Lucky mom

I wrote this yesterday in a moment of Mommy zen:

This morning I woke up at 7:05, and got Johnny out the door to school at 7:45. Then I had one hour to get Samuel and Evie ready for preschool and myself ready for yoga.

At 9 I dropped the kids at school, then I went and did an hour of yoga. The yoga instructor added several new poses today, so I came back home for a shower feeling tired but accomplished. I had just enough time to shower and change before heading back to the preschool to get Samuel, who I then took with me to the vegetable market.

After coming home from the market, I got Samuel a snack and about half an hour later left him with Joseph while I went back to the preschool to get Evie and pay Samuel's term fees. (Evie will be going to the American school kindergarten next term, but Sam will stay at Alphabet.)

Back at home I got lunch for Evie, Samuel and myself then got us all ready to meet friends at the pool. At the pool, I "caught" Samuel for about 45 minutes straight while he jumped into the pool then climbed back out to jump in again. For a good 20 minutes after that, I stood in the pool and threw Samuel up in the air and let him fall into the water ... over and over and over. My shoulders are killing me. Through all that time, I kept an eye on Evie, who was swimming and playing with her friend Ruben, and chatted with Ruben's mom (who was busy with her almost-three-year-old Rohan).

We came home and I put Samuel and Evie into the bath. While I was bathing them, Johnny got home from school and came into the bathroom to talk over his day. Then he went off to read and start homework. I was still in my wet swimsuit, so after getting Samuel and Evie dressed I turned them over to Joseph so I could take a shower.

Now Sam and Evie are watching Indian cartoons, Johnny's doing homework, and I'm typing this as we wait for John to get home from work so we can have dinner.

The two showers were the only alone times I had all day, but I found myself reflecting on how lucky I am. I get to be 100 percent Mom all day, every day. I don't have to carve out time for working or cooking or cleaning (except on weekends), so I spend all day caring for and playing with my kids. Who gets to do that? Yes. It's exhausting. Yes. I need breaks and grown-up time. Primary duties and running the household do add stress, as do weekends like this past one in which John has to work and I start feeling like I'm going nuts. But on the whole, I'm a very lucky mom.

Riding the rails

Our trusty Lonely Planet guide to India said there's a great little railway museum behind Mysore's train station, so we thought we'd check it out before heading out to the safari lodge. It was fantastic! It was an outdoor display of old Indian Railways trains and artifacts, clearly set up with children in mind. The kids could read about the train's history then climb all over it.

I'm happy to report that the kids' normally angelic behavior (ahem) had returned. In fact, they were great for the rest of the trip, with only a few minor incidents here and there. I feel like I have to redeem them in your eyes. I have wonderful children! Nearly perfect, in fact! (ahem ... moving on)

Railways in India are a big deal, the most popular form of long-distance transportation. It's the fourth largest rail network in the world, and there are 10 billion passengers every year. You can find out more about railways in India here or here. Here we are exploring some of the trains on display.

English is India's national language, but it's almost no one's native language. One of the first questions Indians ask each other when they meet is "What's your mother tongue?" This makes for some great signage.

The museum is the proud owner of train carriages that were used by the maharaja and maharani (maharaja's wife). Here we are peeking in at the splendor inside.

Unfortunately, Samuel fell head first down the stairs as we left this exhibit and sported a nice bump for several days. What's a little blood, though, when there are so many trains to explore? He was up and running around again in no time.

The rail museum is right behind the train station, so we could see trains coming and going as we explored. I really liked this 1925 Austin car that railway workers modified to run on the tracks. According to the info at the museum, the car still works! In fact, most of the trains and cars on display are still in working order.

We had to drag Samuel kicking and screaming from this place, and then it was off to Kabini!

Coming up: We drive through tiger territory in an open jeep! A monkey steals John's Coke! Stay tuned.









Easter egg-stravaganza

We have a third-grader in the house, so you know we're drowning in Easter egg puns.

"Mom. That hunt was eggs-cellent."
"Don't hunt by the electrical box, because you'll only find fried eggs."
... and so on.

