India Update

I'm going to have to come back and tell you about the last two days in retrospect. As of today, I am sitting in the Emirates Lounge in Dubai on my 8 hour layover. :-( Only 6.5 hours more to go!!! I also have a fever and ache all over. I definately caught something in India. I started feeling bad last night, but thought I had managed to sleep it off. I was wrong. I can't wait to be in England where there is a bed... That's all for now.

Craft market and more food

I had the pleasure of visiting a local craft market last night. Essentially the government decided to build a location for all of these vendors to have shops together so that it’s more of a one stop shop for tourists. Not a bad idea if you ask me…

There were lots of interesting things to see there. Lots of renditions of different gods, either hand crafted out of wood, clay, etc or painted onto various objects. In addition, there were other art pieces and lots of fabrics used for saris and other clothing. I found a cool picture that is essentially a leaf that then has a design woven into it. It’s kind of hard to explain, but I thought it was unique and pretty cool. I just hope it arrives in Mauritius in one piece. It’s got a lot of travelling to do before it gets there.

After coming back to the hotel, I decided to try the Oriyan restaurant at the hotel. This restaurant serves local cuisine that is common to this region of India. I decided on a thali. This is essentially a collection of dishes that gives you several different things to try. (Feel free to look up thali in Wikipedia). Everything I had was really good! I had rice and some flat bread along with a piece of fish that was seasoned excellently! Then there was also some chicken curry, some cheese curry (with the local cottage cheese), some red curry whose contents I was unsure of, a lentil and potato curry and finally a sweet dish. Everything was really excellent, but I didn’t have room to eat it all…

I almost forgot… Put the day in rewind and I’ll tell you about what else I ate today… (As you can see, food is a VERY important part of my travel. Not to mention, you don’t want me to spew on and on about work) So, we had two birthdays in the office yesterday. Each brought in a treat for everyone. One was a cake that was made of cheese that had been baked and then had sweet syrup poured in and throughout it. It’s wet to touch. It has kind of a cheese cake flavor when you eat it, but the texture is really odd and there is a bit of an unpleasant aftertaste. The other was a ball of dough that also had syrup in and throughout it. When I picked it up and took a bite, the syrup ran out of it and all over my hands. I didn’t realize it would be so juicy. It was really nice though…

Lunch was something different yesterday. I had already told you that on the two previous days I had sandwiches and chips. Yesterday they decided to trust me with other local cuisine. They ordered chicken bryani for me from a local restaurant that is becoming quite famous for their recipe. It was soooooo good. Apologies to my mother in law, but it was the best bryani I have ever tasted. It was nice and spicy, but not overwhelming. There was enough spice to leave my nose runny and my lips tingly, but not enough to make my face red, etc.
I have two nights of eating left and I am not sure how to organize them… The final restaurant at my hotel serves continental cuisine, but I can get that anywhere, so I am definitely skipping it. I think perhaps I will have to try the tandoori pomfret. It is a fish that is cooked with spices and from all accounts is excellent. For the last meal… I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

India Continued... Food and Toilets

It’s funny to me that I used to really dislike Indian food. I can remember a visit to an Indian restaurant in Kansas City with friends, where I literally cried in the bathroom because I was spending a lot of money on food I didn’t like, and didn’t want to eat. (There were other stress factors involved) Nevertheless, Indian food has become one of my favorites. I guess it’s true what they say… Your taste buds do change over time. Good thing!

Well, you have heard about my first day in India, but I believe the only food I mentioned were the cumin seed cookies. At the office here, they usually have a caterer who brings in lunch for the office. However, they order something special for me because they think that the food they eat will be too spicy. I’d like to try it, but don’t want to burn my tongue off, or get a tummy bug, so I will stick to what they serve. The past two days for lunch, I have had grilled sandwiches and chips. One thing I have found intriguing in all of my travels is that potato chip flavors vary depending on location. The same is true here. There is actually a masala flavored chip here. It is available at the hotel, but they usually choose a tomato chutney flavored chip for me here at the office. Perhaps they think the masala chips would be too spicy as well… The chutney chips taste a bit like ketchup… Anyway. My ketchup flavored chips are served with two sandwiches. One is a chicken tikka sandwich where the chicken is red colored. It is really yummy. I believe the other is chicken as well, but I am not positive. They are both cooked on a Panini type grill to be toasted and both taste pretty nice. However the best thing is that they serve it with a Diet Coke. Ahh… Diet Coke. I love that wherever I go, I can always find this bit of comfort.

