Dear all, I am sitting in a friends house in Colombo, Sri Lanka. I am covered in mossie bites and either have mild dengue fever or developed a more severe reaction to my bites. I have had a somewhat blighted trip here, beginning with a very bad neck thanks to whip lash. This was soon diagnosed and remedied by the Sever sisters. I also have very swollen toes (one on each foot) and a bandaged up arm. I think that with careful deduction I am just reacting to mossie bites which make my joinjts ache. Dengue fever is nicknamed the 'breaking bone' fever, and I feel that it would be a much more painful expereince.
We arrived in Sri Lanka almost 2 weeks ago where we were whisked form th e air port to the Hilton hotel around mid night. We had a lovely suite on the 27th floor that offered the most amazing view of Colombo. I would sit on the arm chair with the door wide open onto the balcony with a beautiful balmy sea breeze ushering in clear refeshing air whilst reading my book. Bliss. Further pleaseure was to be found 23 floors down from th e room where the pool was located, open from 6 till 10 dily. So I would be there first thing in the morning and last thing at night swimming with dragon flies and bats. I also had my first ever room service of a beef burger! Soooo goood. Marjorie arrived a few days later really tired from her trip from Wales, but soon was up to exploring Colombo with me. So we visited amazing shops, colonial style hotels that served high tea on the sea front (Galle Face Hotel), whizzing aroung on tuk tuks, usually ok but occassionally get a rude driver that rants at you the entire time because you refuse to pay the grossly inflamed prices reserved for foreingers. We checked out of the hotel where the bill was wrong as th eprecence of two Mrs.Fillers seem to hgave thrown them and so my room was not charged for! Saved me $100 or so.
From here we transfered to a friends house as she and her husband were going on holiday to Nepal for a few weeks also. They have a dog called Namack who is an afghan mountain dog they adopted from kabul while living there last year. He is a beauiful dog, if a little undisciplined. He has amazing green eyes and blonde coat, huge wolf like head and the sweetest temperment. However, he is a pain in the arse whilst walking. Every other step he must investigate a smell and so drags you all over the place. And if you try and pull him to heel he has developed a very effective way of counteracting, he parks his bum refuses to budge, leaving to comical walks. He is an extremely intelligent dog that led to some stress and shouting later in the trip. I will explain in time.
So on the weekend after arriving we three (Paul, Marjorie and I) jumped into Jet Wing hired car with driver and set off for tea country. It took roughly 4 hours of driving along the most incredibly winding and climbing roads to reach our destination near Castlereigh lake (east of Kandy) of Norwood bungalow. This is the most luxurious place I have stayed in my life. Probably the most expensive, but you only live once right? High on a hill, with tea gardens all around and a stunniung valley view. I still had a bad neck at this point and so was often found on the floor doing my painful excercises to the staffs bemusement! Bed tea was brought at you specified time, breakfast. lunch, tea and supper of incredible quality. I would reccomend this bungalow to anyone, it is amazing. Good walks, a free tour of the local tea factory. Actually very complicated business and I now appreciate every cup that little bit more.
From here Paul returned to Colombo, but Marhorie and I continued in a car to Hunas falls. £ hour drive to again a stunning location that was somewhat blighted by the Hunas Falls Hotel. A 1960's concrete attrocity that makes one think of Aberystwyth university. How they were allowed to build the ugly thing is beyond me. But it was cheap and cheerful, and offered the best nights sleep of the entire trip! The food was very hit and miss, sime strange combinations, but overall a nice stay. Breakfast entertainment was the local tree surgery company hauling up huge logs of wood. They were really health and safety consious with t shirts, shorts and flip flops. These giantic logs were winched up and craned onto a very innappropriate little truck, and then hand manouvered with brute force and primitive tools to sit horizontally on the truck bed. The whole thing was terrifying but enthralling to witness. I really thought I would be witness to a bloody accident with crushed limbs.