We interrupt our most recent travelogue to bring you the Consulate Easter egg hunt! First a little background. We are a smallish post, but we have a lot of young families and a lot of kids, most under the age of 12. This is mostly a good thing, because the kids always have someone to play with and because Consulate activities are generally family friendly. If they aren't, no one will come.

It also means that things can get really crazy really quickly. I kind of feel sorry for the officers who aren't "kid people." (There are a few.)

One thing that adds to the craziness is that 95 percent of the kids are boys. That's an exaggeration. But it doesn't feel like an exaggeration. When it was my turn to host a spring break play date on Thursday we had 19 kids here, and only 3 of them were girls.

I love boys, of course, but some of you might be familiar with the rather obnoxious stage boys go through in the elementary school years. We have a whole gaggle of boys in this stage and they just love to "egg" each other on. Ha! I made a pun.

So, the Easter egg hunt was crazy but a lot of fun. We met for brunch at the consul general's residence, and then had the hunt, games and crafts. I was in charge of the craft table and didn't have John to help with the kids (thanks to a ship visit that's great for the U.S. and Indian navies and for outreach and all that but lousy for an Easter weekend/end of rant), but I still managed to snap a few photos. Here's Evie waiting for the hunt to begin.

We grouped the kids by age and had the youngest start first. This year I had one kid in each group, which was kind of fun. Here we are trying to get the 2-and-under group lined up. So cute!

And here they are searching for eggs while the older kids freak out on the sidelines. "There won't be any left!" Woe is us and all that.

Both of my boys have frequent Ferdinand moments. What are plastic eggs when there are so many flowers to smell?

Despite the older boys' fears, there were plenty of eggs for everyone. Here are Evie and Johnny with their loot.

When my friend Kirstin and I were stuffing the eggs in her nice, air-conditioned dining room last week, it didn't occur to us that it might not be a good idea to use jelly beans. India's monster ants, heat and humidity made some of the jelly beans inedible. Luckily, most of the eggs were stuffed with wrapped candy and stickers, and those survived the hour or two they were hidden. Plenty of sugar for all.

After the hunt there was more "brunching," a water balloon toss, sack races and crafts. A good time was had by all, but by about 11 a.m. it was 95 degrees (feels like 103, according to weather.com) and everyone was melting. Maybe we should start at 5 a.m. next year.

Now we're at home recovering and eating lots of candy. Yay, Easter!

Maharajas, silk and sandalwood

People are always asking me and John how we manage to take our kids to so many great places, and on this trip I think I finally figured out how we do it. We just expect that they’ll be able to handle things, and generally speaking, they do fine.

But sometimes they don’t, and that makes for a rotten day. Johnny and Evie made some kind of pact overnight in which they decided to make their parents' lives miserable during our first full day in Mysore. They whined and argued from the moment we pulled up in front of the Mysore Palace until the time we put them in bed that night. The ENTIRE day, folks.

It's a good thing we had such spectacular things to see and do. The demonic behavior would have driven me to an early bedtime back at home, but I couldn't let it spoil Mysore! The kids later admitted they had fun exploring the Mysore Palace, a silk factory and a sandalwood factory.

Here we are trying not to kill each other in front of the Mysore Palace (or here or here), seat of the maharajas since the 14th century. Johnny's posture describes his mood.

The palace now standing is only 100 years old, but historians say it's the fourth palace to occupy the site. The Kingdom of Mysore was established in the 14th century, and the same family retained control almost continuously right up to Indian independence in 1947. For the last century and a half of their rule, they were a princely state under British control. You can read more about the history here.

The palace is just spectacular. I don't know if I've ever seen any place so ornate. Every doorway is intricately carved, the tilework on floors, walls and ceilings is incredibly detailed. There are murals, paintings, thrones, doors made of silver, gold and ivory, golden howdahs, pillars, stained glass, mirrors everywhere. I don't know that I'd call the overall effect beautiful, though each detail is gorgeous. Am I making sense? It's as if someone thought of every way they could show wealth and opulence without giving much thought to how it would all go together.