For supper on Monday night, I ate at the Chinese restaurant in the hotel. Interestingly enough, they serve both Thai and Chinese food. I opted for Thai green curry. It was really good. I don’t really have anything unique to say about it, because it tasted like Thai curry that I have had in other places as well. Last night, I went to the Indian restaurant at the hotel. There I had the Mulligatwany soup, kadhai murgh and some garlic naan. Everything was delicious. I will likely be heading back to that restaurant before I leave… Tonight I am planning to try the Oriyan restaurant at the hotel. It serves dishes that are unique to this state (region) of India.

Now for the bathrooms… Don’t worry, I don’t have any bad toilet stories to tell you or any digestive havocs to report, but I think I should give you a heads up. If you are a lady travelling in India, you will want to bring a few things with you. 1. Always bring tissue. Either toilet tissue or face tissue. Just bring something. Not all bathrooms supply this. 2. Practice your squatty potty. Go out in the woods, find a tree and practice your stance. Although not all toilets here are squatties, there are a fair number of them and you don’t want to have to figure them out on the fly… 3. Bring hand sanitizer. Not all bathrooms have a place to wash your hands. If they do have a sink, they may or may not have running water, and the water itself may be questionable. 4. Mind the water on the floor. This is the fun part. Frequently the toilets here have hoses so that you can hose off any bit of you that you deem necessary. I will stop the description there. Anyway… Sometimes this water finds its way to the floor, leaving a messy puddle around the toilet itself. I find it advisable to lift your pant legs when approaching said toilets to avoid getting the bottoms wet. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have mystery liquid on the bottom of my pants… Enough said. Finally ladies, practice “the stance” with your pant legs pulled up and you should be good to go for any bathroom you face or better yet, wear a skirt. They are much more forgiving. The final option is to just hold it and wait until you get back to the hotel. In some cases, this is the preferred option.

India

*Disclaimer - These are the observations of one very western person of a very eastern place. I do not mean for any observations to be critical or insulting. They are simply my observations.*

Okay… so here is my attempt to blog about India so far…

I left Mauritius on Saturday afternoon and arrived in Chennai, India at around 8:45 a.m. local time. Up until this point, things had gone smoothly as I travelled through Dubai. Nothing out of the ordinary… I got off the plan and headed toward passport control. I don’t think I have ever seen a line so long in my entire life. They had all of their desks open, but I think they must have all of their international arrivals at the same time. I picked a line that seemed like a good choice and inevitably it was the longest, slowest line. I was a little anxious because I had to pick up my bags and re-check them here… I finally got through the line and luckily there was no problem. Okay… I am officially in India. Good start.

Next, it’s time to find my luggage. I headed downstairs to the baggage claim area, which is also overflowing with people. I realized at this point, that no one cares if you can’t get to the belt where the baggage is. It’s everyman for himself and if you see your bag, you push your way through the crowd to grab it. This should be fun. Well, funny enough, after waiting for all the bags to come out of the shoot, I still had not yet seen my bag. All the time while the belt was churning, I was literally praying that my bag would be the next one. Ugh… Finally, I looked at the end of the belt and my bags were sitting there. It seems that while I was at passport control, someone got tired of seeing my bags going round and round and decided to take them off the belt for me. Gee… thanks. So, with my heart rate back at the “normal” non panic rate, I headed to customs and out the door. Okay… good progress. I find my way to domestic departures (which is a little walk) and discover that I have to go to the ticket counter to get my ticket to be able to get into the area where you check in. Excellent. I go, get in that line and get my ticket with about a 45 minutes before my flight is supposed to leave. I finally get in and find my check-in counter. Naturally, my bags are overweight and I have to pay a charge. So, I get in that line and pay my charge… 30 minutes remaining. Next I pick up my boarding card and proceed to go through security. This is always fun because I have to take out my computer, and take off my shoes… etc… Job done, I’m through security. Now to find my gate… Well, my boarding card says gate one, so I go to gate one. Two different people look at my boarding card and I am loaded onto a bus. This is a true Indian bus experience where about 50 people are crammed into a space meant to contain 5. That survived, I get to the plane to discover that this is actually the wrong plane. I don’t know how, but it is the case. Praise God the bus driver was able to take me to the correct plane. Potential heart attack two, overted. Funny thing was, they were not yet boarding. Again, thanks to God, they allowed me to board anyway, and I was able to cool off and relax waiting for the other passengers to arrive. God is good!