We aborted our seconf night after the children next dorr woke us in the wee hours and pegged it to a hotel that we read about in the rough guide. Helgas Folly (look it up I beg as my descriptions will do it no justice) sounded fun. I have never been such a crazy, ecclectic or excentric place. The entire place is hand painted with film posters and traditional Sri Lankan figures and prints. It is full, anf I mean full, of any conceivable item, picture or theme. It is a warren of corridors and rooms lined with lights, furniture, painting ets and wierdly and worryingly cribs! First we shown a room with a double bed despite specifically requesting a twin. Then after some comotion the twin room down the corridor was opened. The balcony was littered with years of detritus, the windown painted with the most aweful butterflies that resembled bats, the toilets are lined with old magazine pages, and the toilet didn't work! There were cobwebs and dust motes every where. Anyway, we deposited our bags in the room and left to some of Kandy, where the hotel is located, with instructions to fix the loo. So off we went for some food, that was aweful and a peek at the gem fatory. We watched an amzinf film on how they extract the stones, and my god is it a primitive method. Very intersting. Then a short demo on how they are cut and polished. And then to the shop where er were complete magpies and spen hours looking at all the beautiful saphires, diamonds, quarts, peridot, citrine etc. I settled on a nice peice of lapis lazuli and had a customed made pendant of silver for £27. Marjorie got the most amazing green saphire and yellow/green stone. She also had it customised into a broach, and the green saphire loose to be made up in the UK. From there we went to th ecash point so that I could pay for my pretty pendant the next day. Then back to Helgas's where it all started to go so very wrong. We had a pre dinner cocktail, where Marjorie witnessed a human camelion. His m-o-v-e-m-e-n-t-s b-e-i-n-g v-e-r-y s-l-o-w. He was going up the stairs in his tennis gear when M said 'hello' He stopped in his tracks, did a double take, thinking he must have imagined the voice strated to to take the next step and thought better of it. He turned slowly and came back down the stairs and towards us. He was Helga's husband, a portuguese Sri Lankan with tea planter heritage. He talked for a while, as his spotty dog investigated and scratched from fleas next to us.
After drinks we sat in a pretty blue room with the amazing candelabras that have 25 years of built up dripping wax in the table centre. The food was amazing, coconut soup served ina a coconut shell, fish pie with good crisp ved and squidgy chocolate pud with icecream. Whilst eating the pud we coulde suddenly here descending foot steps from the adjacent Nut Cracker Suite, and from the darkened room wafted in a tall, elegant and stunning lady wearing a Kimono and huge square sunglasses.'Good evening' she said in a very posh english accent. This was the famous Madame Helga, who was from aristocratic heritage and had been married at the 'high alter'. She was a veru gracuous and interesting lady, with little modesty and many famous names to drop.
We eventually braved to eeerie corridors with their baby crips and made it to our room, and fairly promptly fell asleep. Morning arrived with cardamon bed tea served form ancient battered metal tea pot. We had breakfast on the terrace with the monkeys as company, creeping ever so slowly forward till you were convinced one would drop from the roof above and make off with your melon boat. Oh and muddy coffee that apparently is just like African, not very pleasant, almost a raw taste to it.
So back to our room to pack up and leave for our next place. I took my wallet out to tips and discoved that 5000 rupees was missing. We phoned madame helga and soon enough the manager, husband a room boy were in the door way and i was saying how the money had gone from our locked room, that I had come directly form the cash point etc and so had not spent it and then forgotten. The 5000 was deducted from our bill, but the two lime sodas drank whilst sorting oiur were charged for! So off we went to pick up our gems leaving the bags and on the understanding that the police were to be informed and the theft investigated. I got and paid for the pendant, Marjorie was smitten with another beautiful stone and purchased that and I designed a pin broach for it to be made up and then delivered to us in Colombo on the Friday.
