Day Twenty Seven 13-11-10

Today we leave to Hyderabad. We left the house at 4:45am so we are not to late in Hydrabad and we could take a detour to a nice dam. The road towards the dam was amazingly beautiful! We went through a Tiger reservoir to get to the dam. The place reservoir was very hilly what give very nice views. On the way we stopped a viewpoint where also a temple is build. On top of the temple a Sigaram (statue of Nandi, a god) is places where people look through when they place their thumb and index finger on both the ears of the statue. The believe of the Hindus is that when they see a Trisulam (weapon of lord Shiva, Satan has a similar fork) through their fingers, they ill go straight to heaven once they die.

At the dam we took some pictures, where you have to wait for a couple of weeks.

I also saw some real tigers!!! Only they where not alive anymore at the moment I looked at them. They where stuffed up. However, it was very impressive to see the animal from so close.

Once at Hyderabad we crashed in the Hotel and freshen ourselves up. THe total travel took about 13 hours. Around 8:30 we went of to see a statue on a big lake in the centre of Hyderabad. The statue was in the middle of the lake, so we needed to take a boat. At the island we took some snaps. Whili i was doing that, a guy came up to me asking why his camera wasn't working. I don't know why he asked me (maybe because I'm white or that i was carrying a tripod with big camera) but I looked at it and the batteries that he was using where rubbish. He looked as a nice guy to me so I suggested him to use my small camera with his SD card. He went completely happy and before I knew it I was taking pictures of the whole family (14 or 15 persons) in front of the statue. After 15 snaps of them also my camera's battery died. The guy was so enthusiastic that he took his phone out so he could take a picture with me. Before I knew it, the whole family was around me and Liny took some snaps of that.



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Day Twenty Six 12-11-10

Today we went in the morning to the sea. There I took a nice dive! The sea was much more clearer than on the GOA side and also gave me less irritation. Because Ongole is not a touristic place people where already looking at me a bit more than in other places so also at the beach. As soon as I entered the water, three guys came up to me and started talking to me. A minute later they picked up their cell phone, came back in the sea so they could take a picture with a white boy.

After the swimming we drunk some tender coconut water and headed back to Ongole.

In the evening we went out for dinner where I was also a good dinner for the mosquitos.

During my stay in Ongole we had lazy morning each day because of the good breakfast that I got from the maid of Joe. Because Shea is in GOA and Joe comes back late so she cooks and looks after the house during the day, every day.


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Day Twenty Five 11-11-10

In the morning Shea and Francis arrived from GOA. Shea was in Ongole for some business and Francis was there to accompany her during the journey.

Later that day we went to Joe's (Liny's dad) office to acquire some details about what he is actually doing. Basically he is running a SNIRD (Society for National Integration through Rural Development) which can be summarised as a social work organisation which can be compared with Oxfam. With money they get from sponsors, the over 200 personal counting organisation is initiating programmes for local communities with regard to for example rainwater harvesting. They also give classes to inform people about HIV Aids and Child Labour or how you build solid houses or how can you protect you're house in case of a tsunami. All the projects they do are being executed by men labour and not with machines. Once a programme is planned, people from the organisation are going to the development area to find labours. The labours are selected on their status within their society. This means that the poorest people get jobs first.

After the visit we went out for a drive with Shea. On the way I went driving in a car for the first time in India. What means, no seatbelt, no signalling, shifting lanes constantly and continuously pressing the horn! On the way I crossed a herd of goats who blocked the road. The destination of our journey was a dam.

In the evening Renny came home and had some cake, because it was his BIRTHDAY.


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Day Twenty Two and Three 8-11-10 and 9-11-10

I crop these two days into one blog because these days where not that much of interest. These days Liny and I where both not 100% well and both days we went shopping.
On day twenty two Renny took us to a place for Lunch where we saw something interesting. For some reason there was an invasion of hawks! I was able to record what was happening there.


After lunch we where of to buy me some shoes, socks and a new suitcase. In the evening we went to the Hard Rock Cafe of Bangalore. I had my first proper western meal there since more than three weeks. I had some Hawaii marinaded chicken with mashed potatoes, veg, French Fries and Garlic bread.

On day twenty three I took some more pics and movies of the traffic around there.

We did some more shopping, this time for Laura and Liny, and left the hotel around 6pm to take the bus of 7pm. The drive to the bus stop is around one kilometre, but due to the traffic you need to calculate around 30-45 minutes for that.


