On Vacation

Today was my last day at work, and as is tradition for the the last day for the Canadian trainers, the gang gave me an Indian outfit as a going away gift.  My responsibility was to buy them all ice cream and pizza this afternoon.  I must admit I am a little sad to say good bye and will miss working with them on a daily basis.

But the good news is that now I have 12 days of vacation to spend looking around India before coming home.  I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to do and where to go for my India vacation. India is so big and 12 days is not really a lot of time. It is like coming to Canada and trying to see as much of the country as you can in 12 days. Hard to do without flying a lot and not really seeing anything in depth. So in the end I decided to concentrate on one area. The state is called Kerala and it is south of Bangalore. Kerala has become quite a tourist destination because of its natural beauty. Lots of beaches, rivers, hill stations and farmland. I wanted to stay away from big cities and was not that interested in seeing temples or even the Taj Mahal.  I am getting a little flak about not going to see the Taj Mahal, but really, I think I can live my life without seeing it. It is good to hear that there is a lot of the Indian population that has never been.  Oddly enough it is not as hot in this area as it would be if I went North towards Delhi, but it is still going to be plenty warm enough.

 

I am looking forward to my holiday, but am also really looking forward to coming home.

It almost rained today!

I have been here for 61 days now and every day has been pretty much the same.  When I first arrived the highs were about 28 degrees with the low temperatures at night getting to around 18.  The temperatures increased after the first couple of weeks and it has been pretty much highs of around 32-35 with lows around 25 the entire time.  There have been a few overcast or hazy days and some days more breezy than others, but other than that every day has felt exactly the same.  There was one exception on Saturday night, when we were having our dinner out by the pool we felt more than a few rain drops that lasted about 5 minutes.  We all got excited because it was such an anomaly. 

Today I was working at my desk and there was rumour that it was raining outside.  I jumped up and went out to the balcony that is off the coffee area to see if it was true.  But if it was,  it was just a sprinkle and had finished by the time I got there.  I was a little disappointed because I really miss having changes in the weather!  The monsoon season apparently does not start until about mid May, so the chances of me seeing any significant rain is quite low.  I know for those of you in Vancouver wading through the puddles - you are feeling a lot of sympathy for me right now!

last weekend in Bangalore

Friday night started out with the gang at work taking me out to dinner.  We went to a place called BBQ Nation.  Of course the first thing I think about when I hear BBQ is meat, but being in India and quite a lot of the population being vegetarian, there was a lot more than just meat available at this restaurant.  There was so much food that kept coming to the table and then after that, there was the buffet... I am still not able to eat that much, so I was completely stuffed after the first round and there were many more rounds that kept coming.  It was all very good, but I wish I could have taken better advantage of all that good food.

This weekend there are local elections going on and for some odd reason, no one is able to purchase any alcohol from 5:00 pm on Friday until the end of Sunday.  So at dinner all you could get were mocktails.   All liquor stores are closed and all restaurants and hotels are strict about serving because they could be subject to heavy fines.   Although I did read in the papers today that there are some candidates that go around and offer voters 200 rupees and a bottle of beer to vote for them!

On Saturday night a few of us at the hotel organized dinner outside by the pool and some wine, gin and vodka was smuggled out in water bottles so that we could have drinks with our dinner.  Considering we are not able to vote, I don't see what the big deal was,  but some of the hotel staff really did not like the fact that we were doing this but we were allowed to none the less.   It was earth hour, so we had dinner by candlelight which helped us keep our contraband from being too obvious.

This morning I actually went for a bike round around the area.  Jimmy who has been here for five weeks has been riding every weekend.  I did not even know that the hotel had bikes available!  So when I found out that he was going I made him take me this morning.  Being Sunday and a voting day there was very little traffic and it was actually a pleasant ride.  I would never go out otherwise because the traffic is just crazy.  We went out for about an hour and it was so great to be able to go out and ride around.  The other thing I did today which has been on my list to do before I left was to take an auto-rickshaw.  I only took it from the mall - about 5K from the hotel, but now I can say I was in one.  I was able to bargain them down to 50 rupees which is about 1/4 of what they try to get from westerners for that distance, so I was pretty happy and proud of myself about that.

I also went back to Lal Bagh and Commercial Street this weekend.  Bought a few souvenirs and walked around the park, which was on my list of things to do again before I leave.

Only three more days and then I am done work and on vacation!

Driving in India

I have wanted to write a piece on Driving in India for quite some time.  It really is something you have to see to believe. Anyone who complains about the traffic in Vancouver should come here for a day.  But why write something from scratch when you can get stuff off the internet. I found this piece and made a few of my own modifications.    Enjoy…

In India, do you drive on the left or right of the road? The answer is "both". Basically you start on the left of the road, unless it is occupied. In that case, go to the right, unless that is also occupied. Then proceed by occupying the next available gap, as in chess. I find most people drive down the middle of two lanes, picking neither left nor right.

