"Going Indian" ;)

I think "going Indian"doesn't exists yet, so I'm going to create it :) Going Indian means take a train and bring with you food for two days packaged in Tupperware. Once in the train, make yourself comfortable and put the Tupperware everywhere, so the rest of the people cannot move J

Well tomorrow I’m leaving for Alleppey, Kerala. It’s a 12 hour train journey, from 17 until 05:30, and therefore I’ll need to take my dinner with me. The food in the train is not good, I’ve already tasted it. I’ve spent a couple of hours cooking my tortilla. Indeed I have cooked two big ones, I’ll take few pieces in the train and the rest is for our colleagues in the office.

With this mad traffic it had to happen:

my cab had a small collision with a truck. It wasn't that bad because we're driving very slowly (you're not able to drive fast with the non-end traffic jump). It happened while turning to the right, a truck hit my cab in the back side.

I also took a video of the men arguing with each other, I'll load it as soon as I have time.

I got a tatkal ticket to Alleppey

Friday I'm leaving for a week of holidays in India. I wanted to see the backwaters, but the trains were already fully booked and the idea of spending 12-15 hours in a bus wasn't good either. I asked my Indian colleagues and they told me there will be extra tickets on sale two days before departure. These are the ones from the "tatkal quota". In India all trains have different quotas: general, ladies, foreign tourist, defense, ... and tatkal.

Tatkal is meant for a emergency and therefore is sold two days before departure only and it has an additional fee. Even with additional fee, all tickets are sold out within an hour!! The sale starts at 8:00 am and the system is so slow (because of the people booking) that it's difficult to get through. Indeed I wasn't able to book the ticket myself, I had to ask Suresh to do it for me and he spent around 30min.Well, this time I got the "right" class 3rd AC. for other trains I don't mind the sleeper class, but this time will be a journey of 12hours from 17:00 to 5:00, so AC is better :)    

7 in a swift

Today Janardhan and Mahesh have invited the whole team for lunch. Jana for his farewell and Mahesh for his wedding. As most of the team members have a cab driver, we had to fit seven of us in a swift. You might compare this with the “six in a swift” from Mikonos, well we put the tallest one on the steer and the four little Indian women with me in the back. We would have been able to take one more ;)

The food was again a buffet, and again I ate too much. So much that I just had some pineapple as dinner, as I don’t want to spend half day in the toilet. Well my “record” so far is 7 times in a day, well it was after the huge dinner of Friday. I should remember this: “you shit, what you eat” ;)

SL means SLeeper class!!!

I was really happy to had tickets for Hampi, even more because I thought I had 3rd AC class. But my tickets are for the sleeper class!!! I was wondering why the tickets were so cheap and yesterday I checked the tickets with Swati and realized that I got the wrong class. During lunch time she and Yogesh were thinking what to do in order to get other tickets, like buy a tatkal ticket. If you have an "emergency", you can buy this ticket 1 or 2 days before departure (you have to pay 200 rupees extra).

At the end, I just said I'm going to give it a try. As the train is during night, no more people than those who booked a berth are allowed (I hope) :)

Bindi, kurti and buses

Bindi, kurti and buses are probably the three things a turist will experience in India after some time. The bindi is the "dot" between the eyebronws. This area is said to be the sixth chakra, the seat of "concealed wisdom". According to followers of Hinduism, this chakra is the exit point for kundali energy. The bindi is said to retain energy and strengthen concentration. It is also said to protect against demons or bad luck.

A common misconception about the bindi in the western world is that only married Hindu women wear red bindis as a symbol of wedlock. Nowadays bindis are worn by women of many religious. The colour red represents honor, love and prosperity, but many other colours are used as well. If you go to the market, you will see the pyramids with the powders in any color you could imagine.

In this trip, I got my first bindi in the chamundi temple, on the top of the hill of the same name in Mysore. And I got the second one in the Bangalore city market. I consider this one special, as I was taking pictures of the powders in one of the many stands in the market and the seller asked me where I was coming from and if I liked India. After a small chat, he asked me to come closer and he put me the bindi. I was surprised and I thought he probably wanted to sell me something. I couldn't be more wrong. He packed some powder in a paper and gave it to me as a present. I even tried to pay, but he insists on giving it to me as a present :)

Some people would think it’s just a casualty, but the powder he gave me was the same colour as the kurti I had bought just a couple of hours before. Amazing!!

What’s a kurti? It’s the short version of a kurta and one of the traditional cloths in India. It is a loose shirt falling either just above or somewhere below the knees of the wearer, and is worn by both men and women. They were traditionally worn with loose-fitting paijama (kurta-paijama), loose-fitting salwars, tight-fitting churidars, or wrapped-around dhotis, but are now also worn with jeans. Kurtas are worn both as casual everyday wear and as formal dress.

Today both of us went to the office wearing a kurti. At the beginning we hadn’t big reactions, as they see it as normal. Afterwards everyone commented how nice we look in the kurti. I have to admit, it’s not only looking good, but also very comfortable. I think we’re going to buy some more for sure :) 

Last experience of the weekend was taking the regular bus rather than a rickshaw. In my first try I wanted to get to the city market from the botanical gardens. I first asked and someone told me that any bus would go there. I just took the first bus without asking further. When the “ticket boy” reached me (it was quite crowded), I said I want to go to the market, he looked strange and another passenger told me that I had to change. A second passenger told me to follow him because he was going to the market. The second bus was quite on a hurry and it didn’t properly stop. So I had to step in on the way. For going back, I asked the ticket boy before stepping in. In the market it’s easier, as it’s the first stop and buses wait for a while. I asked for “residency road” as my street is one way. Well there’re many one way roads in Bangalore, depending if I’m coming from the north of from the south, I asked to go either to residency road or Richmond road (our apartments are almost at the end of Richmond road). The bus had a strange route, but it did stop in residency road. I was very proud of myself ;)

Anka's first rickshaw

Last Saturday I took Anka for a walk, from our hotel to MG Road. Before coming she said she wouldn't take a rickshaw, but after an exhausting walk and a lot of bags to carry, she was to happy to take one ;) Indeed she enjoyed it a lot.

How to make us happy :)

We have spent the day out, walking and shopping around.

Anka has found her place here. Not only shopping around, but also in the hotel. While sitting in her terrace (I don't have one), the housekeeping personal come to bring/take things like coffee or her laundry, repair the internet, ... Today after we came back she asked to have someone to get us some groceries (it's really hard to find a supermarket around here). Two minutes later she had someone listening carefully to her wishes while she was writing the list. Well we'll see how carefully he listened when he is back with our dinner. At least he was asking about details like "which kind of ...? How much..?" I have to say that all the personal is at your service here and they take care you don't miss anything. During breakfast before you turn to ask for coffee, they're already half way to you with it. At the entrance, the security man opens and closes the door for you. Once he didn't see me coming and when he realized, he even run to open it :)

I'm also happy. I got my train tickets to Hampi for the weekend of eastern. I had to go to the train station and make use of the "foreign quota" though. I tried to buy them in internet, but the web wasn't working and the train is already fully booked. In India there's a lot of discrimination, and even sometimes positive: in the train station there're a lot of normal counters for everyone, and also two or three special counters, one for ladies, one for old people and one for disable and tourists or foreigns. The normal counters are always crowded, while counter for disable and tourist is empty, they sell to normal people when there are no "special" people around. That's why you get other people (normally males) around you, while you’re buying your tickets. By "around you" I mean almost pushing you out of the counter ;)