Week 5: Change of plans (backdated)

Power cut. And I feel small streams of sweat form up as soon as the ceiling fan stop working. Yes, ceiling fan, not air condition. No air condition in this apartment, no-no. Aircon makes you sick. I’ve had a cold for a week now, just because of an encounter with mild air conditioning. 

The power returned quickly today, after just a couple of minutes. Lucky, lucky. But it can also mean that the systems are instable and the power may be cut again at some point today. But we’re lucky here; I think it’s more than a week since we last had a power cut. 

My plans keep being changed. (Usually by me, fortunately.) This weekend I had planned to go to Kerala, but as I still have a cold I decided it would be too intensive for me to travel that far and that much with that many people at once at such a limited time. And thus, the first change of plans. So Lina and I were thinking of going to Ooty – until we learned we would need at least 4 days for any Ooty-trip frm Pondi. Second change of plans. We decided to stay home in Pondi for the weekend, perhaps take a daytrip somewhere, but mostly study. 

We’ve had an intensive week at school this week, up until Wednesday which was the last day before our long weekend. 

• Monday – lecture and then field trip to a Dalit village (village of people from the "caste-less" caste in India; the “untouchables”).

Dalit woman and her grandchild dressed up for having their picture taken:

 

• Tuesday – seminar for the whole class (usually we’re split in groups), then double lecture. Plus a lot of readings weighing on a student’s conscience. And errands in the evening, and a dance class I didn’t go to because of 1) errands making me late, and 2) still not well from the cold.

• Wednesday – Another day on double lectures, and lots of people leaving for Kerala. I wore khaki shorts and a casual t-shirt to school, and received the comment “Oh, how unusual to see you in Western clothes!” … has my wardrobe turned that much Indian? I hadn’t realized…

• Thursday – Went out for a morning walk with Lina at 5:45, we snuck out early to avoid the yoga instructor in case she came and admonished Lina for not going to the yoga class at 6:00. We walked to the beach promenade, had chai and watched all the people, including a weird French guy walking his marionette (“Ernesto” we were told) at the beach before he began his yoga exercise. We weren’t the only ones taking pictures of him, a crowd of locals had also gathered around. After returning home we meant to go to school and study, but lack of proper sleep brought about a slight change of plans, so we ended up staying home. 

Ernesto out for a morning walk at the beach:

• Friday – Actually went to school to study, and studied! In the evening there was a movie night at Kamachi, but I ended up changing my plans again, and chilled back home– surfed the net ‘til I slept.

• Saturday – slept long – café – blog/study evening – in my own company.

• Sunday - ..studying!!! Let’s hope this plan won’t change…

Missing Japan, listening to Jp. goodfeel music – genres changing with my mood. 

To Bangalore and back again

I haven't blogged (properly) for 2 weeks now. Why? First week I was too busy, so I assembled a picture-post in order to have something to post (see back-dated blog post here)

The next week I spontaneously joined a group going to Bangalore - forgetting to finish and post my blog post in the packing process as we left on my "blogging day".

Bangalore

Journey & Accommodation
I spontaneously joined a group going to Bangalore one evening before departure, ending up hurrying through necessary packing ad wrapping up stuff that needed to be done before departure. We travelled by night bus, a nice one, and arrived early at the guesthouse – 05:00… There had been a slight misunderstanding of when we were to arrive, so when we showed up at 5am our rooms were unprepared and quite dirty… We managed to arrange some mattresses and clean sheets and slept a couple of hours, and then we went into the centre of Bangalore for the day.

When we returned to the guesthouse in the afternoon the moods was much lighter and the experience was considerably better. We got the rooms cleaned, talked some more with the manager (whom turns out to be really nice), and the wonderful staff unexpectedly offered chai (tea) brought up to the room – free of charge!

Happy people!

Downtown Bangalore 
Shopping started in a mall, and then we walked up and down the main streets checking out the stores, ending up in a bookstore searching for useful literature to our group assignments in Pondi. I even managed to find an adapter/converter for my camera recharger (– which has Japanese prongs, and a suitable adapter; back home in Norway…), so now I’m finally able to take pictures again! (Happyhappyhappy!)

We had various experiences with the autos (remember the auto-rickshaws?); teaching us that over-eager drivers accepting low prices right away is not to be trusted. They take detours to stores they are affiliated with (tourist traps) to earn more money. At the shop they tried to sell me a nice pashmina shawl – incidentally an identical one to one I already had – and a quick question of the price revealed it to be 5 times the price of what I bought it for in Pondi.

