Sinhagad

I keep meaning to post about this, but somehow I never quite do. Better late than never, I suppose!

The Saturday before I got sick, I went to Sinhagad. Sinhagad is a ruined fort dating from around the 14th century, located some 30km from Pune. The guidebook described it as ‘much adored’ and ‘a desired picnic and getaway spot’. In my naivety, I imagined a rolling park sort of thing, fairly sedate and with a couple of picturesque tumble-down walls and such dotted around, maybe a tower or two, if I was lucky.

My first clue that this impression might not be entirely accurate came when my driver, who arrived in a plush jeep-type thing, got a peculiar look on his face at the mention of Sinhagad, and proceeded to spend a long ten minutes on the phone in Hindi. He finally hung up and we set off, but we hadn’t got past the first set of traffic lights when his phone rang and he pulled onto the pavement. After another, quicker conversation – still in Hindi, of course – I was handed the phone. The line was kind of crackly, so it took me a moment to work out that we were going back to the hotel and they would send another car for me. The guy said it was because ‘this car wasn’t allowed’ to go to Sinhagad, but since his English wasn’t fantastic, I assumed he simply meant that the driver didn’t have time to go all that way, or something like that. In any case, we did a U-turn, went back to the hotel, and I was soon picked up by a perfectly comfortable but noticeably smaller Fiat.

The drive took about an hour through some very lush, green countryside. We passed the lake created by the Khadakwasla Dam, which the driver was very keen to point out to me, and finally arrived at the foot of a hill, guarded by a couple of military gentlemen with large guns. As the driver paid them the toll, I couldn’t help but notice a couple of plaques pinned to the surrounding trees, with some Hindi writing and the unmistakable image of a leopard. Since someone had mentioned to me that the place was rather isolated, and big cats were occasionally seen in the area, I couldn’t help but be a wee bit worried. Still, I reminded myself I was unlikely to be alone, and in any case, no leopard with any sense would be hunting in the middle of the day. The driver finished talking to the guards and we set off up the hill.

The first ten minutes, I sat in the continuous expectation of at any moment rounding the corner into a parking lot of some sort. There was no shortage of corners, after all – every 20m we seemed to change direction. It wasn’t until around a quarter of an hour had passed, and the vegetation changed abruptly, that I realised that we were not actually on a small hill, winding our way through a forest as I had thought, but were, in fact, in the process of climbing a mountain. At this point, the leafy trees which had surrounded us, obscuring the view, gave way to clusters of coarse, low-lying bushes and shrubs, and I was able to see for the first time just how steep the way down was. As it turns out, Sinhagad is located 1350m above sea level!

We continued our ascent for another ten or fifteen minutes, occasionally having to pull in to let pass motorbikes or other cars coming back down, before finally arriving on a small plateau that functioned as a parking lot. It was a bit confused, stuffed with cars parked every which way, and tents and stalls selling chai and snacks along every side. We found a space easily enough, though, so I didn’t think any more of it. The driver seemed a bit concerned for me because of the heat, but there was a pleasant breeze, so I wasn’t too worried. He gave me his number, telling me to call him if I had any trouble, and I set off.

At this point, I knew we were pretty high up. The parking lot offered a fantastic view, and we had, after all, been climbing steeply for almost half an hour. It wasn’t until I started to move around that I realised just how high we really were. The first part of the way up to the fort was a narrow, flat path in deep shade, lined on one side with fruit and snack vendors. Already walking along there, I began to feel a bit out of breath, but I put it down to the heat and ignored it. The path was followed by some steps – wide, low ones, cut into the mountain, not dramatic in any sense: I managed to climb about a dozen before I either had to sit down or fall over. It was actually a bit frightening; I am not in the best of shape, but I am not hugely unhealthy either, and I am used to my body doing what I want it to, or at least giving me fair warning before it stops. Now, though, after hardly any exertion, I was quite sure that if I stood up again, I wouldn’t remain that way for long. Even walking back to the car seemed at that point like an insurmountable obstacle. Eventually, of course, though it took several minutes, I began to adapt to the quality of the air, and was able to continue up the steps to what was left of the fort itself.

When I got there, I was quite astonished. I had been expecting something really quite isolated, with just my fellow visitors and one or two food vendors. Some of that had already been dispelled by the large amount of stalls I’d already seen in the parking lot and along the path, but I was still a bit shocked at what I found at the top. It was practically a little village! In addition to the food and drink I had been expecting, there were shacks and huts all over the place, obviously home to a number of families, following the little ‘streets’ left by the ruins. People were everywhere, visitors and residents both, sitting on picnic blankets in the grassy areas, drinking chai in the shade of the tents, or just wandering around looking at the ruins and enjoying the view.

I did the same, and spent about an hour exploring the site. The ruins themselves weren’t much to look at, being only a few bits of wall left over. There was one piece that had been kept up, though, a memorial to (as I later discovered) Tanaji, one of the military leaders who died there. And old guide was performing a rather impressive ‘story through song’ thing when I got there. Everyone in the shrine area seemed to be barefoot or in socks. I didn’t fancy taking off my shoes just to get to the other side, so I very carefully made my way around the edge, on top of the thorny bushes, to avoid causing offence. Just as I had finally made it, a group of Indian youth passed me and went straight across the middle in heavy black trainers. I felt a bit silly.

Mostly, though, I spent my time admiring the view from different vantage points. It was truly spectacular, quite unlike anything I have ever seen outside of National Geographic. Huge (to my flat European mind), tree covered mountains in every direction, the more distant ones shrouded in faint mist, and birds of all kinds swooping in the void between. It was amazing, although I don’t know what it says about me that my first comparison was to a sort of cross between Feralas and the Barrens (if you don’t game, don’t ask).

On my way back down to the car, I met a small family coming up in the opposite direction: An impish little girl of about five, her father, grandfather, and two women in their thirties, one of whom was probably the girl’s mother. The child walked up to me, quite fearlessly, and, when I didn’t immediately realise she wanted to talk to me, said, smiling, ‘She would like to say hello to you.’ Which she then did, in perfect, lightly accented English. We exchanged brief pleasantries, but when I began to move again, the grandfather, having heard that I was alone, took me aside and warned me, very seriously, to take care of myself, because there were bad people about. If he had been patronising about it, I would have just ignored him, but the fact that he was so grave took me by surprise; I hadn’t experienced anything, at any point in my trip, to make me even a bit worried about going around alone, but he was the third person that day to warn me, in all seriousness, about ‘bad people’ (the other two being the driver and the person who helped me plan the trip). So, either the dangers of travelling alone in India as a Western female have been grossly exaggerated, even amongst the local population, or I have been very lucky. Thinking about it, I suspect a bit of both.

Anyway, I made it down to the parking lot, and there discovered why it is generally a good idea to mark out parking spaces properly: When I had left it earlier that morning, there had been two rows of cars, not exactly neatly lined up, but close enough. Now, there were three, set up in such a way that made it clear that no one, at any point, had ever thought to consider that there was a possibility, however remote, that the cars in the middle row might just want to leave before the ones on either side. Our car, of course, was sitting neatly in the middle of the whole mess.

