Saturday is our day off school and so Dean, Lilian and I took an autorickshaw into the city centre centre to what is known as MG Road. (nothing to do with the sports car. MG stands for Mahatma Gandhi.)
Dean loves riding in rickshaws just for the adrenalin rush! They are crazy drivers. We stopped at a large emporium in which there were all sorts of locally produced handicrafts and carvings. Some amazing stuff! Being India of course shopping has to be a bit complicated so having made your purchases the sales girl takes them back off you and gives you a receipt in duplicate for each item you've bought. You then go downstairs and join a queue at a hatch where you hand one copy of the receipt to the guy there and pay him. You then join another queue at another hatch across the hallway and hand the other copy of the receipt to a guy there. His job is to put your goods in a bag and hand it to you. But of course your goods haven't arrived from upstairs yet, so you have to wait! These are the same goods you had in your hand twenty minutes ago! Eventually they arrive. You get your stuff and the transaction is completed.
We went for a snack and then on our way to a bookshop we bumped into the four Americans who were also staying with us at Prem and Rita's house and working in the school (what are the chances in a city of 7 million people!). Really impressed with the bookshop, like Waterstones except that the books are very cheap.

Eventually made our way home.

Went out and lay down in the park and read for a while.

We all went out for a meal that night to a beautiful Indian restaurant. Although you can't see it in the photograph, the cucumber in the centre of this dish has a candle glowing inside it like a little nightlite!Incidentally the bill for 9 of us was probably about £20! Can't get over these prices, and I'm putting on weight!