World record in chanting anyone?

I can’t believe how time flies and that we’ve been here for 4 days already.

Yesterday we went for some sightseeing in Jamnagar which started with a riksha-ride I thought would be my last… We are getting more and more adventurous as the days go by and thought it would be a good idea to go for one of the bigger riksha’s (officially licensed for 5 people, but that doesn’t seem to deter any self-respecting driver from trying to fit 9 people in; 2 in the front, 4 in the middle and 3 at the back…). I drew the “lucky straw” and ended up at the back on a tiny wood bench, seeing not only the road but also my life so far passing by… The trip took about 20mins and I think I must have been a cat in a previous life, as I certainly felt like I died at least 6 times during the ride…

Miraculously we all survived though and reached our destination, Lakhota lake. Our tour started off by visiting the Bala Hanuman temple which has managed to get into the Guinness Book of records for the longest continuous chanting of “Ram Dhun”. Apparently, the chanting has been going on for 49 years and I’ve managed to capture about 10 seconds of this momentous event here.

It was very interesting to see how the current singer was supported by ca. 5 back-up singers (“in case he dies” – no joke!)

We then went to see Lakhota fort, which is in the middle of the lake and once belonged to the Maharaja of Nawanagar.

 

Apologies to those of you who may want to visit Jamnagar at some point – but there is actually not a lot to see in the Fort…. I quite liked the little statues though, similar to the one below.

 After we ticked “culture”, we decided we needed some retail therapy and headed to one of the two local supermarkets and stocked up on some essentials. Supermarkets here are fun; very crowded and not very structured (or the structure is too complicated for me to understand). But you can get everything there and we were very pleased to find chocolates, juice, coke, muesli, crisps etc. (but sadly for Gica, no meat… :-(

Today was all about meeting our new project partners

and we had a great day. The projects sound even more exciting now and we can’t wait to get started. We’ll be going to the client site tomorrow for the first time, visit local schools on Wednesdat and on Thursday get to take part in the township celebrations for the National Independence day. So a lot to look forward to and I’ll keep you posted!

Also, there’s a correction I need to make to the last blog – it was not the Eagle but the cookaboro that landed! Hello Irish Water  & SSE teams: You'll be pleased to know that so far no one has attempted to kidnap the bird! Btw - he’s still traumatised by what you did to him (and has frequently requested counselling... :-)

P.S.: Some people are telling me that there is a problem with posting comments on my blog entries – I’ll try to fix this and given that I’m surrounded by real IT SMEs, chances are good that we will get this to work. Until then, please be patient and I do look forward to hearing from you!