We weren't allowed to take photos inside the palace, but here's a link to some photos of the interior. You can find a few more if you do a Google Images search for "Mysore Palace interior."

I've already said that the kids were not having a good day, but most of the arguing stopped during the palace tour. I think they were impressed in spite of their attitudes.

Samuel's favorite part was a display of toy cars owned by the young princes. He was under a rope and halfway into one before I knew what was up. Johnny loved the display of weaponry. They had everything from spears to pistols, and he especially liked some of the oddly shaped swords and daggers. He also liked a set of silver mirrors that were in a room with some of the royal furniture. John and Evie and I liked the octagonal marriage hall best, though the Durbar Hall overlooking the parade grounds runs a close second for me.

There were elephant and camel rides on the grounds, but the kids were content to watch from a distance. The gardens were beautiful, too, though I'm sure I would have enjoyed them more if the kids hadn't been driving me nuts.

Anyway, if you're ever in Mysore you don't want to miss the palace.

After lunch we headed to a silk factory. No photos allowed, sorry. It was awesome, though. We saw almost the entire process, from cocoon to silk sari: drying the silk strands (after the cocoons were soaked and processed out of view), spinning, twisting, warping the thread, then weaving the fabric, cutting and dyeing and drying. Evie stood mesmerized as they pressed a long roll of pink silk.

One of the coolest things we saw, though, was the creation of zari, which is silk thread covered with hammered gold. The workers were in a cage on the factory floor. We peeked through the bars to watch as they spun gold onto the thread. One of the workers came out and let us hold a spool of completed zari. It was really heavy. Johnny had this crazy gleam in his eye ... I was a little worried he was going to run off with the shiny stuff.

The factory tour was a little bit crazy. As this is India, there's no such thing as worrying about little things like safety. They basically just opened the door and said, "Here's the factory. Knock yourselves out." We wandered around among huge, noisy machines. A worker would occasionally come forward and show us what they were doing, but very few knew much English. The weaving room was deafening, but I was fascinated to see the mechanical looms since we'd so recently seen people working handlooms in Kanchipuram.

In every part of the factory there were little shrines to Hindu gods and pictures of the gods on the walls. Prayers for safety? for increased productivity? for strong silk sales?

Before leaving, we stopped at the factory shop, where John bought a couple of silk ties and Evie admired the purple sari behind her in this photo. (Notice the zari borders.) I didn't buy anything, because I can't wrap my mind around trying to care for a sari made of raw silk in this heat and with these children climbing all over me.

I have no idea what Evie thinks she's doing in this picture.

Johnny had us pose for this one.

After the silk factory, we headed down the road to a small factory that extracts oil from sandalwood. Sandalwood trees are slow growing, which makes them rare and therefore expensive. Again, no photos allowed inside. We wandered through piles of sandalwood while an enthusiastic tour guide explained the process of steam distillation. Sandalwood oil is used in Ayurvedic medicine, traditional Indian medicine that still has a huge following here and throughout the world.

The whole place smelled wonderful. Sandalwood paste is used in the Hindu temples and to mark people's foreheads, so it's probably the smell I associate most with India (as far as pleasant smells go, I mean). We bought a box of sandalwood incense sticks, so next time you visit ask me to light one for you.

Here we are in front of the factory with our guide.

Next we went to a tiny music store, where John found a cool djembe. We were tempted by a folk art museum, but by this time the kids were more than done, and, frankly, we were more than done with the kids, so we went back to the hotel for dinner and bed.

Coming up: Samuel faceplants at the Rail Museum! We track tigers! Stay tuned.

Seven hours to Mysore

Shortly after we arrived in Chennai, one of the officers who was leaving shared a list of her family's favorite trips in India. Near the top of the list was the Kabini River Lodge, a safari lodge about two hours outside of Mysore. The best time to view elephants is March and April. Perfect for Johnny's spring break! We've been excited about this trip for months, and it didn't disappoint.

