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