Mehendi

Last night, we went to the Indian buffet offered at one of the hotel restaurants. We ate outside next to the pool, and the weather was actually turning a little chilly since the wind had picked up. For the buffet, the hotel brings in a mehendi artist, a caricature artist, and a magician -- all to entertain the guests.

After we ate dinner, we had mehendi applied on our hands. Mehendi is an art form that uses an herbal mixture containing mainly henna, eucalyptus oil and lime (no water) to decorate the body. It is most commonly seen as a decoration on Indian brides. The whole process was very quick - the artist was drawing free-hand, and the mehendi looks a lot like puffy paint when applied. It takes about 10 minutes to dry, and then it starts to flake off to reveal the color underneath. It should last for about 3 weeks as long as I don't apply detergents or scrub at the skin.

During application:

The "puffy" stage:

What it looked like after it flaked off:

After dinner, we met with a friend of Robin's at a very cool lounge called The 13th Floor. As I'm sure you'll guess, it's up on the 13th floor of a building in downtown Bangalore. We sat outside and enjoyed the beautiful evening, and made some new friends with the Budweiser sales staff that was there to celebrate their outstanding sales numbers for Karnataka state. They ended up buying us -- what else, Budweiser - and we learned that light beer is not manufactured in India because Indians like strong beer!

From left to right - Karey, Kelli, Maria, Robin, Sayanee