We then returned to the cash point as I needed cash to pay M for the accomodation, it was then that I discovered that my cash card had also been taken, having see one of my cards that morning I didn't realise that the other has gone, having been placed behind it. So we hare it back to the hotel to tell them about the new development. The reception was less than helpful, and really got ones hackles raised. Particularly when after dismissing the idea that the card was stolen with the cash he suddenly though, and asked that the payment for the room was not affected, was it? No, as M had paid on her card. Well thats ok then you could see written on his face. He said you know you could go the police if you want, but I know what they are like and it probably wont achieve much etc etc. We realised that nothing more could be achieved talking to the human camelion, and so left directly for the police station to make a complaint. It was failry fadt, if again primitive, with old fashioned type writes tapping away in the background. The policeman who we first spoke with had scary dead eyes, and asked me to write my account. Then referred to different department, and before we knew it we were sat in our car leading the way to Helga's Folly with two senior ranking officers following behind in a tuk tuk ( a threee wheeled vehicle with open sides that chugs slowly up hills, and definatly no siren!)
In wea ll go and the issue is discussed in Sinalese, and so we follow very little. The police suspected th room boy, but as a Tamil they would with or wothout evidence. (The car driver was asked to tell us what happened) and apparently the manager had dissapeared all morning without reason, so Helga and Mr suspected him. Anyway, thououghly fed up by this point, and card definatly cancelled, we left for Tamarind lodge. This was a real haven, again more expensive, but it had a pool so woulnd down with a swim, had great food and wine sneakily drank frm tumblers in the bedroom.
Subsuquent news on card was that it was found swallowed in a cash point, and the Helga lot now doubt that the money or card were ever stlen form the machine and that I must have dropped the 5000 rupees (eventhough I had 15,000) and card at the bank! Absolutly barking mad people. So if you go there, be warned.
Now back in Colombo, where the fun didn't exactly end. Whilst out for dinner with Pauls work buddies we recived a call from the neighbour to say that the dog had got loose and run off with the local floosy! So we high tail it back to find the maid in hysterics (fearing job loss probsbly) and no Namack. Paul goes searching, whilst me and Marjorie calm down Silvi. He will be back we reassure her, once he has had his way with the floosy and gets hungry he will be back. So off she goes, and we to bed. I am woken at 1 am with a call to say that bad dog is out side, come quick. So knock on Pauls door, and run out after Namack. He is accompanied by the floosy (owners do not approve of her), and so I struggle to get his attentiona and am forced to follow in pj's until I can get hold of his collar. He then parks his bum and I am forced to drag him along the road.So back into garden, door bolted and back to bed. 7am paul is distraught and knocking on my door, 'did you bolt the door, he's gone again'. Door wide open and Namack gone for a second time. I deffinatly bolted the boor and pulled and shoved it toi make sure. Luckily he was just out side this time. I said he was a clever dog, and I reiterae it, and he has=d only gone and learnt to nudget the bolt up and slide across with his nose. It is now firly padlocked, though you can still hear him nudging it discreetly.
So here I am almost ready to leave for New Delhi. Back to terrible heat and pillution and no sea. So sad. And joints aching like mad.
Oh, yeah, Sri Lanka getting very tense and looks like the government will turn very nasty. Will see, but we had a checkpoint ask for our passports last night, a first ever according to P and M who come here regularly. Also gun boats adjacent Galle Face as we had a farewell drink, and anti aircraft guns staioned ontop of a near by tower. Very intimidating.
Speak again soon.x
Saturday 20 June 2009
Tuesday 26 May 2009
soon to escape Delhi heat
Hi everybody, sorry it's been a while, strauggled with getting somewhere with internet. Anywhoo, so I have had a meeting with save the children bosses and orgnised a month or so away to see India and get over the whole culture shock. Had a really rough second week with illness and the inevitable homesickness. On the plus I know that I am deffinatly on the mend when I felt my self getting grumpy due to hunger. As most of you will agree this is a sure sign of me being back to my normal self! I welcomed it.
Delhi still shocks me on daily basis, with its stark contrasts of poverty and wealth, but also as one of the greenest cities in the world. a realy parody, as I am surrounded with all forms of transpot (wheeled, foot and hooved), concrete everywhere, constructional dust, metro and open sewers. Not hard considering that most people treat just about everywhere as a public conveneince.Often see (sorry boys) men pissing everywhere, and if I am really unlucky a few bare bottoms squatting.Not nice.