I like to think I am a fairly philosophical person, and since there was obviously nothing anybody could do, I let the driver take me to one of the shady tents on the edge of the plateau and sat sipping my water while he tried to find the drivers of the cars blocking us in. Now, I say drivers, because of course, these were not nice, neat lines, where one car being removed on one side or the other would have allowed us an exit. This was a case of incoming drivers finding the nearest available space and simply leaving their car in it. As a result, not only were there three very muddled lines in centre of the space, but cars had also been left randomly dotted around the edge next to the tents, making it virtually impossible for even the cars on the outer rows to pull out far enough to turn. To put it in more practical terms: Within ten minutes or so, my driver had managed to locate the owners of two of the cars directly behind us and one in front, yet we still couldn’t move an inch. It wasn’t until the driver of the van opposite the car in front of us was found that we began to make real progress. Even then, though, it wasn’t a case of just driving the offending cars away and putting them back once we were out, oh no. Due to the lack of space, it ended up looking more like one of those puzzle boxes, where all the pieces have to be moved several times in a very specific in order to open it. It took about twenty minutes and three guys standing around directing the various drivers (no mirrors, remember) before we were finally able to leave, and yet somehow, I didn’t feel the least bit annoyed about the delay, nor even surprised that it had happened. I think the Indian spirit is beginning to take hold of me…

Another attempt at sightseeing

Yesterday was pretty boring. I had booked a car with the hotel to take me sightseeing. After waiting 45 minutes for the car to turn up, I asked to go to the Konark Park, which was labelled as a bird sanctuary/research centre in my guide book/brochure thing. Unfortunately, it was also the only attraction listed without an address, a fact I only noticed after the driver spent ten minutes reading the listing in an effort to work out where it was. Since all it said was ‘on the outskirts of Pune’ and ‘5kms from Pashan’, he eventually had to give up and call the hotel for directions. What followed was a conversation in increasingly irritated Hindi, which I didn’t understand a word of, except for ‘Konark Park’, ‘Pashan’ and ‘Google’. Yes, that’s right, Google. From what I could work out, the conversation started out with ‘what’s the address of Konark Park?’, and ended with ‘well, if you don’t know, google it!’ After that, the driver hung up. Five minutes later, he got a text with the address, which I am choosing to take as confirmation of my theory. Globalisation is a wonderful thing!

We drove for about an hour through some very scenic countryside, until the driver suddenly looked around, did an abrupt u-turn and pulled into a shallow space in front of a large iron gate. The place was completely deserted, and at first, I thought he just wanted to get off the road to consult a map or something. It took me a moment to noticed that above the gate was a metal plaque proclaiming Konark Park. This came as something of a surprise, as not only was there not a soul to be seen, but it looked as though this might have been the case for some time. The gates were clearly locked, and through them the compound itself looked rather forlorn, empty except for a few pieces of old, weather beaten pillars with the paint flaking off stacked in one corner.

The driver honked a few times, and eventually a security guard emerged from the hut next to the gates. After a quick conversation in Hindi (with the driver, obviously, not me), it emerged that Konark Park had closed down six months ago! I was a bit shocked, especially as apparently it has been going for 30 years. Of course, there was nothing to do but turn around and go back, which we did, but not before I managed to get a picture of what has to be the weirdest sight I have seen in India so far, which just happened to be located just opposite: The Ambrosia Institute of Hotel Management. You have to understand that, by this point, we were in very rural territory, all fields and farms and greenery, with the occasional inconspicuous compound, usually army-related. Then, in the middle of an area of lush, low trees, suddenly this enormous thing loomed into view! The only way I can really describe it is as a gigantic glass bow (as in one you tie with ribbon). There seemed to be no infrastructure, nothing to support its existence; it looked like a huge, space-age building, quite unlike any I have ever seen, had been dropped down right in the middle of the countryside and just left there. I’ll post the picture when I can, but unfortunately I seem to have misplaced the cable for my camera.

Anyway, after I had gazed in awe at the bizarreness of it for a few minutes, we headed back into Pune. I was determined to see animals, so we ended up going to the Katraj Snake Park, billed in my guidebook as ‘the most attractive tourist place in Pune’. The driver came in too, which surprised me; I didn’t mind, but usually they just give me their phone number and go for a chai while I do my tourist thing. I mentioned to him that he was welcome to do the same, but he said he preferred to come with me as it was ‘a big area’. Naturally, this put me in mind of the zoos we have in Europe, especially as it turned out to be quite a wooded area next to a lake, within an immediately obvious perimeter. As such, I was a tad surprised when we managed to do the whole thing in fifteen minutes, without rushing in the least. The exhibits were nice, though – mostly snakes, also a couple of crocodiles, some birds (owls, peafowl and an invisible vulture) and a group of monkeys. I was surprised to find that most of the reptiles were kept outside, in deep pen with little roofs on them, but with the weather the way it is over here, I can see why. They looked a lot more comfortable than the few snakes in terrariums, too, although the king cobra seemed quite happy in his tank. A cat had gotten into the monkey enclosure when we arrived, and I lingered there, hoping we’d see a reaction from the monkeys, but no joy. They all seemed quite comfortable with each other, and later I saw the same cat with a white mouse in its jaws which looked suspiciously well fed, which made me suspect that the cat was probably quite comfortable with the snakes as well.

After we’d seen everything we could walk to, the driver told me to stand in line next to a little hut, where a battery-powered car would come and take me to see the rest of the animals. I stood there for a while, but there was a sign saying that each car only took ten people, and there were at least twenty in front of me, several holding places for their children playing nearby, so when no car appeared after 10 minutes, I gave up and went to admire the lake instead. I might try again, early in the morning before the crowds arrive, but I’m going to ask some of the others if I’m missing anything first.

Bleh

Today (or tomorrow, depending on how you calculate it) is my half-way point, and I am sick. Fantastic. It started with some unpleasantness yesterday morning, but it was fairly mild, and I was convinced it would pass within a couple of hours. I went into work around half past ten, and then went home again an hour later, after almost passing out in the bathroom (well, that’s what it felt like, anyway). It’s not very dramatic, I just felt incredibly tired, as somewhat feverish. I spent most of yesterday in bed, alternately sleeping and reading Bridget Jones. This morning I woke up feeling much the same as I did yesterday morning, so I’ve asked them to send a doctor for me. I’m not hopeful that he’ll be able to do much, because this seems to be one of those things where you just sleep and wait for it to pass, but I am tentatively optimistic that if I spend another day just doing basically nothing, it will pass on its own.

I hate being sick.

Diwali

So, Diwali was last weekend. Or well, perhaps I should say that the Diwali celebration was last weekend, because Diwali as a whole is something I have been hearing about every day in one form or another ever since I got here, three and a half weeks ago.

I knew about Diwali before arriving, which is to say that I knew it was the Hindu festival of light, celebrated by lighting candles and wearing fine clothes. What I was not aware of was the sheer scope of the thing! Now that I’ve witnessed it first hand, I’ve begun to think of it as the Hindu version of Christmas, in terms of social and commercial significance. That is to say, the social idea of Diwali is to spend time with one’s family and loved ones, doing traditional things and generally celebrating quietly within the home. The commercial ideal, on the other hand, is that everybody should spend as much money as possible (and ideally more) to ‘make this Diwali the most festive ever!’ Ads for Diwali-related items are discounts are everywhere you look – TV, magazines, billboards – and almost always feature airbrushed people in expensive party clothes, with a few candles scattered around the edges for effect. In almost every case, you could replace ‘Diwali’ with ‘Christmas’ and quite likely no one would ever know the difference.

There are other similarities, too. One is the sudden appearance of charity volunteers selling trinkets to raise money, just before the main event, and the equally sudden desire of virtually every passer-by to buy something. For my own part, I bought a set of two terracotta diyas (small lamps used to celebrate the festival) decorated with silver paint, which will do beautifully for Christmas (see?) at the charity stall set up in the canteen at work one day, a pair of traditional cards with – again – imagery that could easily pass for Christmas at the same stall, and a tiny candle in a clay pot at the entrance to the SGS Mall one day, mostly because it didn’t occur to me to give the money while refusing the candle.

And speaking of malls, the shops certainly do their bit to join in! Ever since I arrived, almost every one of them has had special Diwali offers coming out of their ears. Most also set up a table at the entrance, brightly decorated and full of suitably festive items (is this ringing any bells), and many shops that don’t generally sell foodstuffs offer sweets and chocolates in elaborate gift boxes, at three times the normal price. I noticed a golden and purple Cadbury’s box in particular that looked suspiciously like some marketing person had just removed the ‘Merry Christmas’ text and replaced it with ‘Happy Diwali’ (or maybe it started out as ‘Happy Diwali’ and got replaced by ‘Merry Christmas’, who knows?). I don’t think the font had even been changed!

