One Block Over

We needed to do a little more shopping today, so we went back to Commercial street. The tuk-tuk drivers dropped us off a block down from where they usually do though. No problem, we'll just go down one street and then hang a left, we'd be right back in familiar territory. Except that there was no left one block down. We had to go deeper and farther off the block thaan we usually do. This put us into some slummier territory.
By now no one was phased in the least that we were walking through weird neighborhoods with cows and cow poop garbage and men peeing on corner walls. We navigated through the mix without a thought, stepping between cars like it was nothing.
That section of town tends to be organized by shop types. So all the shoe stores are in one place for example. This section had more temples. You can see my man Hanuman above. He was on the roof of a small temple. Maybe he was 12' tall.
Here's another temple. Behind Beth a random cow is eating garbage. People would walk up and toss more garbage into the pile, perhaps to feed the hungry cow. A crow or some other black bird hopped up and down on the cow's back, jumping between him and the sign. In the midst of all this sensory input, it was the sculpture by the door that got Beth's attention.
This to me pointed out how far we had come.

We saw a side of Commercial street that was new and unvarnished. Even those of us with germ issues walked through it as though it was a great new thing.

Here we saw men gambling. They had scratched a hopscotch-style grid into the street and were marking squares with twigs. The game was played with small shells that thew shook and flipped with the back of their hand. The wager was a rupee. The were happy to show us the game, although it made no sense at all.

Next to them, women assembled garlands and chatted lightly. These were the workers behind the commerce and it was cool to see.

It was a great view and a nice walk. At the end of it, we looped back onto one of the streets we new and found just the shop we were looking for. I got everything I wanted, including something for me at last. Nice walk.