There is so much to take in on dailt basis that I find it a real struggle to relay it yo coherantly! It is all jumbled up.
I have been cotton shopping so that I can get the local tailor to recreate some trousers and tops that I recently bought. They are traditional indian clothing and very comfortable Ideal for the climate. I look really funnt in billowing baggy trousers and patterned tunic tops, but what the hell, I am lot cooler and less red in the face so not all bad. The cotton cost me around £10 and the tailor will be roughly the same and I will get two new outfits and trousers for mother. Not bad really.
Our ironing is done on a daily basis for 30 rupees about 40 p) by a man who stands under a mango tree.
I had a go at doing my own henna on my feet the other day, Irfan the driver brought back two packets of henna. It was ok, but a little shaky.
There is more malnoutrition now that 50 years ago.
Something like 60% of all Indian electricity is stolen!
I have seen elephnats on the road side, but not had my camera!
I have been to the national museum, where i could get an english audio tape tour. See many stone carvings and paintings. saw funnt Indian nativity scenes; a miniture painting of a amn holding the mona lisa painting!
went to a mall and epereinced dr.Fish pedicure, fish that nibble you feet and eat the deadskin, I also saw a tibetal monk walk out of a reebok shop!
Went to The Imperial (5*) hotel and had the best cheese burger in my life with wine and G and T.
saw Indians newset purchase of a russian radar plane as it came into delhi airport! Just arriving.
Should be going to Sri Lanka in a few weeks with Paul and meetin Marjory there, really looking forward to this trip. The maybe go back to Kedars in te mountains where he runs a small NGO. They provide seperate sanitation for women, really important for their safety and dignity. Sand latrines. And bio gas from their livestock for cooking and some lighs. really simple but effective support for poor village people.
Really can't say if I like it here or not. Somethings are amazing, like sitting out of an evening and listening to the peacocks settle into the trees, watching the bats come out to hunt (first the small ones and the progressively bigger). sparrow hawks diving on the noisy pigeons, crickets thrumming in the background. Cats prowling. But all of this is driven away during the day when we stop at lights and a youn mother comes with a little baby in her arms and she scratches and taps at the window, mimicking eating movements. How should you react to the situation? There are displays of affection to pigeons who are fed by the Hindus because it pleases some God. But very little is given to that young mother and baby? why is this we ask? How can you feed stupid pigeons over a baby. Infact kill the effing pigeons and make pie I say. Feed the starving, if I was a god I would be far more impressed by that act of genersoity that helping a disease ridden species survive. Have we forgotten bird flu?!
Anyway, rant over. It is a shitty world in so many ways, but if you care to look there are rays of sunshine, and real beauty. will try and get some photos up that illustrateall of the above. The beautiful and the bloody ugly.
Love to you all, B.
Delhi still shocks me on daily basis, with its stark contrasts of poverty and wealth, but also as one of the greenest cities in the world. a realy parody, as I am surrounded with all forms of transpot (wheeled, foot and hooved), concrete everywhere, constructional dust, metro and open sewers. Not hard considering that most people treat just about everywhere as a public conveneince.Often see (sorry boys) men pissing everywhere, and if I am really unlucky a few bare bottoms squatting.Not nice.
There is so much to take in on dailt basis that I find it a real struggle to relay it yo coherantly! It is all jumbled up.
I have been cotton shopping so that I can get the local tailor to recreate some trousers and tops that I recently bought. They are traditional indian clothing and very comfortable Ideal for the climate. I look really funnt in billowing baggy trousers and patterned tunic tops, but what the hell, I am lot cooler and less red in the face so not all bad. The cotton cost me around £10 and the tailor will be roughly the same and I will get two new outfits and trousers for mother. Not bad really.
Our ironing is done on a daily basis for 30 rupees about 40 p) by a man who stands under a mango tree.
I had a go at doing my own henna on my feet the other day, Irfan the driver brought back two packets of henna. It was ok, but a little shaky.