The flight was on a little puddle jumper for 1.5 hours and it went by really quickly. Unfortunately during our descent and landing, the small child in front of us decided to scream as loud as he could because he was not able to get off his mother’s lap. It was awful. Once on the ground, I realized that the fasten seatbelt sign and announcement to remain seated means nothing in India. People started getting up and getting their stuff and heading out into the aisles! I was lucky to shove my way off the plane when I did… Inside the airport, I retrieved my luggage and headed out to where Kalparaj, my ride, was waiting for me. We got my luggage loaded in the car and headed to my hotel.

The hotel I am staying at is one of the nicest in town. It’s huge and marble… At the gate, they have security guards who literally use a mirror to look under all of the cars before they can drive in. I was not sure whether to feel safer or worried about what people might trying to be sneaking in under their cars. I decided to go with safer…

Upon stopping, the bell boy was quick to get my bags and I was ushered into the lobby. I filled out my check-in information and was offered a glass of juice. This was a moment of truth for me. Everything I read said not to drink fresh juice, however, I knew that this hotel catered to international customers and in the position that I was in, not taking it would have been offensive. I (literally) said a prayer and drank the juice. It was actually really delicious. I was then taken to my room by one of the hotel managers and my bags arrived just behind me. The nice bell boy showed me where everything in the room was and I was on my own.

I took a few moments to settle in and decided that I would see what the internet access in the hotel was like. As I logged in, I realized that in the end, I needed to have an Indian cell phone number in order to get a confirmation code that I needed sent to me. So, I headed to the lobby and inquired about getting an Indian SIM card. Luckily there was a shop just down the street that sells these things. The gentleman in the lobby pointed me in the right direction and I found the shop with no problem. I asked for a SIM card and the lady told me that she would need a passport photo to attach to the application. At first I thought, “Crap”, but then I remembered that I had some extra photos from when I got my residency permit. They were absolutely awful, so I had gotten new ones for the other things I needed. So, I went back to my room and found these horrible pictures and returned to the shop. The rest of the transaction went easily. I paid my 78 rupees, and walked out with my SIM card.

I returned to my room and installed my SIM card and then proceeded to try to figure out the internet connection. However, everytime I got to the payment page, the system would crash and I couldn’t actually buy the time. At this point I had been awake for 30 some odd hours with maybe a 30 minute doze in the middle. I was sweaty and wanted a shower and just wanted to get in bed, but instead I headed back to the lobby and explained that I couldn’t get the internet connection to work. They told me that they could sell me either a 2 hour card or a 6 hour card. I chose the two hour card. The girl at the desk told me that she would have someone bring it to my room. I headed back to my room. An hour later, no one had come to my room, so I headed back downstairs to the lobby. This time, I actually got the internet card I needed and went back to my room.

After getting the card, I didn’t even want to use it, so instead I showered and went to bed without dinner. Ah… sweet rest.

Monday morning, I got up and got dressed after using Skype to talk to my hubby. (Thank you Jesus for Skype) I went to breakfast and discovered some very interesting breakfast choices. There was the typical pastry and toast section. There was an Indian section, complete with curry and paratha. There was another section that I couldn’t really identify anything on, and finally fruit. I played it safe and had a croissant, some potato wedges and a glass of juice.

After breakfast, I waited for my ride to collect me and take me to the office. I guess that in my tired haze the day before I hadn’t really noticed the traffic, but today it was hard to ignore. It seems that here, traffic rules mean nothing at all. The lane markings and speed limits are just suggestions. You can pretty much drive wherever you want to. Just be sure to honk your horn a lot to let others know where you are and not to cross your path. Interestingly enough, there is also no right of way, so if you want to drive across traffic or perhaps drive the opposite direction for a little ways, listen to Nike, and “Just Do It”. I cannot imagine driving here… Riding was enough of an adventure for me.

One side note on travel… There are a lot of “auto rickshaws” here. In Thailand they are known as took-took. Essentially they are three wheeled vehicles that have a bench at the back where passengers ride and a driver’s seat where there are motorcycle handlebars etc to drive with. When I saw them, I couldn’t help but think of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer tries to bring the rickshaw to New York…

In the office, everyone was very friendly. I have been treated extremely well since my arrival.
At the office, I had my first eating experience in India. I decided to try one of the little cookies on the table. They look like pecan sandies, and are very similar. They have the shortbread kind of content, but instead of pecans, they are filled with cumin seeds. I can’t explain the odd sensation that is. It’s like a spicy little cookie. They are pretty good.

