Wedding, Cows, and Billiards, OH MY!

Since coming to India, my schedule has changes almost daily. I surprisingly returned to have spent the last 4 days back in Jodhpur where I have been hanging with my buddy Piyush and his friends. When I got into Jodhpur, Piyush said I was just in time because a family friend was getting married that night and I was going to be his guest. So I got to experience my first Indian wedding. This was pretty funny because I was the only foreigner there and everyone was staring at me. We ate a lot of food, I met a lot of Piyush's family and friends, and to top it off, I got to get on stage with the bride and groom to take photos. I was invited to the next three days of wedding ceremonies but I had had my fill.

Next I asked Piyush to take me to do something that normal tourist don't get to do and he said he has just the thing. I woke early to meet Piyush and four of his friends at 7am. We all hopped on motorcycles and left the old city. After about a 25 minute drive through villages on roads, we arrived at our destination. This place was the largest Cow Rehabilitation Center in Rajastan where they house over 2,000 cows and we were there to feed them. First we all got a tour of the facilities and got to see all the blind cows/bulls, the amputee's, the really sick cows that were getting operated on that day, and of course the rehabilitated cows. After the tour, we all hoped into the back of a tractors trailer and were pulled up a mountain passing all the stalls. As we drove by, we would throw the feed out into the flocking crowds of cattle. This was surprising a lot more fun than I expected. After the feeding we all went to a famous garden to walk around and enjoy some chai and snacks.

Another highlight from the past few days was playing pool today. They play a very different type of billiards here where the table is almost twice as big and there are 20 balls. 15 red's (1point), 1 yellow (3 points), 1 brown (4 points), 1 blue (5 points), 1 pink (6 points), and 1 black (7 points). In order to shoot one of the colored balls(any of the non-red), you need to sink a red first. The game was kinda tricky and I'm not even going to bother explaining the rest but it was a great time. I lost every game by one ball. These guys could shoot.

Tomorrow I buy some antiques, have a traditional home cooked meal from one of Piyush's friends, and then I head to Udaipur. Stay tuned.