There is such a different relationship to shoes here in India than we are used to. It is not uncommon to see people walking down the busy street barefoot, wearing nice clothes, and talking on a cell phone. Also the waitors often are barefoot. And of course we take our shoes off before entering the instite, any house, most stores, and of course the temples and other places of note. Piles of shoes are everywhere.
While in Mysore, we visited a very famous palace. Before going into the palace you must turn in your shoes. For a place this big there is actually a shoe booth. It is very reminiscent of turning in your shoes at a roller rink or bowling alley. Except you do not get skates or bowling shoes in return. Then everyone walks around the palace and the inner grounds barefoot. It is kind of nice. Especially in the palace - there was something very intimate about walkign around this huge, ornate, beautiful palace barefoot. The one thing that can be a little harder to get used to is that there are often cows and in this case elephants and camels in the grounds. Which means there are piles of animal dung everywhere, and yes we are walking barefoot. But everyone is doing it so it seems normal. And every day our feet seem the dirtiest possible even with shoes on, so dung seems like nothing.
Oh and yes i have a toilet update! While in Mysore i used my first squat toilet. It was at the bus station when we arrived, which is unfortunate because as you can imagine the toilets are not the most pleasant. And i had an indian woman trying to push me out of the bathroom because she thought I should go in the mens. She didnt know how bad i had to pee! And since then, it's like i broke the seal. Because now ive used a million squat toilets. They are actually quite logical. what do you need the seat for when there's no way youre going to sit on it anyway?