If you are going to drive in India, here are few rules to note:

1. Just trust your instincts, ascertain the direction, and proceed. Adherence to road rules leads to much misery and occasional fatality.

2. Most drivers don't drive, but just aim their vehicles in the intended direction. Don't get discouraged or underestimate yourself. Except for a belief in reincarnation, the other drivers are not in any better position.

3. Don't stop at pedestrian crossings just because some fool wants to cross the road. You may do so only if you enjoy being bumped in the back. Pedestrians have been strictly instructed to cross only when traffic is moving slowly or has come to a dead stop because some minister is in town. Still some idiot may try to wade across, but then, let us not talk ill of the dead.

4. Blowing your horn is not a sign of protest as in some countries. Drivers use their horn to express joy, resentment, frustration, romance and bare lust (two brisk blasts) or just to mobilize a dozing cow in the middle of the bazaar.

5. Night driving on Indian roads can be an exhilarating experience (for those with the mental makeup of Genghis Khan). In a way, it is like playing Russian roulette, because you do not know who amongst the drivers is loaded. What looks like premature dawn on the horizon turns out to be a truck attempting a speed record. On encountering it, just pull partly into the field adjoining the road until the phenomenon passes. Roads do not have shoulders, but occasional boulders. Do not blink your lights expecting reciprocation. The only dim thing in the truck is the driver and the peg of illicit arrack he has had at the last stop; his total cerebral functions add up to little more than a naught. Truck drivers are the James Bonds of India and are licensed to kill. Often you may encounter a single powerful beam of light about six feet above the ground. This is not a super motorbike, but a truck approaching you with a single light on, usually the left one. It could be the right one, but never get too close to investigate. You may prove your point posthumously. Of course, all this occurs at night, on the trunk roads.

During the daytime, trucks are more visible, except that the drivers will never show any signal. (And you must watch for the absent signals; they are a greater threat.)


Unique to Indian traffic:

Auto Rickshaw (Baby Taxi)

The result of a collision between a rickshaw and an automobile, this three-wheeled vehicle works on an external combustion engine that runs on a mixture of kerosene oil and creosote. This triangular vehicle carries iron rods, gas cylinders or passengers three times its weight and dimension, at an unspecified fare.

Mopeds

The moped looks like an oil tin on wheels and makes noise like an electric shaver. It runs 30 miles on a teaspoon of petrol and travels at break-bottom speed. As the sides of the road are too rough for a ride, the moped drivers tend to drive in the middle of the road; they would rather drive under heavier vehicles instead of around them and are often "mopped" off the tarmac. It is not just for single drivers, families of up to four or five can be seen on one moped heading down the street. Mom, Dad and multiple kids stuffed into any spaces.

One Speed Bicycles

Almost always men, these guys pedal leisurely down the street on 50 year old bikes without any apparent concern to the traffic going on around them. Cars and buses pass by within inches and they act like they are the only ones on the road – and without helmets of course.

Speed Bumps

Why have traffic lights, the power is always going out any way and they would always never be working. Just put speed breakers everywhere - this is what they call them here. The speed breakers are bone jarring and between them and the pot holes, you have an idea why the traffic is always weaving in and out and constantly stop and go.

Having said all this, isn't it true that the accident rate and related deaths are less in India compared to US or other countries ?

Feeling a little better...

A little success today. I managed to eat some oatmeal for breakfast and for the first time this week was actually able to eat some lunch! (a cheese sandwich - starting to sound familiar? :)


I weighed myself today at the gym and I have lost 5 lbs this week! My stomach is not completely happy, but at least I can force myself to eat - even if I still have not felt hungry.  I think next week will be all about eating, especially ice cream and chocolate to get my weight back!

Back on Antibiotics

Have not been feeling well since Tuesday.  Was hoping I was getting better, but after no sleep and hardly any food for the last 3 days, I decided that I better go see a doctor again.  This time I went to a medical clinic near by and the doctor informed me that I must have eaten something that I shouldn't have.  Not sure what or where, but am now on antibiotics again.  Not feeling as bad as I did with the chest infection, but at least with that I was able to eat and sleep better than this.  As someone who normally rarely gets sick, I have a feeling that the office here thinks I am a bit of a wimp!

Goa, my weekend getaway

Have I mentioned that I was missing the ocean and that I needed to get away from Bangalore!  Well my choice to go to Goa was a good one.

