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

Update - half done

The last day of February - One month done and one month to go!
I am pretty much recovered from my chest infection.  I actually felt mostly OK this past week, each day feeling better than the last.  I still have a slight cough left as a reminder, but I am hoping it will be gone soon.
Nothing too exciting to report over the last week.  Work, the treadmill and watching the Olympics taking  up a majority of my time.  I decided not to do anything too adventurous this weekend and actually had an enjoyable weekend just kind of hanging out.

I was invited to go and watch the Canada/Slovakia hockey game at Mike and Nancy's house which was very nice of them.  The game was not that exciting until the last 5 minutes.  I am a little nervous about the Canada US game - Canada will have to play much better against the States if we are to win gold.  The game was on Saturday morning here and we watched that and then went for a wander around their complex and surounding village.  All the village kids were out waving and saying hi to us as we walked thru the streets.  The temperatures have shot up a bit and it has been in the low to mid 30's everyday.  It is not humid - thank goodness, but still pretty hot to be out walking around.  I can't imagine what it is like in the summer when it is over 40.  

Saturday night I went into the city to see Avitar.  Hadn't seen it yet and one of the guys from the gym asked if I wanted to go just to get out and away from the hotel for a bit.  It was actually better than I expected.  The theaters here are a little different.  You get asigned seating ( and everyone takes forever to find their seat in the semi-dark) and there was actually a 10 minute break in the middle.  They stopped the film and not really in an appropriate spot either!

Today I again watched hockey in the morning.  I caught the last period of Finland and Slovakia in my room after breakfast.  Then hung out at the pool with my book for a large part of the day.  Got back in the pool even though I have a suspicion that is where I got my infection.  Hopefully now I have immunity!  Got chatting with a woman from the UK who just arrived here for the week for work.  We spent an hour or so chatting at  the pool and then agreed to have dinner at the hotel.  It was nice to have some real company for diner other than my book for a change.

Tomorrow is the last day of Olympics!  What am I going to watch on TV?  I actually get like a hundred channels, so maybe I can find something worth watching - although half of them are in Hindu! 

I have been asking about where I should go this up coming weekend.  I think I may try to go away.  Am missing water, so I see a trip to the ocean in my horizon....

Sick in India

OK, maybe my outing Saturday was not such a good idea!  I woke up on Sunday and felt like I had been hit by a truck.  My whole body was aching and my lungs felt much worse.  I went down for breakfast and ate a little and then came back to my room where I slept for a couple of more hours!  Just hung out in my hotel room watching Olympic coverage and feeling sorry for myself.  I started to get a little worried as I had no energy and really felt horrible.  No one likes being sick away from home and I am no exception.  I finally gave in and went down to reception to inquire about seeing a doctor.  The staff, as usual were very helpful and they called the hotel doctor.  He was going to come by and see me at 6:00 pm.  I got a call right at 6:00 and he was delayed and would be available at 8:00.

Sure enough, he was there at 8:00.  I told him my story and he checked me out and informed me that as I suspected - I had a chest infection.  He wrote out a prescription for some antibiotics and some other cold remedy stuff.  I wasn't sure how I was going to get all of this stuff, but not to worry, it would all be delivered to my room within the hour!  Well almost an hour later, sure enough my drugs had arrived!  I took a couple of pills and went straight to sleep.  Have decided that getting better is a priority and the thought of going to work today just isn't on.  So will stay here watch more Olympics, read and rest.  Hopfully tomorrow I will be ready to get back in the game!

Mysore

Mysore is about 200K away, but takes over 3 hours to get to because of the traffic. First we had to drive clear across Bangalore city which took an hour in itself. I was told that Mysore is also a must do visit - so off I went this Saturday morning. My driver suggested a 7:00 am start to beat the heavy traffic. I am sure he would have liked to have left earlier, but this was the earliest I had gotten up since I arrived here, so I think he knew not to push it. Plus I have been sick for the last few days and was not willing to get up any earlier. I woke up on Wedensday feeling absolutly fine, but a couple of hours into my work day I felt absolutly horrible. It is just a cold, but it started in my chest which is a little unusual for me. I was having trouble breathing, and then could not stop coughing. Today, my breathing is better and coughing has subsided a little, and it has moved into my sinuses now. Was feeling a little better when I woke up, so I decided that I was well enough for an outing - besides, it was mostly spent driving there and back and I figured getting away from the air pollution here would be good for me.

After Bangalore, Mysore is the second largest city in the province, but unlike Bangalore and it's high-techiness, Mysore apparently still has some old world charm - there are no Aon offices!. Upon arriving to Mysore, we went straight up Chamundi hill where there is a temple that looks over the city. I looked around a bit and even walked into the temple - it did not do much for me I must admit as it was fairly croweded and I wasn't sure of the protocol. So didn't hang around there long. On the way down made a short stop to take a picture of Nandi, Shiva's Bull which was carved from a solid rock of granite in 1659.

We then made it to the Mysore Palace, which I was told I had to see and walk through. They would not let me take any pictures inside the palace, but got quite a few shots of the outside. My entry fee incuded an english recorded commentary of the palace, but I won't bore you with the historical details - most of which I have already forgotten! It was nice to walk through - of course they make you take off your shoes so I can attest to the nice floors!

It was only 1:30 pm by the time I was done with the palace and Naryanan suggested that we go and visit Brindavan gardens. He already knows that I would rather walk around outside than go shopping or more museums! The gardens were another 20k outside of the city on the down stream of a dam. The gardens are well planned and have well maintained lawns, innumerable pools and fountains. It was not busy at all when I was there, but at night it supposidly is very busy as the gardens are transformed into a kind of fairy land when the concealed lights near the flower beds and fountains are turned on and add a new dimension to the garden.   So after almost 13 hours after I left this morning, I made it back to the hotel safe and sound and no worse for wear...

Bangalore green spaces

Today was again about being outside and getting away from the hotel for the day. Two of the places I have been told that I needed to go to are Lal Bagh and Cubbon Park. They are both large green spaces near the center of the city of almost 300 acres and are said to be a must to visit when visiting this city. My driver took me to Lal Bagh first. It is a well known botanical garden and was commissioned by the ruler of Mysore, Hyder Ali in 1760. It has a famous glass house and also has an aquarium and a lake. I spent a couple of hours walking around. I very much enjoyed this park, it seemed very well taken care of and there were lots of families and couples strolling around the grounds.

After spending a couple of hours there enjoying the scenery, I then went to Cubban park. I had high hopes for this park and was a little disappointed. It was not as nice as Lal Bagh in my opinion because it is not as green or groomed. I thought this might be a place that I could one day go and run in, but I did not see anyone even remotely running and the park has roadways cutting through - and again the wild dogs. It is at least a half hour drive away, so I don't think that running there is in my future. Walking around these parks, I was definitely a minority and clearly a tourist and as a result had a lot of people staring at me. Maybe I need to start dressing like the other women here?