Other experiences, always agree on the price first, and ask some locals to arrange the auto and the price for you if possible; they get much better prices than us obvious and oblivious tourists are able to arrange for ourselves. It might have a background in the poverty and high levels of competition in all areas in India, most Indians we come across in everyday activities (outside of the Study Center in Pondi) are opportunistic to various degrees. (Yes, this is a generalization and a very broad one at that…)

Safari
The second day in Bangalore we decided to go to a nearby Safari. Our guesthouse staff arranged two autos for us (and haggled the price for us), and off we went. It was almost an hour driving to the Safari (can’t remember the name of it, sorry), and then we arranged with the auto drivers that they would wait for us and take us home after a couple of hours –for the same price. Inside the safari we chose to take the Grand Safari bus ride (1hr) and climbed into the safari bus (not as exciting – nor as cute – as the safari buses in Beppu (Japan)). When we entered the bus the driver’s assistant placed us in the front seats, and while driving he took our cameras and took pictures (good ones) for us – for an expected tipping, of course. (We felt a little uncomfortable with the obvious difference in treatment, but as we –the girls in my group and I– believe everyone else in the bus (all Indian) assumed the assistant to do this for extra profit, the discomfort changed to a feeling of …apathy?) Anyway, the safari was really nice, and we were all relieved to see that the animals in the Zoo/Safari looked hale and healthy.

Bangalore (left) vs. Beppu (right)

 

Safari pictures, mine (left) and the driver assistant's (right)

 

New friends
Later the last night in Bangalore Lina and I went out to dinner with Lina’s friend Rohini and Rohini’s mother. They are the sweetest people on earth!! I fell so in love with the two of them. Even though it was the first time we met they asked if I would come along and visit their family in (some place I can’t pronounce) when Lina is going to, and when we said I would not be coming they asked us why! I hope I will get the opportunity to meet them again some time, they were absolutely lovely.

Return 
Even though we didn’t want to leave after meeting with Rohini and her mother, after only such a brief time, it felt good to be on the night bus back to Pondi when we finally settled in our bunks. We arrived home at 5am, good and tired, and slept away most of the day. 

3rd Week in Pondi

(back-dated due to late posting and multiple posts)

3rd week in Pondi. Noticeable in several ways; I'm starting to feel at home in Pondi, and at the same time I miss home, and I miss Japan (and terribly so!).  

I received a question of why I didn't write last week. Several reasons I guess. I missed having some photos on my blog (1), and was too tired to write anything coherent (2), and when thinking of what to write I had no idea where to start (3). 

Last week & weekend I was busy reading up on the readings for this week’s lectures, being social, research group work and finding group members for the group assignment. I spent mot of the Sunday reading, but in the evening Amali, Odilia and I went to the beach promenade to see the Ganesh Puja; a festival to the god Ganesh, where they throw the Ganesh figures in the sea on the festival’s last day. 

 3-week’s crisis, exhaustion, more pictures, travel desires, extracurricular courses, still haven’t fixed my saree, or bought Punjabi. Slow. Discoveries in town – everyone discover things close to each other’s houses. Daydreaming, missing Japan, feeling gradually more academic – feels wonderful, still no idea of what I want to do when I get home (for a job, that is), Mr. Gecko –our pet lizard that eat flies (flies that bites us!). We love him.

I'm still overwhelmed by all the impressions we get all day everyday here. 

Just riding the bus to school every morning is an adventure in itself, all the sounds, all the images that flies by as we fly by them, the different routes are getting a little familiar, but still challenges every sense of direction you (I) had to begin with. Children going to school, groups of teenage girls bicycling, auto-rickshaws full of 6 year old school boys, long lanes of children of all ages walking to their school bus, in the narrow zone between parked motorbikes and the rushing traffic. Safety in numbers applies even here. Wandering buffaloes seem to mind the traffic even less than the school kids and wander about ignoring the honking cars and autos. (Auto = auto-rickshaw, which is not the same as a rickshaw – the manual bicycle with extra seats)

One of the streets today was covered in posters and banners and ribbons in the colour of one of the local political parties today. We could hardly see the sky through all the decorations.
 
Bollywood dancing – sooo much fun! Not so much bollywood yet, but we have started learning some basic steps used for opening any dance performance. I think we did well the first class for being 100% beginners.

---

I left my blog post here and forgot it in the middle of packing my bag for a spontaneous weekend-trip to Bangalore. That story continues in the next blog post. :)

Picture post!

the study center & scenes from the study centre:

 

  

queueing up for breakfast nice lunch at school

 

 

Ganesh on "Ganesh Day" (Ganesh Puja?)

People preparing for the Ganesh festival 

 

group sightseeing & guide 

 

beautiful settings

 

back in the quiet street outside my building

  

was overjoyed to find this at out local store:)

 

another happy moment for a Japan-starved mind:

 

Peace