Ahmedabad

We have spent the last two days exploring the largest city in the state of Gujarat, Ahmedabad. It is where Gandhi lived from 1915-1930 and from where he began the long struggle for Indian independence. We visited his ashram yesterday and saw several exhibits on his life and his simple living quarters that he shared with his wife Kasturba. We also had a great Gujarati thali yesterday for lunch- they are lighter and sweeter than your traditional Punbjabi thali.
We are coincidentally in town for the international kite festival. In the spirit, kids all over the city are flying their paper kites in the sky. We stopped by the event and, after a great pav bajie (grilled bread with spicy vegetables), watched as kitists from all over the world flew their huge colorful kites. While there is not too much to see outside of the ashram, we have met many nice people (this place does not get a lot of tourists), been invited to several homes and saw our second Bollywood movie. The great thing about these movies is that even though we can only understand about 5% of Hindi, the plots are so visual and unsubtle that we understand 100% of the story. We especially like the 3-4 music and dance numbers interspersed throughout the story- very entertaining!
We today will take a night train to Jodhpur after we have dinner at Ahmedabad's best restaurant- it's in a 1920's mansion and the menu changes daily!!!

Ahmedabad