Mysore is much smaller than Chennai and a little difficult to get to, since it has a small airport that is not currently served by any airlines. So we took a seven-hour train ride. Ack! It went surprisingly well, actually. Nothing at all like our last India train adventure. The worst part of the trip was our sprint through the famed Chennai Central (Gateway to the South) to catch the early-morning Shatabdi Express. A little miscalculation in driving time, and we nearly missed the train. I've dashed through airports before, but a crowded Indian train station is something else again.

Once we were aboard, though, it was a nice, relaxing journey through the South Indian countryside. There was no sleeper car, so we had tickets in first class AC (meaning air conditioned). It was like an airplane, but with a lot more room to maneuver and a lot more to see out the windows.

Evie took this photo. The guy standing in the aisle would come by with drinks or food every so often. I love the old ladies in the front! See, Mom. People do just walk around in saris all the time.

The kids did really well on the trip, though I don't know why anyone thinks it's a good idea to serve rice and dal or tomato soup on a moving train. Johnny devoured two Percy Jackson books, and Evie and Samuel colored, listened to stories and played with toys. If only trains were faster (and crossed oceans), I'd pick the rails over air travel any time.

We arrived in Mysore in the early afternoon and met our driver right outside the train station. Just the station was a good clue that Mysore is nothing like Chennai (well ... they're both in South India). The station was small, clean and NOT crowded. The city felt "small town." There were wide boulevards and lots of parks and trees. It felt like someone had actually sat down and planned a city. Chennai is big and bustling and sort of feels like a whole bunch of smaller cities got smushed together to make a metropolis. The population of the Chennai metro area is approaching 10 million. Mysore's population is less than a million, so its streets are cleaner and not nearly as congested as Chennai's. The language is different, too, so instead of Tamil lettering everywhere we saw Kannada.

Mysore is known for palaces, silk production and sandalwood. In fact, the hotel we stayed in was once a palace. As we were driving from the train station, I saw a beautiful building up on a hill and said, "Wow! What's that place?" John said, "I think that might be where we're staying." True! I couldn't believe it. Here's a view from the parking lot.

Samuel immediately fell in love with this carved elephant standing in the lobby.

In fact, Samuel's new favorite word is "elephant." He yelled it for the whole week. "El-e-phant! El-e-phant!"

The hotel was big and old and full of former splendor and rickety antiques. It was awesome. After we checked in, the kids did some chillin' on the big bed.

Our room reminded me a lot of the Chateau de Viques, this great old French villa we stayed in while in Normandy 8 years ago with John's family. (I highly recommend that place.) It had a similar sense of lived-in history to it. Our room in Mysore had old prints of tiger hunts on the walls.

Present-day Mysore really plays up its royal past. It was once the seat of the Kingdom of Mysore, which became a princely state under the British in 1799. They actually held off the British for quite a long time, through four Anglo-Mysore wars. The palace we stayed in is the Lalitha Mahal, which the Maharaja of Mysore had built to house important visitors (like the Viceroy of India). There was a wedding going on while we were there, so things were even more fancied up than usual, with a red carpet leading up to the door and a decorated entryway. I took this photo of the main entrance from our balcony.

We got to the hotel in the late afternoon, so we just spent the rest of the day swimming and relaxing. After we got the kids to bed, I did a little exploring.

This is looking back toward our room. We had a view of the Palace of Mysore, which is lit up at night, but our lousy camera couldn't get a good image.

Looking down the grand staircase

Life-size portrait of the Maharaja

Looking down to the main lobby

The part the kids liked best (aside from the pool) was the 100-year-old elevator. It has a seat inside!

The restaurant is a former ballroom.

Aside from the wedding guests, there weren't a whole lot of people around, because this is the off season for Mysore. The city gets most of its visitors during Dasara, which is a 10-day festival marking goddess Durga's defeat of the demon Mahishasura. Evie was mesmerized by a stone relief of that battle during our first visit to Mahabalipuram. Mahishasura was supposed to have ruled the area around Mysore before Durga defeated him.

The point is, there were very few guests at the Lalitha Palace. So few, in fact, that on our second morning they said they weren't going to have a breakfast buffet and let us order whatever we wanted from the regular menu. Yummy.