The decorations are similar, too. In theory they aren’t supposed to be, but in practice it’s exactly the same shiny tinsel paper that gets used, albeit in different colours (basically, all of them). They do have some lovely traditional lanterns, though, quite large and made from brightly-coloured cloth. I think I might try to get one to take home with me.

There is one major point that sets Diwali apart from Christmas, though, and that is the attitude people take to it. I hadn’t really noticed until last Friday, but it really struck me.

Friday was the most important day of the celebration, and we all had to work. In the days before, people had been decorating, and when I say decorating, I don’t mean buying a little plastic tree for the team and calling it a day. I mean serious decorating. We had lanterns of every shape and size hanging from the ceiling, as well as everywhere else people could manage to hook them on. Brightly coloured garlands were drawn up from the desks to give the impression of little pavilions, and miles of sparkly tinsel were stuck along every available surface. It was very impressive.

When the big day finally came, I dressed up a bit, but didn’t go so far as to wear Indian clothes for the occasion. I hadn’t (and still haven’t) got around to purchasing any, and, when it occurred to me that wearing a sari or something might be a good idea, it was already Thursday and I was told the shops would be a nightmare, worse than on Christmas Eve. According to one of my fellow travellers, that turned out to be absolutely true, but when I got in and realised just how much effort everyone was making, I found myself kind of wishing that I had braved it anyway. Still, my beaded top and long skirt did have a vaguely Indian feel to them, so I did sort of fit in.

The day itself was fairly uneventful, at least for me. The group had ordered a special lunch, and specifically asked for a mild portion for me, which I thought was very considerate. Unfortunately, the caterer’s interpretation of ‘non-spicy’ turned out to be rather different than mine, but what I did manage had a wonderful underlying flavour (the problem was that the overlying one was FIRE). Someone also gave me a Diwali gift, a glass mug full of Cadbury’s Eclairs (which I am currently eating) and pieces of white chocolate. Gift-giving is apparently not a traditional aspect of Diwali, which focuses more on sharing token snacks and sweets, but I’m told it’s beginning to creep in, at least in middle class circles.

Anyway, as I said, nothing particularly special took place for me, but what I noticed more and more as the day went on was how joyful people seemed. Not just a few, either; pretty much everyone I met throughout the day appeared to be genuinely, honestly happy that it was Diwali, and that they would shortly be going home to celebrate with their families. It made for a sharp contrast with the West, where so often people put a ridiculous amount of money and effort into Christmas, while at the same time managing to completely fail to enter into the spirit of the thing. I think I like the Indian way better (which is not to say that a fully decked-out Christmas tree with a mound of colourful presents underneath is not one of my favourite sites in the world…).

After work, I went back to the hotel and didn’t do a whole lot until dinner. I was faffing about on the internet when It started. From about half past six, just after it got properly dark, until God only knows what wee hour of the morning, I was treated to a non-stop display of fireworks from across the city. It sounded like war had broken out outside my window!

In honour of the occasion, I decided to eat in the hotel’s Indian restaurant. I hadn’t tried it yet, and honestly have no great desire to do so again, for various reasons. Still, the food was good, although I was a bit disappointed to find that my suckling lamb shank had more bone than meat on it (and the bone wasn’t very big). Nevertheless, it was quite tasty, and I had a conversation with my neighbour who recommended that I try another local hotel restaurant, where they will give you a meal consisting of samples of a wide range of Indian foods.

After dinner, I was back in my room, and beginning to think about going to bed, when I began to realise that the fireworks outside had suddenly got a lot closer. When a very bright yellow-white one exploded right outside my window, I finally realised that I was witnessing the hotel’s own fantastic display! I say finally because, up until that moment, I hadn’t realised that the hotel was going to have a display. I suppose I should have expected it – what brand new five-star hotel would miss a chance to show off? – but I didn’t, and, as it turns out, I wasn’t alone. See, the hotel had adopted the same attitude that stops fancy restaurants putting prices on the menus – the philosophy that goes something along the lines of ‘having to actually tell people about things is so plebeian, our clientele are expected to know, and if they don’t, well then, it just reflects poorly on them’. Unfortunately, while this attitude may work for Michelin-hopefuls, it doesn’t translate over to fireworks displays all that well, and the end result of not telling anyone about it was that no one turned up.

It was a pity, really – it was a beautiful display, easily one of the best I’ve seen, and obviously cost a fortune. I’m quite sure that no one – or at least, not more than a very small handful of people, at the most – went to see it, because I have a great view of the terrace/pool area from my window, and, crane my head as I might, I could not see a single person down there, other than the attendants. The other terrace is on the other side of the hotel, so unless there’s a rooftop one I’ve never found, I don’t see where people could have been watching from. For myself, I had a great view, much better than I would have had had I gone down to the pool, since I was almost level with a lot of the explosions. They had some really fabulous ones, too.

So that was my Diwali. I’ve been seeing fireworks over the city every night since, but they’ve begun to taper off these last few days. I’m not sure exactly when the festival officially finishes, but the season is obviously drawing to a close. I’m really glad I got to experience it – it was quite exciting, and very interesting to see how similar these ‘togetherness’ celebrations really are across cultures.

Sea monster or canape? You decide...

I just had a supper which consisted of two prawns. Two. And a tiny portion of pasta. And it was by no means too little.

I thought I had seen most sizes of prawn, or at least close to, but holy shit. I have never seen anything like these things. Not even in the realm of. Between the two of them, they barely fit on my plate! They were more like small lobsters than prawns, except completely prawn-shaped (no claws or anything). The heads were awesome, too - they'd been severed from the bodies very neatly, and took up my entire bread plate when I removed them from the main dish. They were full of feelers, almost like Chinese dragons. It was actually a little disconcerting at first, having these two giant, whiskered heads staring up at me while I ate. Then, after a while, I stopped being disconcerted and began to feel a bit sorry instead, that these magnificent beasts were lying on my plate in a heap of chopped aubergine and fettuccine, rather than swimming around being proud crustaceans on the ocean floor. Not sorry enough to stop eating, though.

And that's it for now. I'm fairly sure that no one in Europe will actually believe me about the size of these things, so I have half a mind to order them through room service at some point, and take a picture with a DVD box or something for comparison.

Felled

I have managed to sprain my toe. Yay me.

I’m not entirely sure how it happened: I was getting ready for bed last night when I made a false movement and, well, there you have it. At first I thought I had just stubbed it, but it was still very painful by the time I went to bed, with all the hallmarks of a pulled tendon. I had been hoping it would be better this morning, which admittedly it was, but still nowhere near okay.

I ended up calling for a doctor after breakfast, who came, confirmed my sprain theory, and ordered me to stay in bed, or at least in my room, until the pain lessens. Which was not exactly how I was planning to spend my weekend, but I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been the ankle, for one thing, or I could have had real plans for today, rather than just a bit of sightseeing and shopping. In any case, I’m told that almost everything will be closed today and tomorrow because of Diwali, so I think the best thing to do is just resign myself to my fate. On Thursday I bought a couple of DVDs of opera performances on a whim (the pretty costumes and wigs drew me in), so maybe I’ll watch those. I hope my neighbour likes Mozart.

Also, tomorrow it will be three weeks since I arrived in Pune. Three weeks, that’s one third of my stay gone! It doesn’t feel like it at all, but time flies when you’re busy. I also have five weekends left, not counting this one, which I have to decide what to do with. Mumbai will definitely take up one, most likely in December, and Pune and the immediate surrounding area probably another two. That leaves me with another two, and while I’m less and less tempted by Goa the more I hear about it, I’m told that there is a tiger reserve some two hours away by plane. I have to ask my colleague for more details on Monday, because those things tend to be pretty pricy, but if I could find a way to swing it, I’d really love to go.

Food

In the Italian restaurant, they give you a piece of focaccia and a large brown bread roll, which they call ‘country bread’, with every meal. The roll is very tall and quite hard, divided into six segments for easy tearing. I have just watched a well-dressed, sophisticated-looking young Indian woman, in the company of her equally well-dressed and obviously wealthy family, consume one of these, in all seriousness, with a knife and fork, while her family watched politely. The bread roll was not cooperative.