Goa was ruled by the Portugese most of the time between 1510 and 1961, before India reclaimed it.  The Portugese influence is what makes Goa a unique and popular tourist destination. And there were a lot of tourists from what I could tell, and I wasn't even there during the peak season.  A lot of the tourists were Indian, but I did see a lot of North Americans and Europeans as well and from what I could tell some of them were actual residents.  Just so we are clear, Goa is actually a State in India and the capital is Panaji - which is where I stayed. 

The receptionist at work arranged the flights and the hotel for me.  The hotel was a little odd, certainly not as nice as where I am staying, but it was near the edge of town in the middle of a construction area with half finished buildings all around and a gravel road leading up to the hotel.  I very much enjoyed Panaji, mostly because I felt safe walking around the streets and where most of the streets actually had sidewalks. Since I have not had the opportunity too much in Bangalore to just go exploring on my own, I was very happy to spend most of the weekend doing just that.  My main game was to walk around with my map and try to see if I could get around without looking at it. After getting kind of lost on the first night, I was pretty good about getting myself around after that.   So Friday night, Saturday night and most of Sunday was spent just walking and exploring the town.  Miramar was a good beach about a 45 minute walk from my hotel.

Saturday morning I decided that I should try to see more of the area and more of the many many beaches.  I had thoughts about renting a scooter or even hiring a taxi for the day, but in the end signed on for a bus tour that would take me to several of the beaches and a few other things as well.  I thought it would be better to have some company than spending the day (and the weekend) by myself.  The first stop after picking everyone up at the various hotels was to get gas!  The taxi driver from the Goa airport did the same thing...  Don't they understand that they should fill up before they get passengers?  Anyway off we went and the next thing we did was drive to Coco beach and then jump on a boat.  The boat ride was very pleasant but chasing the dolphins I could have done without.  I ended up hanging out for the day with Varun, a young software developer and his parents.  I think he wanted the company so he didn't have spend all day with his parents alone.  His parents were actually very nice and and I enjoyed spending part of the day with them. So the rest of the day was spent driving around North Goa and looking at the little towns and stopping at a few beaches. The last beach - Calangute (see picture above) was the biggest and busiest beach and a bunch of us jumped in the water at this beach as we spent over 1.5 hours there. The water was unbelievably warm and looked very clean and I had a blast playing in the surf. 

 On Saturday when I was standing on one of the many beaches we went to, my phone rang?!  Not too many people know my cell number so I answered not sure who was on the other end.  It was Nandini, my receptionist who organized my trip.  She was frantic and wanted to know if I was OK.  She had received a text message from my hotel saying that I had not checked in.  Well I had checked in and everything was fine, but she did not know that and was worried that something had happened to me. She had called the airport to make sure I had actually gotten on my flight and had called the hotel again to see if they knew anything and apparently they did not confirm that I had indeed checked in and was seen alive and well.  It is too bad that she had to go through all of that, but it was nice to know that if something had happened to me, it would not have gone by unnoticed.

I did not end up taking many pictures as the battery in my camera died on Saturday, but at least I got a few!  I also didn't run while I was there, it was too hot for that for starters and I felt I was attracting enough attention as it was by just walking around.   If I would have stayed longer I would have found a beach to run on and also rented a scooter like a lot of the other tourists that I saw.  I can see why so many people come to this area for holidays.  Panaji has been the nicest place in India I have seen so far;  picturesque, fairly clean (by India standards), safe and of course by lots of water.

Goa Prologue

Made it to Goa and back.  Will write up something about the trip tonight after work.  I can say it was nice to leave my laptop behind for a few days, walk on the beach and swim in the Arabian Sea!

Electricity

Electricity is something we tend to take for granted in most places in the world.  Not so much in India!
The electricity goes out inexplicably at least a dozen times per day here, sometimes for hours on end.  I am fairly lucky because where I spend all of my time, the hotel and the office, there are back up generators.  These kick in within 10 to 60 seconds if the power goes out so that I am not left in the dark for too long.  Not so for a lot of the people living and working here without back up power.  In the papers, I daily read about the lack of power in Bangalore (and most other parts of the country). It is a common complaint with everyone here.  Upcoming scheduled outages are often published in the papers, but there are many more unscheduled outages that occur on a daily basis.

It has taken some getting use to, but now the outages do not faze me too too much. At least at work, the lights go out for a minute or so, but the computers are rigged to be never without power so that work is not interrupted.  This is not the case at the hotel.  I have lost count how many times I have lost power at the hotel while on the computer.  The computer automatically shuts down - this is due to the fact that the battery is completely shot and the computer needs to be plugged in at all times to work!  It takes me at least 5 -10 minutes to get back up and running again.

Then there is the TV at the hotel.  Now that the Olympics are over, I have not had the TV on as much, but it takes about 1 to 2 minutes for the TV to reset itself and for me to get back to the channel I was previously on.  Very annoying as well.