There is more malnoutrition now that 50 years ago.
Something like 60% of all Indian electricity is stolen!
I have seen elephnats on the road side, but not had my camera!
I have been to the national museum, where i could get an english audio tape tour. See many stone carvings and paintings. saw funnt Indian nativity scenes; a miniture painting of a amn holding the mona lisa painting!
went to a mall and epereinced dr.Fish pedicure, fish that nibble you feet and eat the deadskin, I also saw a tibetal monk walk out of a reebok shop!
Went to The Imperial (5*) hotel and had the best cheese burger in my life with wine and G and T.
saw Indians newset purchase of a russian radar plane as it came into delhi airport! Just arriving.
Should be going to Sri Lanka in a few weeks with Paul and meetin Marjory there, really looking forward to this trip. The maybe go back to Kedars in te mountains where he runs a small NGO. They provide seperate sanitation for women, really important for their safety and dignity. Sand latrines. And bio gas from their livestock for cooking and some lighs. really simple but effective support for poor village people.
Really can't say if I like it here or not. Somethings are amazing, like sitting out of an evening and listening to the peacocks settle into the trees, watching the bats come out to hunt (first the small ones and the progressively bigger). sparrow hawks diving on the noisy pigeons, crickets thrumming in the background. Cats prowling. But all of this is driven away during the day when we stop at lights and a youn mother comes with a little baby in her arms and she scratches and taps at the window, mimicking eating movements. How should you react to the situation? There are displays of affection to pigeons who are fed by the Hindus because it pleases some God. But very little is given to that young mother and baby? why is this we ask? How can you feed stupid pigeons over a baby. Infact kill the effing pigeons and make pie I say. Feed the starving, if I was a god I would be far more impressed by that act of genersoity that helping a disease ridden species survive. Have we forgotten bird flu?!
Anyway, rant over. It is a shitty world in so many ways, but if you care to look there are rays of sunshine, and real beauty. will try and get some photos up that illustrateall of the above. The beautiful and the bloody ugly.
Love to you all, B.
Wednesday 13 May 2009
Almost seen through my second week
It is Wednesday afternoon, and I have just recovered from a bout of classic Delhi Belly! Not very pleasant, but possibly not as bad as some people seem to get it!
I am in a strange place of starting to get into the Delhi rhythm, but also desperately missing home comforts; like welsh rain and winds! I knew I would miss the cooling wind, and consistent rain (didn't actually) but I have surprised myself again by longing for it! I spoke to Marjorie (Paul's wife) who is currently resisding in Wales with her father not far from my house, and she regaled me with stories of Welsh weather and i was left pining for it. There I was sitting in an overly warm house, with no repiste offered by going outdoors! A very strange concept to those of us used to cooler climes. Though I will say the heat is more bearable due it's 'dry' nature; if it was humid it would make me so sluggish.
I can't wait to get out of Delhi, I am getting warped I think. It is not a true refelction of 'India' by al accounts. The prices are similar to home (well London actually) on some fronts, and on other things it can be very cheap. When people say that India is a country of contrasts they don't exaggerate. It is incredible the inequalities that I witness every day, and participate in.
I assumed for one that as a very hot country things would start later, and end earlier. Wrong, they day really starts up around 9:30 to 10:30, though there are street vendors out 24/7. As i drive (I should say get driven) to work the roads are full of bikes (usually with an entire family aboard, with it only compulsory for the driver to wear a helmet), push bikes (with a passanger on the back), pedestrians and the ever present beggers.