Also, it's the first day of Diwali, the Hindu festival of light, so there are fireworks going on all over the place. Tomorrow is the main day, and my colleagues have ordered a special lunch, but refuse to tell me what it is. They just say it is a surprise and then giggle a lot, which I suspect may not be the best sign...

The Agra Adventure

To sum up: Yesterday (that’s Sunday) at 4am, I had four tickets booked to take me from Pune to Agra and back again. It’s now Monday, ten past noon, and guess how many of those four I’ve used so far? I can’t help but think that I should have taken being told at 4.35am that the car I had booked for 4.30 wasn’t scheduled until 6, but that ‘it would be here in thirty minutes’ as a sign of something or other and gone back to bed.

I didn’t, though, because I’m stubborn like that, and thus began my first (and right now I suspect last, but we shall see about that) foray into the joys of the Indian Transportation Nightmare. Let’s put it like this: In the 36 hours since I got up yesterday, I have spent five asleep, six on planes, 10 in cars and the remainder variously queuing, hanging around and frantically sightseeing.

The first leg of the journey – Pune to Delhi – was painless enough. Apart from the transport guy at the hotel getting mixed up about my car (which was soon corrected by the desk staff), and the heavy bureaucracy of the Pune airport, it went largely according to plan. I got through the various queues and security checks, and my biggest complaints were that my little TV screen didn’t work properly (the colours were badly skewed), and that I didn’t have time to eat my breakfast muffin before boarding. I ate it on the plane instead.

(I should note here that, in a rare moment of forward planning, I had bought two muffins (one chocolate, one blueberry) at the hotel the night before and stuck them in the minibar to take, supposing correctly that I wouldn’t feel like the Indian breakfast they would serve. I should mention it, because it is important to the story. It was the chocolate one that was consumed at this stage.)

Anyway, I disembarked at New Delhi and prepared to settle in for a two-hour layover before the flight to Agra. At this point, I noticed two things: First, that for a major international airport, Delhi is a pretty barren place. Second, that instead of 10:45, the departure time on my ticket was listed as 13:45. I checked with the Kingfisher desk whether this was correct. It was – no delay, they’d just changed the flight schedule. Apparently they can do that. That meant I could do one of two things: Accept the change like an adult, and deal with the five hour wait in a distinctly unwelcoming airport, as well as the significant loss of already scant sightseeing time, or figure out some other way to get to Agra. Guess which one I chose…

My first hope was that there would be another, earlier flight to Agra that I could get on. No such luck: Apparently Agra is an even less significant airport than Pune, and this was the only flight going all day. Next, I thought train. No go: Trains to Agra only run a few times a day. I would never make the morning ones, and the afternoon ones would get me there even later than my rescheduled flight. Finally, there was the car option – paying someone to drive me 200km from Delhi to Agra. I enquired. I was told 8000 rupees. I hesitated. I wasn’t sure whether I would be able to get the flight refunded, and 8000 rupees, while not much for a five hour drive in a nice car with a personal chauffeur, is not exactly loose change. In the end, though, I figured what the hell and went with it. It wouldn’t necessarily get me there faster than the plane, but at least I would get to see some of New Delhi and surrounding countryside, and I will always prefer five hours of steady, comfortable driving to four hours of waiting around followed by a one hour flight.

Anyway, I took it, and I’m glad I did. It was extremely interesting! The car was a beautiful jeep-type thing with back seats built like the front ones (individual, with adjustable backs), air-conditioned and with a nice sound system. I asked the driver to leave in his CD of quiet Hindi songs, and off we went! It took us about an hour and a half to get out of the urban areas, and then three hours of highway to get to Agra. The urban areas were not all that interesting. Mostly they looked like poor parts of Belgium, large, often dilapidated concrete buildings. There was more green than I had expected, though, and a few street markets. At one point, the driver took us down a very narrow street with traditional shops to avoid a traffic jam, which was quite entertaining. The thing that really struck me was how many of the buildings we passed looked like they’d been abandoned half-finished. I don’t know if they truly were abandoned, but many were just concrete shells of factories and office blocks, and there were no signs of ongoing work.

The other thing I noticed was how little people seemed to care that they were walking/sitting/trading not even a meter from where traffic of all types was whizzing by them at potentially lethal speed. That and the cattle. Everywhere, even next to/on/between the lanes of the major highway we were on.

Once we moved out of the cities, it was just one long, straight stretch of road to Agra. It was very pleasant, actually. The Indians have a peculiar way of driving, even on a straight road where everyone (more or less) is going in the same direction. For one thing, the neatly painted lanes mean bugger all to them. Trucks, cars, rickshaws and scooters, with the occasional bicycle thrown in, weave seamlessly in and out of the traffic in a constantly evolving pattern. You know how, in general, the European/American philosophy of driving is basically ‘follow the guy in front of you unless you have a good reason not to’? Well, the Indian style seems to be based more an idea that every square inch of road must be filled, so if you see an empty spot in front of you, even if it’s two lanes over, it’s your obligation as a good driver to fill it. It kind of reminds me of those beautifully ornate Hindu artworks, where every square centimetre of space is occupied by something. Everyone does it, and it seems to work; it’s just the way they drive here.

They also use the horn. A lot. I mentioned in a post a little while back that it seemed to be used more as an expression of feeling than a driving aid, but I take that back. I now think that it has a very specific purpose, but I only got tacit confirmation of this much later, so you’ll have to keep reading to find out what that is.

But enough about the driving. The area we were going through was very rural, full of fields and small trees, and every 30km or so, a settlement. I guess the best way of describing them would be as little villages, but really they seemed to me like no more than a smattering of shacks by the roadside (literally sheet metal or canvas mounted on wooden frames, nothing else). Still, there was usually a traffic light and a little crossroads, and one or two more sturdily built dwellings. Above all in these places, there was movement. A lot of movement. People coming and going, buying and selling, children playing by the roadside, groups of teenagers hanging around, and cattle everywhere. I think the cattle were actually my favourite part. They were almost all Zebu or domestic water buffalo, and so pretty! Seriously, I love water buffalo, and the Zebu-types are so cute with their big floppy ears and huge eyes. Sometimes you saw them being used to pull traditional carts, but mostly they were just wandering about by themselves, with no visible means of identification. I loved them!

We made two stops on the way, not counting the toll booths. The first was an army checkpoint. They had a quick look inside the car, and then the driver wandered away for a few minutes to talk to them. I opted to stay in the car, mainly because I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t be finished immediately, and boy am I glad I did! Within seconds of the driver disappearing, the hawkers were on it like white on rice. It started with one guy with a portable wooden chess set, and soon I had chess man, two guys with jewellery, one with a monkey on a string and a boy with a cobra. Honestly, immediately when I turned away from the jewellery guys and saw the monkey sitting in the opposite window, my first reaction was ‘oooh, how much?’ (then I came to my senses, and anyway, he wasn’t selling, just offering to let me take a picture with it). My favourite, though, was the cobra boy, not because he had a cobra, but because when he opened his little flat basket to show me, the snake wasn’t exactly enthusiastic. To get it to perform, he poked it gently in the neck a few times, and the snake got this look on its face like ‘okay, I’m up, I’m up. Flare hood, wiggle wiggle, hiss. Happy now?’ before settling back down. I don’t know why, but I thought it was hysterical. I am easily amused… The sad thing is, I would actually quite have liked a closer look at some of their stuff, but they were so incredibly aggressive that I didn’t feel the least bit comfortable about leaving the car. So they got none of my money.

The other stop we made was so that the driver could take a break and some tea. It was quite a nice rest stop, obviously designed for tourists, shaped like a very small bazaar. It was full of souvenirs, lots of gods in bronze, wood and ‘ivory’ (probably resin), some of them very pretty. The sales people didn’t seem to care about you one way or the other, which was nice, and although I didn’t buy anything, I certainly would have if I’d found the right object. It was also just before we got to here that I ate my blueberry muffin, around noon. Take note.