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Day Twenty Four 10-11-10

We arrived around 5am in Ongole where we were being picked up by Liny's dad and driver who where up from 3am in the morning ( Liny's dad lost track of time and thought at 3am that it was 5am, so he called the driver to pick him up after they found out it was 3am)

After some more sleep we were of to a school that is owned by Liny's dad and where they teach to 120 students Hindi, English, Mathematics, Science, Social and Telugu (state language).

The rest of the afternoon and evening we were in the house and I visited a internet shop.



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Day Twenty One 7-11-10

We arrived in Bangalore at 6am and checked into the hotel at 6:30am. Around 7:30 we had a nock on the door from Renny (Liny’s cousin that I already had met in Chennai) he came to accompany us. After trying to get some food into my tummy (still tummy upset) we went of to the shopping malls.

Shopping day, the reason we come to Bangalore was not because it’s culture heritage because it hasn’t that much. Liny brought me here because the shopping facilities are “awesome”. And indeed, all the products you can think of, you can buy. However, the reason why I was interested in shopping in India is because it tents to be cheaper. This doesn’t count for the western brands like Samsonite, Tommy Hilfiger, Apple or any other branded product, they are even more expensive. So we went looking at other places.

Liny thought initially that I just wanted to spent some money in India on clothes, this was wrong, I wanted to gain some benefit in buying in India. So after saying that, Renny took us to some big bazaar instead of the big “high street”shopping malls. In there the quality went a bit down, but it still all looked very descent.

For people who know me, I am always looking for the best bargain when it comes to price-quality and I don’t buy unless I got that. So yeah, Big bazaar, reasonable quality, good prices, not where I was looking for.

A thing that I knew what was good a price quality was the Levi’s and Converse (all star shoes) store. The reason that Levi’s is cheaper is due to the fact that the Levi’s Factory is in Chennai.

On the way to the Levi’s shop I made a pit stop at Mc Donalds. This was my first time at Mc since my stay in India and was therefore a bit exited (because I worked there for three years). On the menu I could only find two burgers that where the same. That was the Mc Chicken and the Fish Filled. They replaced the Bigmac for something that looks the same but then with chicken patties that are a bit spiced, so I had that. I also had a Mc Chicken what tasted the same. The Fanta is not that great, it is very orange instead of the yellow one we have. The fries are the same. I also went to a shop that is called “Denizen”. This is jeans shop which is a daughter company of Levi’s. The jeans where a third or forth of the price of Levi’s denim (799-1200 rupees, 15-20 euro’s) so I tried a couple and ended up buying two which turned out to be very nice and comfy once.

Once at the Levi’s shop I ended up buying four jeans and a shirt as well. This pilled up my jeans shopping up to 7 now. I have to buy one more for Laura, that makes a total of 8.

Tomorrow we are going to look for some convers and socks because Liny started to feel sick. Even I still felt a bit down, but I think that Mc Donalds was a good cure for now. We will see how it all unfolds tomorrow as we are now stuck at our hotel room due to a sick Liny and a heavy rainstorm outside (monsoon rain).

Day twenty 5-11-10

Diwali is it today and it is a day of celebration. At 2am in the night, Hindus burn a home made doll of around 2 meters high which is suppose to be Rawana (the evil god). It seems that this god still has some influence on the process. It is very peculiar that every year during the same time (2 days before Diwali) it rains! You can think that the evil god don’t want the people to burn their statue of him, so he makes it rain. It is even so peculiar that the two days before Diwali it rains this year (see previous blogs) what it the time in where the people make the doll (the water spoils the papers and hew where the doll is made from) and then on the day before Diwali it was dry but at 1am on Diwali it started raining what made the people not able to build their creation. All a bit suspicious when you think of it from my point of view.

Liny and I also wanted to look at the burning of the statue so we planned to set the alarm at 1:30am, but for some reason we didn’t wake up. You can say that Rawana don’t like tourist to take pictures of him being burned.

Once I woke up I had tummy upset. This continued throughout the day unfortunately. So it was overall a slow day. We went roaming around a bit en ended up at the beach.

 

Because the season was started now there where an uncountable army of sellers on the beach who would like to sell you some dodgy necklets. On after the other popped by and set down next to us.

At a time we where surrounded by four of those women for more than 45 minutes. They where just talking in their language (Konkani) and we where talking a bit about them. The sea breeze made me feel a bit better but still not ok so we went off again. We ended up at “Sea Rock” which is one of Liny’s mum favorite places in GOA. There was life music

so we sit there for around 4 to 5 hours after I couldn’t sit there as well not anymore. So we went home where I brought the evening through being pathetic.