grown man came up and introduced his small ~4 year old daughter to us, and had us shake her hand… I don’t think I can get used to that sort of thing. When I come back to the states, I’ll probably think of myself as a celebrity. Rachel suggested that if anyone needs an ego boost back home, they should come to India and just walk around and see the stares they get.

On other notes, Karan and I moved from the AIESEC house we were staying at to one of his relatives houses here in Baroda. They have a very nice house but it’s a little crazy right now because there are relative visiting. This house is a little more difficult to function in because they speak English a little worse collectively, but it’s nothing a little miming and pointing can’t fix. Boy I cant wait until I can come back and articulately describe what it is I need without using my hands or horribly accented Gujarati.

Until next time!