When we finally got into Agra, we picked up the driver’s ‘boss’, who was supposed to guide us to the hotel. He took us to the wrong one first, at the wrong gate to the Taj, and then claimed the car couldn’t get to the correct one, while simultaneously trying to sell me an all-day sightseeing tour, so how much help he actually was, I don’t know. Anyway, we did eventually find it, which led to my third surprise of the day: The hotel, which I had believed to be a little family B&B style of place, was, in fact, an all out hostel. It looked clean enough and once I got over the first bout of surprise I quite liked it, but still. I was Surprised.

I was also Surprised to find that, contrary to my admittedly ill-researched expectations, the main gate to the Taj Mahal is actually down an incredibly narrow little street, in an area full of other narrow little streets and higgledy-piggledy houses, most of which were literally falling apart, and people. So many people, all stuffed together in this tiny little space. This was India the way you see it on TV, and I think I realised at that moment that the reason I haven’t experienced the culture shock people warned me about is that Pune is not India like that. It was really very dramatic.

Anyway, I quickly learned that the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort both close at sunset (around 5.30), and not at 8 as I had been led to believe. And also, that neither of them were open on a Monday. By that time it was 2.45, so I wasted no time in dumping my rucksack in my room and heading back out. I started with the Taj, and somehow managed to pick up a guide. He was an old man, probably seventy-ish, and seemed a bit daft at first. He was very proud of the fact that he had worked at the Taj for 40 years and was a certified Agra city tour guide. He showed me his little laminated card, totally worn out. I ended up with him because I couldn’t think of a nice way to shake him (I didn’t feel I could just roll my eyes and walk away like I would have with the younger guides), but he turned out to be extremely useful. He liked to tell me when to take pictures, which was a bit annoying, but it balanced out because he knew every corner of that monument. Every. Single. One. He would tell me where to stand for this or that optical illusion, where to crouch to see the sun hitting the minarets just right, everything. When I told him I was in a hurry, he took it seriously, and walked me round the whole thing in record time. He also skipped me past the enormous queue to get into the burial room, which quite frankly was worth the 500 rupees I gave him all by itself. If he hadn’t been there, I never would have got inside in time, which I would have been sad about, because I really wanted to see it. The line went all the way around the building (and it’s a big building), but he just stepped in near the front, and nobody likes to argue with the venerable old man in the neat white taqiya who behaves as though he owns the place (and, I suspect, probably feels like he does). At it turns out, the inside wasn’t actually all that interesting, but it was the principle of the thing. I would hate to have gone all the way there and just looked at the outside.

Afterwards, I let him drag me to the marble shop outside, in which I spent too much money and probably got ripped off, but eh, it looked much more official than the other souvenir shops along the street, and I didn’t pay more than I thought it was worth. I managed to get most of the souvenirs I needed, plus a pink marble elephant for myself. I don’t know, I just saw it on a shelf behind the seller and really liked the face and stance. He needs a name, I think.

By that time it was four o’clock, so I jumped in a rickshaw and zoomed off to the Agra Fort to get it in before closing. It was as I was walking up to the main gate that I began to feel the fact that I had been awake for 12 hours and so far only consumed two muffins. There was nothing to eat around there, though, so I got on with it. I got a guide here too. He was less good, but I needed him much more than I did for the Taj. The Taj only really has one story, and I already knew it before I went, so I really could have viewed it myself. The Fort, though, has a much, much more complicated history, and is, in my own opinion, far more interesting to walk around than the Taj. The Taj is pretty, but the Fort has a character that comes from having so many lives lived in it. I’ll spare you the details of the visit. Suffice to say I saw it, it was impressive, I left and went back to the hostel.

At this point, I was hot, sticky (no shower in the bathroom), and extremely tired. I had managed to drag myself off the bed and head downstairs in search of food, when it occurred to me that it might be smart to just check whether the flight times for the return journey were unchanged. The hostel chef, who was a lovely old man, took me to an internet café, where I discovered that, first of all, trying to find Indian flight schedules online is a lot harder than it should be, and second, that double checking is always a good idea. Because, of course, they had changed. The Agra-Delhi flight had been pushed back so far that there was no way I could make my connection to Pune, meaning that I wouldn’t be getting home until early Tuesday morning, if that.

You have to understand my feelings at that point: I’d been awake since 4am. I’d been flying for two hours, then driving for five. The frantic sightseeing had left me hot, sticky and dusty, and there was no hope of a shower until I got back to Pune. I was tired and frustrated, and absolutely not in the mood to play ball.

So I didn’t. Long story short, I ended up booking another taxi for 8pm to take me back to Delhi. I did consider waiting till the next morning and taking one then to make my connection, but honestly, at that stage I just couldn’t face going to bed knowing that I would have to wake up at 6am to drive another five hours back again. So I got the hotel to order me one for that night (at a fraction of the price), in the hope of finding another, earlier flight I could get on to Pune. In the intervening hour, I:

- Made friends with the old chef, Jimmy.
- Ate some porridge.
- Went for a walk with Jimmy.
- Let Jimmy’s brother sell me some fabulous silver jewellery. I wouldn’t normally have done that, but four beautiful solid silver pendants with semi-precious stones for less than €100? Yeah, I’m there.
- Watched a monkey exorcism. Yes, really. A wild monkey got into the hostel laundry room, so the manager and two other guys went up clutching large sticks, to flush it out with noise. It eventually went shooting out of the room and out onto the roof to freedom.

Cab arrived and off we went! This car was much smaller, more a Golf than a jeep, and at first I wondered whether it wouldn’t be a bit slow. I needn’t have worried, because that car had some serious juice! It was during this trip that my hypothesis regarding the use of horns when driving was confirmed (in a totally unscientific way, but nevertheless…). As it turns out, Indians think mirrors make fabulous aesthetic additions, but have no use for them as driving tools. The honking, therefore, is to let the people you are in the process of weaving between know that you’re there. Most of the trucks actually have ‘blow horn’ or ‘honk please’ written in ornate lettering across the back (and the trucks, by the way, are fabulous in themselves – heavily decorated, almost like gypsy caravans!). It seems to work… At some stage it did occur to me to wonder just how clever it was to allow a slightly nutty old man drive me 200 km of unlit road in a car with no side mirrors and no buckle for the seatbelt. Ahem. I managed to doze most of the way, so I mostly only noticed our near-misses by the sharp breaking…

It took four and a half hours to get to Delhi airport, by which time it was half past midnight. I got my tickets cancelled (including the earlier one for Delhi-Agra), and booked myself onto the 9am flight to Pune instead. I then got a hotel room in the only hotel nearby to spend the night in. Of course, they only had the most expensive rooms left, but once I saw what that looked like, I was kind of glad I wasn’t in the cheaper options. Still, it was clean and perfectly serviceable, and I managed to shower a bit (water kept changing temperature), eat a Snickers bar from the mini bar, and, once I stopped debating whether I wasn’t better off getting on the 7.15 flight to Pune with another airline, get some sleep.

So, just to recap: Up until now, I don’t think I would have done anything differently given the choice (except maybe pick a different weekend to come…). This next part, on the other hand…

I woke up at about ten to six, and immediately decided to try for the 7.15 flight after all. I threw on all my clothes, harried the hotel into checking me out as quickly as humanly possible, and flew (pun intended) over to the airport, with the sole intention of getting back to Pune and my wonderful room as early as possible. Where I managed to get my ticket, after a slightly stressful period when the Visa machine wouldn’t accept my card and the lady had to print out my ticket and follow me to the ATM in the Departures area (she was very sweet, so thanks, lady!). As it turns out, Delhi actually has more shops than I thought, but I only just managed to go to the bathroom and pick up a muffin and a bottle of water at Costa before boarding.

