It's taken me a while to get there but I have finally managed a trip to City Market with Alison (my new friend from America) and my Mum. It is an hour plus drive to get there, but I am already planning to send my maid and driver to buy fruit, vegetables and flowers on a semi-regular basis. What a great place.
We decided to pop to the toilet before we entered the market, so thought the local hospital might be a good place. We managed to find a food court (albeit an Indian Food Court !!) with a 'bathroom'.
The reason bathroom is in quotes is because it was really just a hole in the floor and the room seconded as the gas storage and larder for the food court…. sanitary, I think not !
The entry to the market is actually the garbage dump, and I saw my first actual garbage truck since leaving Sydney. The smell was intense……. so we quickly moved on.
Inside, and the first area was fruit and vegetables - the quality was excellent in comparison to the local supermarket and the sight of fresh strawberries was nearly too much too bare. Roaming through and seeing all the haggling going on and the loads of stock coming and going was wonderful.
Moving inside, is the beautiful flower market. I would say 98 percent of the flowers are for pujas and weddings - all garlands and strings of the most gorgeous flowers. The colours and smells were amazing. Any and all types of flowers in all the colours of the rainbow.
Upstairs is the Indian equivalent of Bunnings !! However, the majority of the tools and hardware were secondhand - and most of them were rusty. I cannot wait to go back and wander through and pick up a few things …… it was such fun.
Venturing back outside and we found the spices and chilly aisle - yet another assault on the senses. After we finished shopping, we got Raju (Alison's driver) to grab a tuk-tuk for us. We were trying to negotiate a fare to take the 4 of us back to the car. It was such a shock that no one would take us, as we have seen up to 14 people in a tuk-tuk over the months we have been here. So it was bizarre to be turned down. However, Raju managed to find us one but we were then pulled aside by the traffic police for having too many people !! hilarious. Raju and the driver 'made it disappear' and we were on our way. The joys of India.
I hope my Mum enjoyed it as much as I did - and thanks to Alison and her driver Raju for indulging us.
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| The entry - lucky there is no smelling on the blog |
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| Lemons everywhere |
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| The vegetables |
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The man sharpening knives and scissors with a
bike wheel and stone. |
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| The flowers |
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| The roses were amazing |
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| The paint pigments are so beautiful |
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| The flower market from above |
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| Some of the 'tools' |
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| SPICES !!!! |
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| Some of the hard workers |
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| Chillies !! |
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| Such patience and beauty |
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| Ginger anyone ? |
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| More Vegies |
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| Tomatoes |
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| More paint pigments |
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| From move |
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The ladies cannot even see where they are
going with the bags of flowers on their head. |
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| Sugar Cane |
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| More Tools |
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| Tomatoes |
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| More spices |
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| The ladies in the tuk-tuk |
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