Baroda

Feb 20-21
I had been wanting to go to Baroda for awhile now, and Haider needed to go to get his friend's diploma from the university there, so we took the bus on Sat. morning. It only takes two hours to get there, and the bus ticket cost just a little over a dollar.

Baroda was formerly ruled by a Maharaja, and this Maharaja really valued education, so to this day they have a really good, big university there - part of which is housed in the Maharaja's old palace (this is the building with the big dome). We had to go to the office because Haider's Iraqi friend recently graduated from this school but had to return to Iraq and asked Haider to get his diploma for him. Now this will give you an idea of how India is - why can't they mail him his certificate, I don't know, that is a good question. Haider has gone to Baroda to try and get this certificate at least five times now, and each time they tell something different why he can't get it. This time they said they will only give them out on Tues. When Haider said he has come all the way from Ahmedabad a number of times, the clerk said, "That's not my problem." We then tried to find someone higher up to help us - we filled out a form to go in to see the Vice Chancellor and only after waiting 30 minutes did we find out that the V-C was not even there. Such is India.

After that we went to Sayaji Park and met an Iraqi friend of Haider's there. It's a nice, big, well-maintained park and there was even a little tiny train you could ride on. We went in the big museum in the park which was pretty nice, lots of old Indian stone carvings and art the royal Gaekwad family had owned. One of the coolest things was a real, blue whale skeleton. You could have lived in its stomach and stood upright.

The city is known as Gujarat's cultural capital and it did seem more cosmopolitan and a lot more western. We found an ice cream parlor in the vein of Coldstone back home, so that was exciting for me! And Haider was right, the pizza hut in Baroda is much better than the one in Ahmedabad. Even the Pepsi was extra syrupy, and we got an actual real, lettuce salad! And pasta without lots of spices, and a good pizza. Let me tell, you that was exciting.

The next day we went to the Lakshmi Villas Palace where the royal family used to live. It was really nice with lots of mosaic and tile work, a fountain, old paintings. We weren't supposed to take pictures inside...but Haider was like a little boy in the weapon room and tried to persuade the guard to let us take just one photo. So instead I took one from the corner where he couldn't see..so excuse the quality...So yes some of these pictures are illegal :P