There are so called 'professional beggers' here. A crazy concept to us, but it is a way of life, of making a business. There are real Fagans here, only much more brutal. It is common to see adults and children with missing limbs, this they have done by doctors for pitiful amounts of money so that they may be more succesful in begging. The sympathy ploy. How can it fail to work, especially on us westerners that are unaccustomed to seeing this. If a group of begger children spot me in a car they will stop idling by the road and make a bee line for me, a white woman is presumably soft. I count my self among them. It breaks my heart everytime, but there is no point giving money. Instead there is a ready store of very nutritous biscuits that we hand out instead, hoping that then at least they will get the benefit of our giving, as apposed to Fagan's pocket. The hardest thing to digest its when we escape the heat in modern American style malls (just like home) where there is AC. As you sit and have luch you look down on Delhi below and you will see that at the boundaries of the concrete complex, grand gates stand with security guard that carry out a very minimal check on your vehicle, and just beyond the dirt paements with tarpaulin homes erected everywhere, people (men, women and children) asleep on the floor with no bedding, no belongings in most cases, just surviving. Some stare blankly off into the distance, what they think about I don't know. Just basic things probably, like will I eat today? And there I am struggling to eat my tiger prawns because the heat suppresses my appetite. Never really belive that that is possible until you are there, you live it.
Not that it is all dismal. There is no point letting it drag you down, it doesn't help anyone in the slightest.
So on the weekend I spent Saturday at a pool side, cooling off whikst splasshing arounhd throwing a ball for a friends dog, Jenny. The dog owners are Elizabeth and Jergen. The sat night we all glammed up and attended a European celebration day. All the embassy people were there, charities, and many more. It ended in true style with a bit of a fight with the my host and others. Won't go into detail, but a party isn't a party without a fight, right?
So then sunday I spent wandering around aforementioned Mall, buying some food stuffs and generally looking around. And then back to the pool once again. By this point I started to feel stomache cramps, and be unconfortable. My detail into Delhi Belly will end there. Your imagination can unfortunatly fill in the gaps.So Monday and Tuesday were spent in bed, on the loo, infront of the TV and reading. Generally moping about and feeling very sorry for myself. And missing Sion. Had a little cry, and thought of home.
I am reassessing my stay here, 6 months seems like too long in this heat. And the internship is not what I had hoped for. Will probably spend my time doing as I please and accompanying Paul on his Missions.
Namiste for now.x
I am in a strange place of starting to get into the Delhi rhythm, but also desperately missing home comforts; like welsh rain and winds! I knew I would miss the cooling wind, and consistent rain (didn't actually) but I have surprised myself again by longing for it! I spoke to Marjorie (Paul's wife) who is currently resisding in Wales with her father not far from my house, and she regaled me with stories of Welsh weather and i was left pining for it. There I was sitting in an overly warm house, with no repiste offered by going outdoors! A very strange concept to those of us used to cooler climes. Though I will say the heat is more bearable due it's 'dry' nature; if it was humid it would make me so sluggish.
I can't wait to get out of Delhi, I am getting warped I think. It is not a true refelction of 'India' by al accounts. The prices are similar to home (well London actually) on some fronts, and on other things it can be very cheap. When people say that India is a country of contrasts they don't exaggerate. It is incredible the inequalities that I witness every day, and participate in.
I assumed for one that as a very hot country things would start later, and end earlier. Wrong, they day really starts up around 9:30 to 10:30, though there are street vendors out 24/7. As i drive (I should say get driven) to work the roads are full of bikes (usually with an entire family aboard, with it only compulsory for the driver to wear a helmet), push bikes (with a passanger on the back), pedestrians and the ever present beggers.
There are so called 'professional beggers' here. A crazy concept to us, but it is a way of life, of making a business. There are real Fagans here, only much more brutal. It is common to see adults and children with missing limbs, this they have done by doctors for pitiful amounts of money so that they may be more succesful in begging. The sympathy ploy. How can it fail to work, especially on us westerners that are unaccustomed to seeing this. If a group of begger children spot me in a car they will stop idling by the road and make a bee line for me, a white woman is presumably soft. I count my self among them. It breaks my heart everytime, but there is no point giving money. Instead there is a ready store of very nutritous biscuits that we hand out instead, hoping that then at least they will get the benefit of our giving, as apposed to Fagan's pocket. The hardest thing to digest its when we escape the heat in modern American style malls (just like home) where there is AC. As you sit and have luch you look down on Delhi below and you will see that at the boundaries of the concrete complex, grand gates stand with security guard that carry out a very minimal check on your vehicle, and just beyond the dirt paements with tarpaulin homes erected everywhere, people (men, women and children) asleep on the floor with no bedding, no belongings in most cases, just surviving. Some stare blankly off into the distance, what they think about I don't know. Just basic things probably, like will I eat today? And there I am struggling to eat my tiger prawns because the heat suppresses my appetite. Never really belive that that is possible until you are there, you live it.
