Dear All

So after some days of no news, in which a lot has happened, a new update. The wedding is over and it was quite spectacular. Delhi was nice, but a big city (if there ever was one) and quite polluted (especially the air). This might have partially contributed to my catching a cold immediately after arriving (well, that and two nights without sleep and jetlag). So all sniffing and coughing I spent three days seeing the Delhi sights. I spent a lovely morning in Lodhi Gardens, a beautiful park, home to some15th century tombs and mosks. Then there was Delhi Haat, a market place with stalls from all the states of India, for some necessary shopping. We saw quaint Old Delhi with its little alleyways, Jain temples, mosks and little foodstalls. And the area around Moi's apartment was quite lovely too!

Then, still sooner than expected it was time to pack up and leave for the wedding, which resulted in a somewhat hastely written first blog entry, an overpriced autorikshawride with two people and too much luggage to the trainstation, an episode of ' musical chairs' to get most of our group seated in the same compartment and a long trainride that was spent playing Hearts while eating Pepernoten (Dutch traditional sweets for the Saint Nicolas fest).

When we finally arrived at Gaya station the Maqsudpur Wedding appeared to be more of a happening then expected. They had set up an 'arrival desk' at the trainstation and had people with signs patrolling the arriving trains. Following that, a fleet of SUV's drove us to a hotel in Bodhgaya, which was rented for us to change and rest for a bit. After eating, the same caravan drove us around Bodhgaya for some sightseeing and then on to the wedding site. Which left us speechless...

The Bride was the daughter of the local Raj, a sort of king or prince. They owned a huge estate on which an old fort stood, which was huge, but sadly destroyed in an 1936 earthquake. The ruins were quite impressive though. The new house was also quite grand, with a large colloned facade a huge enterance hall, numerous rooms, an enclosed garden and a small house temple. Further along the estate was a huge temple (I will add pictures) and right next to the house a beautiful tank, which is a sort of large swimmingpool the local village people use for bathing.

At the back of the house a encampment was set up consisting of over 50 tents each large enough to fit one of those SUV's in. Each tent had two beds and an (sit down for this) on-suite bathroom with running water and a flushing toilet...ok read that last sentence again. Over fifty tents with their bathrooms installed for three days of party...are we taking the scale of the event in yet? There is more.

There was a coctailbar basically serving drinks throughout the day (starting right before lunch). Breakfast, lunch and dinner consisted of elaborate buffets loaded with all sorts of indian dishes and we spent our days playing cards, checking out the area or looking in at the various rituals the bride had to go through or getting our feed painted... truly royal!

ok, more on this and the actual wedding in the next entry...hopefully tonight.

Very often people request that they would like to visit any Offbeat place.. Away from the tourist crowd and specially touts. I am too fond of such places.

I decided to visit a small place called "Bateshwarnath" near Kahalgaon, Bihar around 44 KMS from Bhagalpur the "silk city". Me and my brother-in-law decided to go there on Bike, as we knew we would need to travel through area's where we might not get good roads (Although to our surprise, the condition of rural roads where much better than National Highway(NH-80), thanks to pradhan mantri gramin rojgar yogana)..

Bateshwarnath is a place which just looks like a picture postcard.. River Ganges is in full flow and miles till you can see..

Now the surprising element, when we reached there..we could see some tunnels in the hills.. we inquired from the locals about them.. and came to know that they are mines which were used by British People to take stones for make porcelains, ceramic materials. I got more information on internet the company was bengal potteries..and the mining was done extensively during 1919-1936.

We were very eager to go inside and we took a decision.. but nobody knew how long are they and is there any danger inside.. Anyway I used my camera's flash to get some inside view ..We didn't dared to go beyond 50 Meters as it was pitch dark.

We came back and I took some photographs of nearby places and started for ruins of vikramshila, which is around 2 KMs from there.

Again its hard too believe but the ruins of vikramshila have been carefully maintained.. A very good and well maintained museum which tell you about the history of this place..

No wonder why the kings choose such beautiful places for universities. King Dharmapal established three university.. Vikramshila, Nalanda and one more is in Bangladesh..

Now the problem of such offbeat place is like no arrangements of food and water, Even no transportation..That's pretty sad..

If one needs to be at such lovely places, he would need to arrange all these before and don't expect anything from the such places then only he would be able to enjoy such places.

I have uploaded some pictures of my trip.. will be uploading more soon..