Ok,when we saw the full size. upholstered swing in our (upgraded) hotel room we did raise our eyebrows. However, as you can see from the photo above, such swings are standard in Gujarati homes, even at a low housing level. Family members sit there, swinging backwards and forwards holding a cup of chai with unconscious ease.
On the way to Ahmedebad,we stopped off at the 11th century Modhera Sun temple, which included some, ahem, interesting carvings. Now, they could really swing !
On a different note on one of our two heritage walking tours of the old city Nic saw (women not being allowed in) Sidi Saiyad's mosque with beautiful carved stone jalis (screens).The pictured Tree of Life was one of a pair until Queen Victoria took a fancy to them and removed one which remains in the British Musuem to this day.
We had our most stressful train moment to date when leaving Ahmedabad for Junagadh. We were beginning to think we were old hands until when the train was due they switched the train arrival platform three times times which left us running between platforms, before they actually removed the train off the board completely so that we thought we had missed it altogether. It was not until we them went to the "Superintendent's" office that we were cheerfully told that the train had not yet arrived! No further information ever appeared on the board regarding it,which may explain why it was almost empty.To reduce our stress levels in the ensuing 7 hour rail journey we watched an episode of Downton Abbey. Quite surreal!
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