It’s funny to think of this trip in retro-spect. Before I moved to England, I really, really disliked Indian food. I couldn’t stand it and had no interest in ever coming to India. I guess I can see how the Lord changed my heart and got me ready for this trip all along the way.

I am sure I will have more to share as time goes by, but this is just a little intro.

Travelling

So, last week I spent the week in Birmingham England. This week I am home. I leave tomorrow for a 3 week business trip. I start in India and spend a week in Bhubaneswar, from there I head back to Birmingham for two more weeks in England. Ugh...

I am looking forward to seeing India. It's the first time for me to visit the continent of Asia, and my first time in India. I am sure I will have lots to write about then...

On the other hand, I am suffering from pre-seperation anxiety. I already am mourning the fact I will be away from home and away from my husband for 3 weeks!!!

I guess we'll see if absence really does make the heart grow fonder. From my experiences so far, it's definately true... And one of the best things about being away from my husband is that the first night we are back together, we cling to each other all night... The next morning, we wake up still holding on to each other as if our lives depended on it. It's a great feeling.

I guess I'll see you later!

Weddings, Barber Shop and Travelling

So... It's been a little while since I have had the time to write something... Sorry for that :-(

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending my first Mauritian wedding. Two young people in our church were getting married and we were invited to participate... The first thing I will say about Mauritian weddings is, don't bother to show up on time. The reason being, no one else will either. Now, my husband had been asked to be the "wedding car" for the bride, so he dropped me off at the church and went to pick up Janeesa and her family. No biggie. The wedding is meant to start at 4:30 p.m., so he drops me at the church at 3:45 and arrives at the bride's house at 4. I sat in the church and waited... At around 4:30, the first few members of the choir and band showed up. Around 4:50 the pastor decides to make an appearance. I am sitting in my chair thinking, really? My wedding started at 10:00 a.m. and if you weren't in your seat, you missed it. Anyway... at around 5:15, the bride and groom both arrive at the church. Interestingly enough, many people wait in the parking lot for the bride and groom to arrive and then at the last minute, while the bride and groom and party are lining up, they file into the church. The rest of the wedding was pretty traditional, except that the pastor didn't know the names of the people he was marrying and mispronounced and re-read them about a million times. But it was a nice wedding overall and afterward, we got to share a nice biryani dinner with friends and family.

This weekend, I went for the first time with my husband to get his hair cut. My husband's barber runs his business out of his house. No big deal. The funny thing to me was all of the men who were there to get their hair colored. There were at least 3 sitting with black hair dye during the time we were there. These men were in their 50's, I mean, who are you trying to kid? And the funny thing was that when they came in, they were all grey. People are totally going to notice. Anyway- I got quite a chuckle out of that. Then I told my husband to go grey with grace...

The next month I will be caught in a whirlwind of travel. A week in England, then home for a week, then a week in India, followed by two weeks in England, then finally back home again. Hopefully I will have interesting things to share during those adventures.

A weekend away

This past weekend my husband and I spent a weekend away/at home. :-) I splurged for his birthday and treated us to a three night stay at a fancy hotel on the south coast. It was worth every penny...

I now understand why people come to Mauritius and think it is so fantastic. When you see the resorts and hotels that are here, you have to admit that they are wonderful. The service is outstanding, the views breathtaking, it's everything you hope your all inclusive holiday could be. However, I couldn't help but sit back and think of how far from the "REAL" Mauritius this representation is.

Don't get me wrong. Mauritius is a lovely place. It is full of beaches and beautiful sunsets, but the reality for most people that live here is that the beach is a place they got to go to maybe 4 or 5 times a year unless they live super close. There is no way they could afford to go to the private resorts, even at the Mauritian rate that is offered to residents. They don't get to see the fantastic places that the tourists come flocking for.

I feel a bit conflicted over the whole experience. On one hand, I am so thankful for the experience of seeing and doing all we did. We got to eat fantastic food and lounge by the pool all day. We even had time to build a sand castle... It was an amazing weekend. But on the other hand, I feel as though the island is so caught up in self-exploitation that after all the beaches have been trashed by tourist and all of it's natural resources used up, the "REAL" Mauritius will be all that's left. Will anyone pay big money to come and see that? I guess we have to wait and find out.