Coming soon: The children turn into demons! We tour the palace and two factories anyway! Stay tuned.

Monsters beware

Johnny dressed as his favorite character for a Spirit Week activity at school. Here he is, folks, armed and dangerous. Percy Jackson with his fearsome weapon, Riptide!

Yeah, the shirt's supposed to be orange. So sue me. There aren't that many plain orange T-shirts floating around Chennai.

Percy is Johnny's current literary obsession. I have no objections, since I'm a huge fan, too. Have you read Rick Riordan's newest series, Heroes of Olympus? Run out and buy them!

Kanchipuram

Warning: Long, nerdy post ahead.

Another Saturday, another day trip. Same old, same old. The thing is, when you live in India the "same old, same old" is awesome.

This week we went to Kanchipuram (or here), which is famous for its temples and its silk weaving. We spent the morning exploring three of the town's hundreds of temples, took a break for a great South Indian lunch, and then spent some quality time in a silk shop. I think we'll be going back. I think you're going to want to join us.

It took a little under two hours to get to Kanchipuram, mostly because we got lucky and didn't have a lot of traffic. The majority of the trip was spent getting out of Chennai, which is HUGE (coming up on 10 million people in the metro area).

My favorite sight on the way out of town was a big sign that said (in English and Tamil) "Long Live Classical Divine Tamil!" The people of Tamil Nadu are super proud of their history and make it a point of pride to remain a bit apart from the rest of the nation. Think Texas or Quebec. Don't even think of trying to get by on Hindi around here. The otherwise friendly people will not be impressed.

One cool thing about the Indian countryside: You can be driving along through nothing but brush and rice paddies when you'll suddenly see a massive monument stuck right smack in the middle of nowhere. This one is Shiva, whose vehicle is the bull.

When we got to Kanchipuram we found a bathroom (oh, my ...) and then started exploring. Kanchi was a capital of the Pallava empire (4th to 9th century) and was also important to the Chola and the Vijayanagar kings. It's been a center of Hindu spirituality for centuries, which is why it's peppered with so many temples. Some say there were once more than a thousand temples here. Being limited by time and children, we concentrated on three of them.

Our first stop was the Kamakshi Amman Temple. Here's the gopuram over the main gate.

Inside, we met this lovely temple elephant and her extremely grumpy keeper. 

Evie got a blessing from the elephant, which her keeper seemed to be OK with, but when our friend Cheryl (in the photo) approached the elephant the man started yelling at us and motioning us to move on. None of us could figure out what the problem was, and no one else seemed to be bothered by our presence. It was a little weird. I've noticed, though, that attitudes toward non-Hindus in the temples vary widely. While most people are happy to see us, as long as we're exploring respectfully, there are a few who would rather keep things to Hindus alone.

Some of the temples open the shrines and occasionally even the inner sanctum to visitors. Others keep the inner sanctum off limits but allow visitors into some of the lesser shrines. Many allow visitors to enter only the courtyard. I can understand wanting to keep sacred sites off limits. I'm not sure that was the keeper's issue with us, but it's a logical supposition.

The Kamakshi Amman Temple is famous for the gold overlay on some of its gopurams, like the one on the far right in this photo.

This temple has a wishing tree like the one in Mylapore. The wooden cradles are wishes for babies, and the stacks of stones are for houses or wealth. If you look closely at this photo (above and to the right of Johnny's head), you'll see that someone's tied an empty toilet paper roll to the tree. If anyone has a clue what this signifies, please enlighten me. The women in the purple saris to the left of the tree are likely part of a pilgrimage.

Here's a shot of me and the kids with our frequent partners in exploration: Suyash, Cheryl and Janna. Janna's friend/stalker (I mean that in a nice way -- sort of) Benjamin and one of his friends "ran into us" at one of the temples and joined us for the rest of the day. It's OK. We like him. You'll notice in this photo that I'm trying to hold both Evie and Samuel. This is because you have to remove your shoes to enter the temple complex, and those stones are HOT. If you don't keep moving, it really starts to hurt.

