Jan. 13 - Uttratayan / Kite festival

Jan. 13 - Uttratayan / Kite festival
Okay, where was I...oh yes, the kite festival. I'm going to keep it short and sweet since I have to hit the sack soon. I need to insert some comments now that I forgot to mention before.
#1 -On arrival to the airport in Mumbai the plane captain annouces that we have been quarantined and that the cabin air has to be sterilized as per the world health organization. What the bleep? So we were told to cover our noses and eyes and the stewardesses walked down the aisles spraying something aerosol into the air. I guess that cleaned us up cause then we got off. Strange. I guess it was routine, but the flight from Mumbai to Hong Kong didn't do that....
#2 - When Michael's co worker arrived they told us funny stories of their travels - at a pit stop some man from India asked to take a photo of his coworker. I guess either they'd never seen an Chinese guy before or they thought he was Jackie Chan. We of course teased him endlessly about this during our meals together.
- now to the Kite story. I guess it's a government sponsored holiday that's been happening for over a hundred years. Everybody participates. We went to Ahbiskeks' home and met his family and some co-workers. We flew kites on their roof - although that's a bit of an overstatement since all we did was crash their kites. They were pretty skilled at wrapping their kite strings around another kite and snapping the opponent out of the sky! The sky was covered in kites of all colors! It was beautiful! The buildings were so close that you could battle your kite with someone blocks away. There was music from people's houses and it was a pretty festive atmosphere all around the city. The kite fighting went on until sunset.
We had a traditional Gugarati lunch and then tried our hand at Cricket. Yes. I did hit the ball. Nobody believes me for some reason?? lol This country is completely obsesses with Cricket. It's all we ever see on the news. Such drama from the teams right now. If you're interested, you can google the cricket news online for details.
We didn't expect this - at sunset there were fireworks shot all around the city. Us lame westerners at first thought that there were bombs being shot! lol! Not everything on CNN happens all the time I suppose =)
The fireworks went all night and some were left over for the next night. Luckily most buildings are made of concrete. I have so much more that I want to describe. I want to talk about the taste, smell and texture of everything but just so you can experience it through my eyes....but - I think you may get bored AND I have to get up early tomorrow...so I'll just leave it at that. Spending time in Ahbiskeks's home was a wonderful and perfect way to get a taste of life in India - it beat's a tacky westerner tour around India any day!