Not that it is all dismal. There is no point letting it drag you down, it doesn't help anyone in the slightest.
So on the weekend I spent Saturday at a pool side, cooling off whikst splasshing arounhd throwing a ball for a friends dog, Jenny. The dog owners are Elizabeth and Jergen. The sat night we all glammed up and attended a European celebration day. All the embassy people were there, charities, and many more. It ended in true style with a bit of a fight with the my host and others. Won't go into detail, but a party isn't a party without a fight, right?
So then sunday I spent wandering around aforementioned Mall, buying some food stuffs and generally looking around. And then back to the pool once again. By this point I started to feel stomache cramps, and be unconfortable. My detail into Delhi Belly will end there. Your imagination can unfortunatly fill in the gaps.So Monday and Tuesday were spent in bed, on the loo, infront of the TV and reading. Generally moping about and feeling very sorry for myself. And missing Sion. Had a little cry, and thought of home.
I am reassessing my stay here, 6 months seems like too long in this heat. And the internship is not what I had hoped for. Will probably spend my time doing as I please and accompanying Paul on his Missions.
Namiste for now.x
Monday 4 May 2009
First weekend in Dehli
I arrived safe and well on thurs evening at around 11:30 local time. I went trhough customs, where there was a very cursory check for swine flu, literally a form to fill. Very efficient as you can see! I then waited in line for the passport check, where a nice young man struck up conversation with me which was a nice welcome to India. I was one of the last to have the passport check, and the man was very austere, and once finished stamping and looking he looked me straight in the eye and slammed the passport on the counter top!
It took very little time to find my way out and to a warm greeting form my host for the next 6 month Paul. Despite everyone having warned me that the temperature here gets very hot, nothing had prepared me for when I stepped out of the nicely air conditioned arioprt to the dust bowl of Dehli. There is a perpertual haze of dust generated form the work being carried out building a metro, which should help road congestion. The traffic has been extremely kind to me thus far, with very little hold ups, and if there were again I am in an AC cooled vehicle with driver that can cope with the chaos that is Indian driving. There are regular breakdowns, oncoming traffic on your side of the road, bikers with an entire family perched on atop another, not to mention the stray dogs, pigs and cattle that wander hither and thither. This morning on my way to my first day with Save the Children the traffic was a little worse, but stood out to me were the two chaps having a deep converation on what resembled a junction onto a motorway, the only concession here being that Indian drivers tend to keep a slow pace, otherwise it would be carnage. Of course, if you are out on the roads at the early hours then you have to watch out for drunken drivers winding their way across the roads.
The house that I am staying in is a veritable palace, as we drove into Sanik Farms you are in a series of small cul de sacs with housing ranging in size and condition, but genmerally of a higher standard. We paused momentaraly as the gates were opened to reveal a fair sized white builing with balconys as on two levels. I ione again had to set food outdoors into a overly balmy night and made my way to a fantastic dorrway that opened into the most amazing marble, high celinged hallway. To say I was pleasantly suprised doens't quite express my first impression. And it only got better when I had a tour of the house that has been decorated in the Indian style with immense taste. The entire building has marble floors, huge fans, AC, and my bedroom has a huge double bed, walk in wardrobe and en suite. What else could I want, I feel that i have more than landed on my feet.
That first night I sat outdoors with a fan overhead and a beautufully mixed G and T, how very Brit of me.
I have never felt in such an exotic place before, the night air was filled with the sounds of chattering bats of varuous sizes, little birdies and the occassional call of wild peacocks that roost 20 foot in the air not far from the house. Subsequent evenings have been spent in a similar fashion, with ever more sighting of exotic birds such drongos (a very deep call similar to a monkey), and a flock of ibis.