Our second stop was the Sri Ekambaranathar Temple, which I found especially fascinating. It's one of five Shiva temples that represent an element -- earth in this case. The lingam at the heart of the temple (we weren't allowed into the inner sanctum) is made of sand. There are ancient carved stone pillars throughout the huge complex.

Here and there were alcoves or rooms housing shrines or stone carvings. It reminded me a little of old Catholic cathedrals, where alcoves around the nave house relics. Speaking of relics, this temple is famous for its holy mango tree. Here's a photo of wood from a mango tree that's supposedly 3,500 years old.

As I said, the Sri Ekambaranathar Temple is huge. We spent a lot of time wandering corridors like this one.

There were painted kolams down some of the corridors, and one corridor had a series of painted wooden animals and deities. The shrine you can just see at the end of this hall was open to visitors, and I was interested to see that the inside of the shrine had mirrors around the walls to symbolize eternity.

There's also a living holy mango tree. Here it is on the right with its own little gopuram and a pathway so that people can circle it (clockwise, of course).

You're supposed to pass around temples and shrines clockwise so that the right side of your body, what's considered the clean side, is always facing the sacred object. Counterclockwise movement is a no-no at both Hindu and Buddhist shrines.

You're probably wondering what makes this mango tree holy. The story is that Parvati came to the tree and worshipped Shiva in the form of a lingam made of sand. She embraced the lingam to protect it from a rising river, which pleased the god so much that he married her. This is only one of several stories about her marriage to Shiva, though, so I don't entirely understand how it all fits together.

I found this sign near the tree kind of amusing.

And here's a picture of my boys not plucking the leaves of the holy mango tree. Believe me, the priest had his eye on them.

The tree attracts a lot of pilgrims, many of whom tie wishes at the entrance to the shrine.

One of the pillared halls was lined with lingams, which are symbols of Shiva. You can read more about lingams here, but easy blushers should be warned that a popular interpretation is that the lingam is a phallic symbol.

Samuel met a new friend outside one of the shrines, and this naturally called for a photo shoot. Notice that the wall behind us is covered with swastikas. One thing that was hard for me to get used to here is the prominence of this symbol. It's an ancient and important symbol in Hinduism (you can read about it here and here), but the fact that the Nazis hijacked it has given it bad connotations that I just can't seem to shake. You run into it everywhere you turn, though. It's in temples and kolams and on jewelry and people's foreheads.

All of the temples we visited had huge gates like these ones. Check out the stone doorstop.

The last temple we visited was the Kailasanatha Temple, which dates to around the same time as the Shore Temple in Mahabalipuram. It was built by the Pallavas in the 7th century and is the oldest temple in Kanchipuram. I was really impressed with how well it's being preserved.

We had just wandered around two huge temples, so this one felt more intimate. The kids really enjoyed exploring the lion pillars that form little alcoves around the temple courtyard. Samuel would roar at one of the lions then ask to be lifted up into one of the tiny rooms behind the pillars. He did this again and again and again ... He's 2, you know.

The temple was painted at some point in its long history, and you can see bits of color in the carvings and especially in the more protected alcoves.

John was thrilled to find some examples of ancient script.

The temple is still in use, and the priest in the inner sanctum didn't seem too keen on us entering, even though the guide outside had said it was OK. We didn't argue and stepped back outside. I could really feel the "ancientness" of this place. The Lonely Planet guide says this temple is impressive for its "weight of historical significance." I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it seems a good description of the general feel of the place. The only drawback was that we were there at midday and the stones were almost unbearably hot. Notice in this photo that everyone is trying to stand in the narrow shadow along the outer courtyard. We sprinted over the sunny spots. It was insanely hot on the feet. Next time I might bring socks and see if that helps.

All of the temples in Kanchipuram close from 12:30 to 4 p.m., so this one had to be our last temple stop. It's probably a good thing, though, because I think the kids might have died if we'd marched them around another one. Actually, they were remarkably good on this trip ... minimal whining, lots of interest shown in the sites, no illness. It was a nice trip.