An hour and a half later we landed, and I discovered that, while I was on a plane going to Pune, it had another stop first. Yeah. I’d had a suspicion before, but the flight attendant’s English wasn’t very clear. At that point, though, I was fairly comfortable, the plane was half empty, and I didn’t really care that much anymore. Especially because I had no one to blame but myself, for forgetting to ask. In any case, it ended up landing in Pune at 11, which was still a little earlier than the 9 o’clock one would have, so it’s not like I lost out.

And then I got a rickshaw back to the hotel, where I showered (bliss…), ordered lunch and then sat around in the fabulous fluffy white bathrobe provided by the hotel and wrote this post for four hours. And if anyone ever gets to the end of it, I shall be beyond impressed.

Overall, I don’t think that the trip was a total disaster: I saw what I wanted to see, plus some other stuff I would never have seen if it hadn’t gone the way it had. I’m hoping that, assuming the refunds come through okay, I won’t have spent that much more money than I otherwise would have. Most of it balances out, the only major extra expense is really the airport hotel room, but it couldn’t be helped. Nevertheless, I think the next couple of weekends will be devoted to sightseeing within driving distance of Pune…

!

Apparently I'm going to Agra this weekend. It sort of crept up on me: When I met the general manager last week, I mentioned that I wanted to go, and he promised to look into it for me. I didn't think much more about it until Tuesday, when he presented me with my intiniary! Okay, not exactly, but he said he'd done some research, and this was by far the cheapest option. So I booked it (well, technically the other manager booked it, since it kept rejecting my card - I paid him back with cash drawn on the very same card, so go figure), and now I'm going to Agra. The big thing is obviously the Taj Mahal, and if I can squeeze in the Agra Fort too, I'll be very happy. Now to book the hotel!

An Evening Walk

Today I went for my first walk outside the hotel. I don’t think I will be making a habit of it, at least not until the weather cools down a bit.

I went because, on my way to work this morning, I noticed a stall that I’m pretty sure wasn’t there last week, selling stuffed animals and other toys. Let me explain: In Belgium (and other countries), there is a particular model of stuffed big cat which is popularly offered as prizes in fairgrounds and similar venues. They come in a range of sizes and colours (tigers, leopards, snow tigers and leopards), but the basic design is always the same. Now, the quality of the materials is pretty cheap, but somehow, these things still manage to be some of the nicest and most realistic stuffed tigers on the market, often much more so than those available in toyshops. I’ve always wanted to get one, but I never end up doing it, because really, I have so much stuff already.

When we passed the stall, though, I noticed that they had, among other things, the smallest version of that very same model! I decided it was fate and resolved to walk to the stall after work to buy one.

It turned out to be a half an hour walk along the road directly in front of the hotel. I tried to stay on the pavements, where there were any, but I was the only one: Pretty much everyone else ignored them entirely, unless they were using them to lay out stalls, or even occassionally as extensions of their homes. After a little while, I noticed a funny thing: Far from being simple rocks and dirt left where the road surface stopped, the pavements had once consisted of what looked like rather nice tiles. Abuse and neglect, though, had left them in such a dreadful condition that you couldn’t tell the tiles had ever been laid unless you looked very closely.

I saw much the same things as I do every day on my way to work, only on foot: Basically, people going about their daily business in the same way they would anywhere else, except here they live in shacks by the roadside, often so poorly constructed that they wouldn’t even qualify as a garden shed in Europe. I mostly kept my eyes on the road, as I didn’t feel very comfortable staring into these people’s bedrooms and going ‘oh, how quaint’.

The weather was heavy and muggy, promising yet another storm later on, and by the time I finally got to the stall, I was hot, damp and extremely dusty. The stall itself turned out to be a disappointment: Remember above when I said the European versions of these things are pretty low quality? Well, it turns out it can get quite a bit lower. I took one look, realised that there was no way I could talk myself into buying one of those, and headed back.

On the way back, I had wanted to take a rickshaw – I’d seen plenty whizzing by me on the way, so I thought I’d have my pick. Perhaps if I had been paying a little more attention, I would have noticed that all the ones going by were full. I did eventually manage to flag one down on the other side of the road, and then amuse him by trying to cross rush hour traffic with no crossing in sight. I did make it eventually, and he took me back to the hotel (it was easy to describe this time, just a straight line).

The first thing I did on getting back was shower. It’s amazing how dusty you can get here just by walking along the road! If I find something else worth walking to I will, but at the moment all I’ve seen are shacks and roadside stalls, so I don’t see myself venturing out for another walk just yet.

Yesterday (I am so good at titles...)

So, remember how last week I said I wanted to go to the Osho Ashram or the race track on Sunday? Well, when I stepped outside at 10.30am yesterday morning, after a copious brunch, I was met with a wall of heat. So, instead of going to either one of those places, or even dragging my PC outside to amuse myself, I retreated to my beautifully air-conditioned room and surfed and wrote fanfic until 3pm. At that point I figured I really ought to do something, so I decided to go shopping around the SGS Mall, and, to make it cheaper, take a rickshaw to get there.

This, by the way, is what an Indian rickshaw looks like these days:


(Image copyright Muhammad Mahdi Karim)

I was told by the hotel that I could expect to pay 40-50 rupees for the trip, but when I asked my chosen driver before leaving how much, he told me 150. I didn't argue. I guess I could have, but honestly I would feel bad about it. 150 rupees works out to about €2.50 for a 15-20 minute trip, which, let's face it, is nothing. The fact is, 150 rupees won't even buy me a bottle of coke, whereas it can feed his kid for at least a day. So yeah, I didn't argue.

Anyway, the ride was remarkably unintimidating. I've been told that rickshaws are not for the faint of heart, but honestly, I didn't feel the least bit unsafe. The noise is incredible, though. Not from the rickshaw itself, but since it's open on all sides, you're treated to the full symphony of the Pune roads. And what a symphony it is! I'm starting to get the impression that people here use the horn like any other means of communication, to express anger, happiness, amusement, disgust, etc. It's really something! Anyway, we got to the mall without difficulty, and I spent a couple of hours wandering around, first on the surrounding streets and then, when that got too hot, inside the mall. One thing I've noticed, which is nice, is that, while some people may look at you, it's purely out of curiosity. They look at you the same way they might look at an unusual dog or bird, curious because it's out of the ordinary, but not hugely interested beyond that. I can see why, too - you virtually never see any non-Indian people on the streets, ever. No white people, black people, Chinese, no one but Indians. No one, including the stall holders, bothered me, but they were happy to talk to me if I talked to them.

I've learned that apparently, growing up in Brussels is excellent training for navigating the streets of India: Road users there have about the same amount of respect for the traffic code as they do here. So, in spite of the warnings I received, I find I'm actually about to navigate the roads fairly competently. As in Brussels, there seem to be two basic rules that should always be observed by the pedestrian: 1) Show no fear (even with the five scooters bearing down on you), and 2) always stand your ground - don't stop once you've started. Everything else is optional.

When I wanted to go home, I learned something else: Apparently, rickshaw drivers don't make a point of learning the names of the big hotels in the city. I asked several drivers and none of them had any idea what I was talking about, in spite of it being the biggest, newest hotel in Pune. I finally found one guy willing to take me on, and we stopped for directions along the way. I was a tad worried when we almost ended up on the Pune-Mumbai motorway, but we managed in the end. Though now I have a little supply of hotel business cards with the address on in my various bags, just in case...

Sightseeing and a lesson

So, today was my first day of sightseeing! It didn't start out too well - I had booked the car for 11.30, was down in the main hall at 11.29, only to find that the driver had been and gone! I was kind of annoyed, but apparently that kind of thing is par for the course around here, so I wasn't too bothered. He did come back around half an hour later, which gave me time go back to my room and fetch sunglasses (which I turned out to not need) and bottled water (which I did).