Have to go as I have some work to do! Eeeek!
It took very little time to find my way out and to a warm greeting form my host for the next 6 month Paul. Despite everyone having warned me that the temperature here gets very hot, nothing had prepared me for when I stepped out of the nicely air conditioned arioprt to the dust bowl of Dehli. There is a perpertual haze of dust generated form the work being carried out building a metro, which should help road congestion. The traffic has been extremely kind to me thus far, with very little hold ups, and if there were again I am in an AC cooled vehicle with driver that can cope with the chaos that is Indian driving. There are regular breakdowns, oncoming traffic on your side of the road, bikers with an entire family perched on atop another, not to mention the stray dogs, pigs and cattle that wander hither and thither. This morning on my way to my first day with Save the Children the traffic was a little worse, but stood out to me were the two chaps having a deep converation on what resembled a junction onto a motorway, the only concession here being that Indian drivers tend to keep a slow pace, otherwise it would be carnage. Of course, if you are out on the roads at the early hours then you have to watch out for drunken drivers winding their way across the roads.
The house that I am staying in is a veritable palace, as we drove into Sanik Farms you are in a series of small cul de sacs with housing ranging in size and condition, but genmerally of a higher standard. We paused momentaraly as the gates were opened to reveal a fair sized white builing with balconys as on two levels. I ione again had to set food outdoors into a overly balmy night and made my way to a fantastic dorrway that opened into the most amazing marble, high celinged hallway. To say I was pleasantly suprised doens't quite express my first impression. And it only got better when I had a tour of the house that has been decorated in the Indian style with immense taste. The entire building has marble floors, huge fans, AC, and my bedroom has a huge double bed, walk in wardrobe and en suite. What else could I want, I feel that i have more than landed on my feet.
That first night I sat outdoors with a fan overhead and a beautufully mixed G and T, how very Brit of me.
I have never felt in such an exotic place before, the night air was filled with the sounds of chattering bats of varuous sizes, little birdies and the occassional call of wild peacocks that roost 20 foot in the air not far from the house. Subsequent evenings have been spent in a similar fashion, with ever more sighting of exotic birds such drongos (a very deep call similar to a monkey), and a flock of ibis.
Have to go as I have some work to do! Eeeek!
Tuesday 31 March 2009
Adventure Jitters
It is a month till I leave, and I am already expereinceing the jitters. I wake up in the morning, jaw clamped, heart fluttering madly and feeling slightly sick, 'what am I thinking, 6 months away from Sion, my cats, the family, my freinds, I must be crazy'. But I feel compelled to do this trip, to do something on my own, for me. To challange myself to do something that will inevitably be so utterly different to what I am trying to prepare my self for. Despite all that I am so excited about the trip also, I look forward to the varying smells (good and bad), the vibrancy of colour I expect to be dazzling, the noise that I am taking earplugs to block out, once I have had enough and need some quite. And the people. The sheer mass of bodies that will be a wall.
I have secured my self a position as an Intern with Save The Children, and the position is what I fear the most, and look forward to the most. A real oxymoron of emotions I know, bt I feel that I can contribute something; but I worry that my feelings will be hard to control. Something I have read is that public displays of affection are not the done thing in India, this will be hard for someone like me who is by my very nature demonstrative with my affection.
Overall I am trying not to form too many opinions, as thei will undoubtadly be wrong, or wholly mis-calcualted.
But I am excited.
I have secured my self a position as an Intern with Save The Children, and the position is what I fear the most, and look forward to the most. A real oxymoron of emotions I know, bt I feel that I can contribute something; but I worry that my feelings will be hard to control. Something I have read is that public displays of affection are not the done thing in India, this will be hard for someone like me who is by my very nature demonstrative with my affection.
Overall I am trying not to form too many opinions, as thei will undoubtadly be wrong, or wholly mis-calcualted.
But I am excited.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