But worst of all are the elevators!  So far I have been caught three times in the elevator when the power went out.  Twice at the hotel and once at work.  Being stuck in a pitch black elevator, even for a minute is not a pleasant experience.  I swear I dropped about a meter in the elevator the other day.  I was alone in the elevator going up and everything went black and I felt it fall.  Fortunately it stopped itself and then took about minute to recalibrate itself and then had to go down and start over at the lobby level.  A little freaky to say the least.  I would take the stairs everywhere if I could, but because of security concerns the hotel staff does not like you to take the stairs at all and at work you can only take them down - which I do.

Weekend not according to plan

I had wanted to get away this weekend and my plans were to go to the coast. I am really missing the ocean and was hoping to get my fix. I had asked the receptionist at work to help me with my travel plans and she seemed pretty excited to organize my trip. In the end she came to me late on Thursday and I was told that she had reserved a room in Ponticherry and that I would be travelling by car to get there - there is no near by airport. When she told me that drive would take about 6 or 7 hours, I balked a bit. After my busy week at work, I was really not in the mood to spend half of the weekend travelling to and from my destination. I had asked her to organize something at the coast, but I thought I would be flying, not spending such a long time in a car to get there! So the plan now is to fly to Goa next weekend. Ponticherry does sounds quite nice, and I still may still decide to take the long drive to get there another week.

So I did the next best thing I could think of. I spent most of Saturday working out and reading by the pool again. Got in a long swim, some weights and even though I didn't reach two hours, it was well over one hour and the longest I have managed to stay on the treadmill at one go before turning into a steaming puddle.    There was some talk of a bunch of us from the hotel going to a movie, but again, those plans did not come to fruition and will take place hopefully another time. All in all it was a very enjoyable, relaxing day and was much better than sitting for hours in a car! Next weekend will be all about water and beaches - I hope.

Mike and Nancy came to the rescue and on Sunday we all went into the city and checked out Commercial Street. So far all I had seen shopping wise were malls. I knew there must be some street markets in Bangalore and now I know this is the place to be. Commercial Street shopping area is not just one street but there are a lot of side streets and parallel streets as well. It is easy to spend a whole day wandering around here. It is quite hot mind you, but if you know which shops have good air conditioning it is quite bearable. They are also ripping up the street which makes it very dusty and dirty, but it did keep a lot of cars from driving through. We spent quite a few hours looking around, spending money and also having lunch. We went to a vegetarian place called Woodys. It did not look like much from the inside or outside, but I have to say, it was one of the best meals I have had since I have been here!  It was labled a South Indian mini meal on the menu, but I am not sure I even ate half of it and I was stuffed.

Actually, I must mention that last Tuesday night was another good meal.  There were some bigwigs from the corporate Aon Chicago office in town and they took pity on me when they discovered that most of my meals have been either at my hotel or the office food court.  They invited me to tag along to dinner with them and with one of their clients at the Oberio hotel - one of the nicer hotels in the center of Bangalore. We ate a really nice dinner at their Thai restaurant and the evening was actually a lot of fun, even if it really was a client working dinner.  (Please note that I am not saying that my food at the hotel or the food court isn't very good - I don't think I have eaten much so far that I have not enjoyed.  I am actually in vegetarian heaven.)

Still have not bought myself a sari, but I vow not to come home until I have one. I will definitely be coming back to Commercial Street for said sari before I head home - and maybe even a souvenir elephant (kind of prerequisite for a visit to India). If anyone has any special souvenir requests, just let me know.

Holi Holiday

Today, March 1st is officially Holi.  Holi and the following day, Dhuleti, are known as the Indian Festival of Color. Playing Holi or sharing colors is a highlight of this holiday.  If you can imagine a holiday that combines Thanksgiving, Carnival and Valentine's Day with the colors of Easter — but where people get colored instead of eggs — you have some idea of why this holiday is so eagerly awaited.  Even though today is the actual day for Holi, it seems to be celebrated for many days.  It seemed to start on Friday for most people here at the office.  There was a face painting contest along with the Birthday celebration.  Birthdays are also a big deal here.  More so than at home.  They announce everyone who had a birthday in the month and then we all had to sing Happy Birthday.  And then there was cake!  One is normal, one is eggless for the vegetarians and there was an additional cake for the Holi celebration.  For one of the guys who celebrated his birthday the other week the tradition is to give them the 'bumps' and take turns kicking!  I am so glad my birthday was before I came here!

Most people celebrated Holi on the weekend.  There were many colored water fights at local parks.  People showed up to work today with colored hands as the paint does not exactly come off very easily.  Coming into the office today I saw a few guys on bicycles completely covered in paint!  I was a little worried about coming to work today, but so far no one has accosted me with color.  Actually it is very quite here as a lot of people have taken today and even the week off for holidays.  Happy Holi