India oh India

It is a nose pickin', honker spitting ,flip flopp'in,human poop'n,dirty,filthy,stinking country. And it is fascinating. It's kind of like road kill, or a train wreck. But friendly. Somewhat like the cat lady's house but big, very big. It is busier than the cat lady's house, less bloody than a train wreck, about as stinky as road kill, but more interesting. It is... hard to describe. The first city Sherry and I made it to was Madari. As Sherry said it was a village that woke up one morning to find it was a bustling city but had no infrastructure. It was crazy there. Crazy. Cows were milked on the streets, tailors squatted on sidewalks working hand powered machines, chickens nested in corners and trash piled up everywhere. It was so noisy you could not hold a conversation while walking. The smell was offensive, the food was fantastic and the pollution stuck to your teeth. There were beggars and temples and beggars in temples. There were dogs running amuck and people so thick you couldn't see the shops. The shops were spilling out onto the streets and the streets were spilling into the shops. There were no sidewalks. Buses only "stopped" to pick up older passengers. The young had to do the hobo grab to get on or run to ease the jolt as they jumped off. Chaos was the rule rather than the exception. Muslum prayers woke you at five and the clock tower chimed rhymes all night long. Bad versions of nursurey rhymes. Horns honked, people in your hotel halls talked, roosters crowed, dogs barked, doors slammed and tuk tuk's roared; day and night. Cows walked down the middle of the street with cars passing them on both sides. Cows "went to market" pushing people out of their way as they moved down the aisle ways. It truly appeared that they were shopping. There were dumpster diving cows and trash pile cows. There were cows that would follow you into shops, and cows that would lie on the sidewalk and chew their cud. Who knew whose cows these were. How they got water or something other than trash to eat. They were, however, part of the population and society for that matter. And of course with cows come cow patties. Just another addition. Welcome to India.