A short dialogue on Indian weddings and Chinese medicine

Indian weddings: They are lovely and lively affairs.  I think there has been at least one, if not 4 weddings each day held across the street from our hotel.  In India, they hold the wedding reception and celebration at wedding palaces.  The weddings may have up to 1,000 people in attendance and given the population of India you can imagine the number of weddings.  The palaces are indoor and outdoor venues and they are massive!  I am told that some weddings cost $1M USD and that goes really far in India.

The groom arrives on a horse with a parade of family dancing around him, the bride is given a brand new white car covered in flowers...there is a live band that plays as loud as they can (I can hear it even though I am across the street on the 7th floor) and there is so much food it could never be finished.  

All the ladies are in their finest sarees or salwar kamees and plenty of gold jewelry and the men are looking sharp as well.  It is a spectacle of color and sound!  These events can go until 4am as there is a final ceremony that involves dancing around a fire, this I have not witnessed as I can't stay up that late! Unfortunately, they have these events every day of the week, which means you must learn to sleep through them as well... And tonight I just want to sleep, but the drums and honking are a bit relentless tonight!

Now for the Chinese Medicine: My lovely neighbor Stephanie who is studying Chinese medicine has helped me so much on this trip.  Stephanie recommended that I bring a small arsenal of herbs with me to help if I get sick.  With the air pollution level in Ludhiana, my respiratory system has been struggling and I have started to get a cold on 3 separate occasions.  Each time I have experienced intense sneezing, a runny nose and the beginning of a sore throat. Every time I took 4 pills from this packet: 

 And 4 more at the end of the day and the next day I felt fine!  I am having Rick buy more and bring them with him to India, as I am afraid he may get sick as well.  Thank you Stephanie!!