Thursday

This was an extremely long day for our group, with much included throughout the day. To begin, it is extremely hot here – high temperatures reaching 95+ degrees with high humidity. This is uncommon for this time of the year here; normally after the monsoon season, the temps cool down. Not so for our group! We woke up at 6:00 am, and after a hearty breakfast with our hosts, we arrived at the Swaminarayan Temple. From there, our group took a walking tour of the old city of Ahmedabad, highlighting the various styles of architecture. The city was founded in 1411, so there’s been a lot of styles of architecture over its lifetime! The tour was interesting, not so much because of the buildings, but because we were in the midst of the people. The city is incredibly crowded, with dogs, cows, and other animals wandering freely among the people. And then there is the traffic – absolute chaos. Cars, motorcycles, scooters, richshaws (three-wheeled taxis), bicycles – all on the street together, and all honking their horns! It can become a bit overwhelming for the outsider like us, but clearly there is some form of order to this chaos. And we certainly feel like we took our lives in our own hands anytime we sought to cross a street. But this tour was exhausting: by the time we reached the end of two-and-a-half hours, I was soaked with sweat and could not take in anymore “culture!” Thankfully, at lunch we had a chance to rest and cool down for a few hours, and we all slept hard again. We had lunch at the BAPS guest house and facility – this is another group of the Swaminarayan sect here in Ahmedabad, and I will go into their differences later (they are different than the temple our host families belong to). We appreciated the chance to rest and cool down, and then we took a tour of the BAPS facility, and had the opportunity to visit with the sadhus, the spiritual leaders/priests of this order. That was fascinating. After our visit at BAPS, we went to a traditional Gujarati restaurant, where we were served a meal on banana leaves and traditional food. It was a late evening, but a good one, and we are grateful for our gracious hosts and the work of Dr. Williams in making all of these arrangements.