After a few initial communication problems, we set off for the Aga Khan Palace! It turned out to be only about 15 minutes away from the hotel, which was a nice surprise. The driver waited for me in the parking lot while I went around. It's a lovely building in some beautiful grounds, smaller than I expected but very charming (and yes, I did take pictures, but I'm lazy and can't be bothered to upload...). To go around the little Gandhi exhibition was 20 rupees for Indian citizens and 100 rupees for everyone else, which I thought was fair enough. The museum is small, but nicely done and quite informative. It keeps things simple, talking about the time Gandhi and his people spent there and the Quit India movement in general, with some nice paintings and photographs to illustrate. Going round, though, you realise just how poor this country still is, even with all the development going on at the moment. This is a national monument to a national hero, and they apparently can't even afford to renew the plaques explaining the exhibits, which are stained, torn, and in some places literally falling off the walls.

It's funny really, because there are shanty towns all over the place, even on the way to work, but the Aga Khan palace is the first time any sign of poverty has really struck me. Somehow, the people who live in the little tin shacks on the sides of the road just don't strike me as poor. Or, well, they're obviously poor, but they don't seem miserable about it, if that makes sense. Which is not to say that they're not, but when you just drive through, they seem like people getting on with their daily lives and really quite enjoying themselves, at any rate much more so than the people in the poorer areas you find in Belgium. Maybe it's just that the culture is different, or that even the shanty-town women have beautiful, colourful saris and such, but so far I haven't really had the culture shock that I was warned about. Maybe it will come.

After the Aga Khan palace, I asked to see a shrine to Ganesh, since apparently there's a really famous one in Pune. On the way, we drove past a huge fortress-type building, with what looked like a statue of Genghis Khan or someone on horseback. We stopped there, and it turned out to be the Shaniwar Wada. I still don't know who the statue is really supposed to be, because all the plaques were in Hindi only, and neither wiki nor the leaflet I got mention it. Anyway, it was extremely impressive. Aside from the walls and gatehouse, it's all just ruins now, and the grounds are really not very big. Even so, the whole thing feels massive - the thickness of the walls and the solid iron pieces that remain are in a way quite overwhelming. I wandered around quite quickly, partly because I had told the driver half and hour, and partly because by that point it was 1pm and sweltering, but I think I might go back.

After that, we did the Ganesh shrine. Or rather, we did a Ganesh shrine. By this stage, the driver and I were managing to communicate pretty well, but I think I failed to differentiate the big, famous Ganesh shrine from every other Ganesh shrine in Pune. We ended up first going past a very small one set into a wall behind glass, sort of like a shop window. After that, he took us past a much grander one, a very elegant cream lattice structure, but the traffic was too heavy for me to get out and have a look. Instead we drove by veeeeery slowly.

And by that point, I was hot and tired, so when he said 'hotel?' I was quite happy to agree. On the way back, we went through some very interesting shopping areas, which I think I will try to find my way back to at some point.

When we got back to the hotel, I learned a valuable lesson: Be very careful what you ask for! See, I was hot and sticky by this time, and I thought a perfect way to cool off would be with fruit salad, right? (And yes, I know fruit is one of the dangerous things, but apparently you can usually trust the peeled fruit in the hotel.) I didn't want to pay for a whole buffet, though, so I asked the lovely hostess whether I could simply have a fruit salad. Her reaction was a little laugh, a nod, and a 'why not?' as she led me to my table. I thought that last part was a bit odd, but took it to mean 'fruit salad for lunch - hey, why not?'. As it turned out, what it actually meant was 'fruit salad, what a novel idea - it doesn't exist on our menu, but we shall get someone to make you some specially!' Because apparently, if you ask for something here without looking at the menu, and they don't have it, they won't simply tell you that. Instead, they will take your request as a personal challenge and do everything they can to make it for you. So, after a couple of conversations with the hostess detailing what kind of fruit I wanted, and how I wanted it cut, I was presented with a lovely platter and profuse apologies because it had taken a whole 15 minutes to arrive on my table. Also, my pineapple had little heart-shaped holes. Yeah. I felt guilty after that, especially since I wasn't really full afterwards, and ended up ordering a grilled cheese sandwich through room service half an hour later.

So that's been my day so far. I think now I may try the fabulous bath tub - it's a beautiful tub, first of all, and secondly, it stands next to the glass wall of the bathroom, so you can see out of the gigantic window when you're in it.

Week One

So ends my first week in Pune. I haven't been writing much, because to be honest there hasn't been a whole lot to write about. I get up, I go to work, I come home, it rains, I eat, surf and go to bed.

Did you get that? It rains. It rains. Not all day, not even most of it, just the hours in between when I get home and when I go to bed. Apparently it'll get better as of beginning of November, when the monsoon season is really over, but still, it's kind of depressing.

Not that it makes much difference in practice, though. I get back to the hotel between 5.30 and 6, and to be honest so far I've been exhausted every single day. I'm ashamed to say that so far I haven't even left the hotel, except to go to work! Well, except for Monday, when I went to the SGS mall to do some shopping. There are supposed to be some nice restaurants around here, but I've been too tired to go and look for them, especially as I have no one to look with (I'm working Pune hours while everyone else is on UK time). I've been enjoying the quiet, though, to be honest - after a full day of smiling and explaining and making small talk, I'm really not in the mood to socialise by the time I get back.

This weekend I'm going sightseeing, though! For tomorrow, I've booked the company cab to take me around the main sights (I still have to decide what I want to see, but a temple would be nice), and on Sunday I'll be either going to the Osho Ashram or the racing track (horses), depending on how I feel.

That is if I don't get sick first. One of the team was out today, and another left at lunch time, so we shall see...

Food-wise, I'm getting on okay. There's a complimentary breakfast buffet which looks amazing, but so far I've only had the yogurt with honey, partly because I never feel like eating before 8am, and partly because it's one of the few things I can scarf down in five minutes flat without choking... XD For the first three days, lunch was whatever Indian food was being served in the cafeteria at work. It was too spicy for me, so on Thursday I tried their 'diet' option, which basically consists of soup, sandwiches and fruit. That was okay, but yesterday one of the other SME's mentioned that the hotel snack bar would do you a packed lunch, so today I tried that. It turned out to consist of a very depressed little baguette with some rather tasty smoked turkey, and a packet of salted crisps. In conclusion: None of the lunch options are perfect, but none are terrible either, so I think I will just alternate between them from now on.

Dinner has so far been European/American/Vietnamese food from the buffet. I also ordered a lasagne a la carte once, and had a pizza delivered by room service. It's generally very nice, often not quite what you're expecting, but good nonetheless. It's currently being served in the hotel's Italian restaurant, since their usual buffet room is being renovated, and I'll be sad when they move it back next week. I'll miss the darker, cosier atmosphere of the Prego - Seasonal Tastes is very bright and sterile, very in your face and not charming at all.

The one thing I've discovered they can't do over here is chocolate. Not sure why, they seem to manage everything else just fine, but their chocolate deserts invariably come out bland and boring. Ah well, so much the better for me, I suppose!

First day at the office

Can I just say that I'm exhausted? I spent all day talking, trying to go into as much detail in what is a vast and fairly complicated work load. I don't think I'm allowed to go into anymore detail, so I won't, but I can see it's going to be a looooooong nine weeks.

After work I was picked up by the cab service, along with four other Company employees staying at my hotel. There was an Irish dude, a guy from Singapore, one from Australia and an American girl. They seemed nice and invited me to go to dinner with them, but I really wanted to get that DVD player over and done with, so I opted to go to the SGS Mall instead. The mall turned out to be about a 15 minute drive away, not very big, but very light and airy, with some nice shops. I spent a long time at one in particular, which sold all kinds of stuff in the vein of toys, books, movies, music and electronics. To the untrained eye (i.e. mine), the set-up looked pretty chaotic, almost like a 99 cents store, but the sales people seemed to know exactly where everything was. There was very little choice in DVD players: A state of the art Sony DVD/Blu-Ray/engraver/magic genie, which was way too rich for my blood, a pink Disney Pricess DVD player, which I might have bought had the box not been extremely old/battered/torn, and a PS2 package. I ended up with a PS2 for more than I would have liked, but eh. As long as it works (which remains to be seen), I'm happy. I also got Prince of Persia on DVD - not sure why, I suddenly feel attached to that movie. I may watch it tonight.

