The daily life of the average Indian cow in say, Ahmedabad, India, involves a daily commute from the countryside into urban neighborhoods. For most of India, trash service involves walking out the front door and dumping biodegradable refuse directly into the street. Wandering cows devour this discarded waste moving from door to door throughout the day. Villagers, gypsies or industrious city dwellers scavenge the same streets collecting cow droppings for later use, which we'll discuss later in this article. In the evening, the cows leave the city returning to villages where self-appointed herds people care for the animals and harvest their milk. Villagers follow the cows back to the city the next morning selling dairy products for human consumption and for use in religious ceremony. It's a pretty amazing system that eliminates garbage, removes cow waste and harvests milk, a system that evolved over the millennium and continues today.

So what do they do with the cow droppings? What don't they do with the droppings. One of the most curious features spotted in rural India is the numerous highly decorated Dung Houses. The cow droppings are stacked into geometric piles, usually round and topped with a grass roof to protect the piles from rain and sun. The sides are smoothed with water to create a hard shell of a wall and almost always decorated with designs made directly into the dung. Some are quite artistic. From these piles the product is sold primarily for use as fuel. But it can also be used as a building material. A family house we visited had a third floor finished with a smoothed dried carpet of dung. It was soft and cool and hard enough to mop and odorless. Some houses, like the dung storage houses are also finished with dung. More familiar to westerners, it's also used as a fertilizer.

It's fascinating following the trek of a cow from an urban center back into the rural countryside. It's a trip from modern Indian back through time into villages where life has changed little over the millennia. Crowded paved roads lined with luxury cars and briefcase-wielding executives give way to rural dirt roads and small villages with minimal modern amenities where people work the land and care for animals. As such, the cow, links modern India with its traditional living past.

when built, Jaipur featured paved streets with gas lighting and several hospitals. Some of the sights worth experiencing include: Jal Mahal is a rajput style "Water Palace" built in the center of the Man Sarobar lake. The Lake is usually dry in summers but filled after summer rains and filled with water hyacinths. The most familiar and recognizable sight in Jaipur is the Hawa Mahal, part of the city palace built in 1799 by Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh. The five-storied red and pink sandstone complex was designed as an extension to the Zenana or harem chamber to the main palace allowing the women of the royal household to observe daily life in the streets below without being seen themselves. It features 953 small windows which provides a breeze to the main palace keeping it cool year round. Jantar Mahal modeled after Moghul astronomical in Delhi is a jumble of instruments built to last the millennia and an odd contrast to the consistent and beautiful architectural elements of the city. Overlooking the city of Jaipur Nahagarh Fort, the abode of tigers, stands on the edge of the Aravalli Hills. Built in 1734, it's part of a three-fort defense ring that includes the Amber Fort and Fort Jaigarh. True to the astronomical tendencies of the Maharaja, the well-planned structure housed 9 queens in 9 apartments. Also called the hunting residence of Kings, the Fort has slowly fallen into disrepair but still retains much of it's grandeur and is very much worth a look.

Through most of India, Diwali is celebrated at the end of the ten-day celebration of Navrati, when the Goddess Durga defeated the half buffalo demon Mahishasura.