Cow dung

Well i had been waiting a long time to see a donkey/cow/buffalo do a poo live in front of me. And 4 weeks after i arrive at the village, with only 3 days to go before i leave, i was blessed.

I was sitting outside a relatives house... chatting to them... a cow approaches slowly... slow probably because it is full of about 30 kg's of shit... stops... about 15 feet in front of us... with arse pretty much towards us... tail lifts up... and a big pile of shit comes out of its arse. proper gross! So i took a photo of it, as a souvenir, and sat down, the end.

Or so i thought... because a minute later a woman comes out of the nearest house with a spade type thing and a tile or something. She scoops it up and legs it back inside her house. WTF. For fuel? I thought they don't do that no more. But that's what happened.

Hot, fresh from the oven, cow dung. Shame I just missed the Cow. You like the splatter marks? :)

A minute later this lady comes out, scoops it up and takes it home!

The other day we went out for a picnic to Hill Gardens. A teeny little park/theme park. It was pretty decent, for Gujarat. They had boat rides where u paddle with ur feet. The lake thing was damn small tho. You just kept going around in a small circle. They had bumper cars, but only 2 cars and a tiny area to drive in... again, just go around in a small circle. A puppet show which was pretty poor, it was just some puppets doing Indian dancing. Same thing over n over again. The big wheel was the best thing. Fairly big, and gave that butterflies in ur stomach feeling, to let u know u got ur moneys worth.


I had my astrology reading done by a priest last week, and he said a special religious ceremony has to be done on me at the temple to kind of reduce the bad stuff in my astrology results. Interesting. It was so long, 3 hours! My back was killing sitting there cross legged. I did get a long break in between tho. Earlier i was told by my aunt that if you need to go loo in the middle of it, your clothes cannot touch the loo, and u have to wash your feet afterwards before resuming the ceremony. So you have to either take a dump/wee stark naked, or do it clothed, but change ur clothes after. WHAT!

I did need the loo, so during my break i trekked home as its near (and i don't like using public loo's here as they may not have loo roll and it might have piss on the floor) and did opted for the naked poo rather than changing my clothes, and washed my feet.

At the end i was given this small stone/gem (i dunno what it is) that was a part of the ceremony, and i have to wear it either on a ring or necklace. I don't like rings so i'm gonna have it put on my necklace in a locket.


Whenever we drive to other villages, we go through a long stretch of nothingess, just forests, flat land, things like that. But i notice you sometimes see a cluster of like 3 or 4 little tents in the middle of nowhere. It got me thinking. These ppl could be living there with absolutely no need for fuel, electricity or even money. Completely isolated from the rest of the world. They grow their own food on the patch of land nearby. They may have a cow or 2 for milk. They probably walk to a nearby lake for water or to bathe. They burn wood or dried cowpat to use as fuel. What else do you you need to survive?