We had lunch at Saravana Bhavan (South Indian for "yummy") and then stopped at one of the thousands of silk shops in town. Our all-knowing driver, Ashok, took us to Sree Swamy Silk House, because it's government approved (so we're less likely to be fleeced) and because that's where he's taken everyone else he's ever driven to Kanchipuram. We need no other reason.

The shop was a really interesting stop. The business has been in the owner's family for four generations, and he's preparing his son (who's studying at top fashion houses in Italy) to be the fifth-generation owner.

He took us behind the store front to see a sari being woven on one of his hand looms. The complexity of the setup was just astounding.

Kanchipuram silk saris are famous for their durability, because each thread is actually three strands of mulberry silk. They also almost always contain zari, which is silk thread wrapped with real gold or silver. The sari you can see on the loom has wide borders woven with zari.

I can't imagine threading this loom. The owner told us it takes several days to set up the loom for even a simple sari, and then it takes several weeks to weave it. Saris in some of their more complex designs take four months to complete.

The weavers use these hand-punched cards to "program" the sari design into the loom. The more complex the design, the more cards are used.

There was an old winding wheel sitting under the loom. It's used to wind the silk thread onto big bobbins.

We watched a weaver working the loom. You can see in these pictures that the sari is a simple one, with all of the zari decoration in the gold borders. I'd love to see the loom set up for one of the more ornate designs.

The shuttle

The kids were really fascinated by the weaving, especially Evie. I wouldn't be surprised to see her go into the arts when she grows up. She loves beautiful things, sounds and colors, and she seems interested in how they're produced. We had to drag her away from the loom.

After learning about silk weaving, we spent quite a lot of time in the shop, where prices ranged from 1,000 rupees (about $20) all the way to 80,000 and more. The owner told us that the less expensive saris are still handmade on the looms, but they're made from lower quality silk and from false zari (meaning that the threads are covered in plastic rather than actual gold and silver). His lower quality saris went from 1,000 to 4,000 rupees, and his higher quality (better silk, real zari) started in the 5,000 rupee range. (Mom and Kathy: Prices are for your planning purposes ...) Janna, Cheryl and I looked at a lot of saris, but didn't buy any this time. John and I did buy a gorgeous table runner, though. It's made of green silk with gold zari, and it has a pattern of elephants down the middle.

There was a group of women in the shop sitting on the floor mats and looking at saris for a wedding. In a traditional Indian wedding, the bride's family buys new saris for female family members of both the bride and the groom (extended family members!). The bride's sari will be incredibly ornate. Ashok spent over 30,000 rupees for his daughter's sari. I love watching the buying process. Shopkeepers usually show saris by unfolding them onto a long counter or floor mat. This is quite the operation, since a sari is 6 meters long. Shoppers end up with an enormous pile of fabric in front of them, and if you decide you're not interested in one of the saris, the shopkeeper will toss it aside to be folded later.

The group we saw on Saturday already had a huge pile of saris cast aside. Just as we were about to leave the shop, the salesman tossed another sari onto the heap. It was one of those slow-motion moments ... The most beautiful sari I've ever seen, the fabric blown slightly by air from the ceiling fans, slowly settled at the top of a mountain of fabric ... OK, you get the idea.

Janna and I picked up the sari and searched in vain for a price tag. Bad sign, but I had to know. The fabric felt as gorgeous as it looked. It was a deep shade of red woven into a design with a slightly lighter shade. There was zari woven throughout, but it wasn't at all gaudy. I was imagining myself wearing this to a Marine Ball or some other fancy event. I was calculating in my mind how much I'd be willing to pay ... 20,000? Would I even go to 30,000, as much as I paid for my own wedding dress?

Well, it cost 65,000 rupees. That's right. $1,300. And I didn't buy it, of course, even though the owner told me he would hand over certification for the amount of gold in the sari. It would be an investment, he said. Sigh.

Despite the lost sari, Kanchipuram made a great little day trip. We even got home in time for dinner.