The streets around here are pretty much what I'd been told to expect (people milling everywhere, shacks made of all kinds of stuff selling pretty much everything to anyone, etc), but not as bad as I had thought they might be. The people I've spoken to back home who have stayed in this hotel all say they felt perfectly safe wandering around, so tomorrow I may venture out for a walk. For tonight, I am exhausted, and debating between ordering room service or going downstairs to the Italian restaurant for a pizza. I hate to admit it, but I'm sick of Indian food already…

Closing thoughts on Day One

I think that, as I was warned, this is indeed going to be a major shock to my system. The attitude of the locals is incredibly different from anything I know, extremely servile. I keep having to remind myself that no, they're really not being sarcastic.

I really need to make some acquaintances within the hotel. There's a bar/lounge downstairs which I am going to visit, either tonight or tomorrow. I'm tempted to go tonight, but the restaurant was dead when I went at 8, so I'm wondering if the bar will be much better. The lady at the desk promised me the turnout was unusually low tonight, so hopefully it'll pick up.

I'm still envisioning spending large amounts of time by myself, though, so tomorrow I'm going to see if I can get someone to take me to Dass Electricals, which seems to be the main electrical shop in Pune. Hopefully I can pick a DVD player up cheap there - if nothing else, maybe this will finally give me time to do that Kenshin marathon I've always meant to have!

I'm also going to see about picking up a salwar kameez, which seems to be the best way for Western women to dress so as to attract as little notice as possible. And they're comfy and pretty too, which is good.

Live from Pune!

I am typing this from the exotic subcontinent of India! That’s right, I have finally arrived, and with surprisingly few issues along the way.

We got out of Frankfurt with some 20 minutes delay, which, all things considered, wasn’t so bad. Frankfurt, incidentally, has got to be one of the most depressing airports I have ever been in. It’s purely function, no form at all – the London Underground is more attractive. It also has a better choice of food. Remember that lunch I was going to look for after my last post? It wound up consisting of a teeny little hotdog, a chocolate muffin, and a pretzel. In that order. Yeah. The business lounge was okay, but the food they were offering was very unappetising. I’m pretty sure meatballs aren’t meant to be beige…

Anyway, we got out of Frankfurt without too much delay, and the Lufthansa business class seats were nice. Not as nice as the ones on BA, though – for one thing, they were set up all facing the same way, whereas on BA, they face in alternating directions. The big advantage of this is that everyone has their own little pod-like space, and can do whatever they want without disturbing anyone else. Here, if you were on the window seat and, for instance, you wanted to get up, or talk to the steward, you had to do it over your neighbour, possibly needing to leap over their legs if the seat was outstretched. So yeah, BA wins on that count.

Another thing BA wins on is service. I’m sure Lufthansa in general are fine, but here they were incredibly slow. We had one of those 3 course meals, but we’d been in the air for two hours by the time they started clearing away the starters! I gave up after that and went to sleep instead of bothering with the rest. The salad I had – garden greens with chanterelle mushrooms and little pieces of cold stewed pumpkin and carrot thing (surprisingly good) – was incredibly dry, and none of the crew realised that the dressing had been forgotten until they had almost finished serving. The dryness I could understand, the forgetfulness not. It’s not like there were a lot of dishes, and the little pots were right there in the serving cart! Anyway, when I finally got mine, the little plastic pot had that distinctly swollen, puffy look that warns ‘don’t eat me or you will regret it’, so I didn’t eat it, and politely declined further food (until the next meal, just before landing).

My neighbour was a friendly Canadian also destined for the Westin hotel, and we chatted a bit, but he hadn’t slept in 24 hours, so that didn’t last. I slept some, enjoyed the view when there was no cloud cover (we flew right over some beautiful cities in Turkey), and watched Prince of Persia. Not sure why, but I enjoyed the characters more this time around than when I saw it in the cinema.
Anyway, we landed, Immigration and Baggage Control were fairly painless, and the drive to the hotel was only five minutes, which was nice. All in all, I was in my room by 5am, and in bed by 5.30. The room is beautiful, but smaller than I would have liked. I asked about upgrading in the morning when I arrived, but the girl on the desk just smiled at me and said ‘your room is a very nice one’. I was too tired to argue then, but when I got up again a couple of hours ago, I went and spoke to the manager, who promised me a bigger room in a day or two, when they become available. Which means I’m not sure how much I can be bothered to unpack until then, but we’ll see.

The place seems nice, in any case, very new and shiny, with lots of wood panelling and such. I had lunch in the main buffet restaurant, mushroom and vegetable stir-fry with spiced rice, followed by one of those little bananas, which was quite good. Tomorrow I’m going to see about going to a supermarket near the office complex, though, to get some snacks and things. There doesn’t seem to be any kind of convenience store nearby, and I don’t fancy paying minibar prices for two months!

My main project for the moment is to get hold of a DVD player. They aren’t expensive in Europe, so I doubt they would be more here, and I would really like to be able to play my own stuff on the TV (the laptop is too old to really be useful). They don’t recommend you leave the hotel alone, at least for a few days, so that’ll have to wait until next week.

So that was my first day in India, yay!


Update: Since writing the above, the manager has called and offered me a bigger room, so I am now nicely set up in a room with two queens, rather than a single king. In some ways, the other room was actually nicer – it had a fainting couch, for one thing, whereas this one has two little chairs, and a desk set-up which was separate from the TV. The view was more lively, too – there were a lot of trees with hawk-type birds circling above, and there was a busy road to watch. None of those are things I’ll particularly miss, though, and this room has one major thing going for it: Space. There’s a lot of open floor space and a much wider space for the window, which means more airiness and natural light. I can actually see myself living in this one for two months without going crazy, whereas the other one was kind of cramped and boxed in. So yeah, worth the trade-off, I think. Now to unpack!

I feel at home already...

My first monsoon storm, yay! Hopefully the season is coming to an end and all afternoons won't end like this...

Cross your fingers...

So, you know how you're supposed to test malaria drugs a week in advance? Well, I forgot. I've just had a cup of very milky tea and a couple of brownie biscuits (you're supposed to drink a milky drink with it), so now we shall see if I can manage to avoid the numerous and yucky side effects. Fortunately, if it's bad I can always stop taking them and rely on bug spray instead (malaria is not prevalent in Pune), but since I made the Company spend almost four hundred euros on the stuff, I should at least try. The next few hours should be interesting.

Now off to unpack, to take my mind off it...

Live from Frankfurt...

The flight from Brussels was delayed by 30 minutes, but we only landed 5 minutes later than the scheduled time, which was nice. Passport Control in Frankfurt is a nightmare. I'd been warned it was bad, but sheesh! I couldn't even get to the EU queue, because there was literally no more room to move. I ended up in the outer-most line, where no less than 3 people tried to cut in front of me. I say tried, because of course they did not succeed. Sometimes I think I must have 'shmuck' tattooed across my forehead. Oh well, maybe the guy I called out and embarrassed will think twice about treating the poor little blonde like she doesn't exist next time.

Anyway, that was all the point there was to this post. I just wanted to do one of those 'typing from the airport' posts I always see. The flight to Pune is not for another hour and a half, so I'm off to find lunch!

First Post

If anyone is reading this, hello! First impressions are always important, so I feel like I should introduce myself before we start.

My name is Annika (which not even Word believes, but it still is), and I’m 24 years old. I live and work in Belgium but hold a British passport, and, at the behest of my employers, I am about to embark on a 4351 mile journey to Pune, India, where I will remain for the next nine weeks. A visual aid for your reference (thank you NASA):


Things you need to know about me: I’ll have no travelling companion, and I’m a total homebody. I like my creature comforts and I usually prefer in to out. I’ve never been further east than Bodrum, Turkey, or further west than Boston, America. I also have the mind of an eight year old; I am far too easily amused, and will always choose a toyshop over a fashionable boutique (seriously).

I am also lazy, so proofread posts will be few and far between. You have been warned.

And now, on with the show!