Sparkie's Junkyard

Utteranchal

26th August 2008

This was the view at 6am about a week ago:

Since then we've been to Jaipur and are now in Mumbai once more, ready to catch our plane tomorrow morning. Issues with Virii and photo-backing-up have delayed posting for a little while, but rest assured normal service should return in vast quantities once I've landed in the UK.

Ta-ra for now

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Delhi Update

15th August 2008

Must be quick - we're about to go home after dinner at Mallika's house (really good biryani). After leaving Hyderabad we first went south, down to Hampi and then Nagarhole national park. We saw deer, elephants and bison. Tigers were around, we saw fresh footprints, but hiding well.

Then we flew up to Delhi, via Agra when we went here:

Tomorrow we leave for Utteranchal, up near the Himalayas, so hopefully I will get some pretty views to post next time. Got to go now...

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Cybercafe Experiment

5th August 2008

We have no internet acces in Shamini's flat, so I'm writing this from a little cybercafe down the road. It's been made from a first-floor conversion above a leather shop, in the shadow of a flyover. It's a stark contrast from the Nike, Adidas and Levis shops barely 50 yards away, but that is something very noticeable here in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad - ridiculously posh (and expensive) shops just spitting distance from poverty.

Internet seems very popular here, this is one of five cafes we hav visited trying to find a spare machine, and I had to wait 15 minutes just to get this, a Pentium II runing Windows 98. It is only 10p per hour though, which is nice :-) I've downloaded PuTTY to it, and hopefully can write everything I need using that.

So, India then. The wedding was two days ago, and was HUGE. There were 2000 guests at the event itself, and the buffet which followed, but things had been happening for several days before that. Firstly there was the bridal shower, which was a reasonably civilised hen-party. It was girls only, but Sonya says that they had a nice meal in between the giving of embarrasing presents.

Next we had a henna-party, when the girls had intricate designs painted on their hands, and Ravi, Adam and I got in on the act with with a token design. This was followed by the bride-making, when Priyanka got dressed into her bridal gear and suitably blessed etc. Photos of all of these things will hopefully appear at some point, internet access dependent.

The night before the wedding was a little unusual even by Indian standards - we had an open-mic-night / talent show where people from both families sang songs, told stories and danced. For my sins I was enlisted into the "Priyanka's Cousins Dance Troupe" and 13 of us performed an Indian dance. For reference, it looked exactly like this.

The wedding itself involved several ceremonies that we didn't quite understand, but it looked amazing and we all had fun dressed in our sarees and kurtas. As I said, there was a nice-enough buffet after the event, but later that evening there was a reception that trumped pretty much everything I've been to. As opulent as a Ball in many respects, with free-flowing whisky, glorious food and lots of glitz. The men had changed into Western clothes for all of this, so I felt a little out of place in my trekking trousers and a hastily-bought shirt, but carting a suit around the sub-continent was fairly out of the question.

Waking up groggily the next morning we reflected on a fantastic few days, and downloaded 2.5Gb of photos!

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Part 2 - Hyderabad

25th July 2008

Just a quick note. We took the overnight train into Hyderabad from Mumbai two days ago, which was fun. Eight people in a little cabin sleeping on reasonably solid bunks in this great long train. There were fans buzzing over our heads, sellers moving up and down selling chai and samosas and plastic toys, the clackety clack of the rails and the constant bustle of people getting on and off; somehow we managed a decent night's sleep though, and by travelling overnight the 17 hour journey went past really quickly.

Since arriving we've been visiting various relatives, have met the bride Prianka and her family and have visited a few of the sights and shops of Hyderabad. We've taken lots of Autos all over the city, which is a little scary. However you somehow feel quite safe bombing down the wrong carriageway, weaving in and out as the driver tries to find the shortest route. It's a lot quicker than sitting in the car in a traffic jam.

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Part 1 - Mumbai

21st July 2008

After teasing you with the photo gallery a few days ago, I thought I should make a real post. We're staying with Shamini's great-aunt and uncle in Mumbai, who have been amazing. They have fed us wonderful food, taken us around the city and looked after us wonderfully.

We arrived at 6am local time, which is 1.30 UK time, and had an eye-opening trip through the early morning traffic. The usual traffic rules apply; horn first brakes last, lanes are there for guidance only, and whoever is biggest has right of way.

A quick snooze and we were up by lunctime feeling surprisingly awake and human, so we went for a shopping spree on the first day. Clearly the jet-lag hadn't kicked in yet, as we went on a tour of several of the local shops and I managed to get a kurta for the wedding we're going to in a few weeks. No photos yet, it'll have to be a surprise. By the time we got home from there though, the sleep-deprivation of the last three days had kicked in and we collapsed for 14 hours.

We staggered into the light mid-afternoon the next day, had curry for brunch and headed out again for a tour of the city. Mumbai is ~16km x 3km, and it is nearly an hour's drive to get to the centre from the flat. The results of the the city-tour fed my first gallery, my poor camera is getting a workout and a half already and I'm glad I bought a 4Gb memory card just before I left...

Yesterday we went to visit the family farm, but stopped en-route to visit some caves and a temple, up in the hills. There was a religious gathering on, we timed our visit along with about 3000 others, all with drums, flowers, chickens and goats. They were quite interested in us, this was very out of the way and there was a dearth of westerners. I was repeatedly asked "Hello, how are you?" and "One photo please?", which I was happy to play along with and made quite a few acquaintances. I did draw the line at dancing under a waterfall though. Sonya and Shamini were less enthused, generally letting me get on with this, and pretending they didn't know me. Quite hard when you stick out like a sore thumb.

Later that day we explored the farm, watched monkeys steal food from people at a roadside viewpoint and then went to visit a mansion belonging to some friends. A swimming pool, a panoramic view of the mountains and five bedrooms with 52" TVs are among the design features. Mumbai is a very mixed place, the rich and poor live right next to each other and co-exist peacefully it seems. In a bar on the first night we were rubbing shoulders with Bollywood actors, but turn a corner and you're in a slum area. It's very nice here though, and we've been broken in gently thanks to some great hospitality.

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Belatedly...

15th July 2008

I've Graduated! Umm about three weeks ago, sorry.

I meant to make a series of funny/insightful/informative comments about the post-exam fun, but was somewhat waylaid and had to make do with the monster photo post instead. In the meantime, I've kept busy preparing for my trip to India. Yes India. It's Shamini's fault, she invited our whole house to her cousin's wedding (apparently that makes us quite close family) and we turned it into a six-week jaunt around the subcontinent. With eight of us going in total, that makes 1248 malaria tablets to take - luckily I haven't experienced any side effects so far.

I don't know precisely where we're going, I left that to Ravi and Sharms to sort out but my best guess is shown below:

I don't really know what to expect when I get there. Lots of people have said that they had an amazing time, if not always an enjoyable one. At the moment I can't quite comprehend the tales of poverty and third-world-ness, but surely the point of a culture-shock is that it is, er, shocking. Hopefully I'll be able to write the odd post when I'm out there - as anyone who has spoken to a call centre will understand the internet tube is quite wide into certain parts of the country at least.

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