Thoughts of a western girl

So now we have had some time to settle in to Indian life and I have to say.... it is not bad at all.  The culture is so far away from anything I've seen before, but it is easy to adapt, so long as you are patient and accepting...... which I definitely am not, however it seems to be working ok so far...  And it is really only when you step outside your 'norm' and experience something else that you can truly see that culture is a strange thing, no matter which culture you come from.

So I've been thinking about a lot of things since we arrived here and I'll explain a couple of them to you now....

One of them is 'age' and how it is defined externally.  I mean in the UK (and perhaps the western world?) there are certain ettiquette that go along with 'getting older'.  For example, it is deemed unacceptable by our western society for a 60 year old lady to wear a short skirt with a tight fitting top... you would be called 'mutton dressed as lamb' I believe.  Usually in our society, as a lady ages she will generally cut her hair shorter and shorter, and she won't wear the same style of clothes as her 25 year old daughter, and will usually wear more conservative jewellery...... This all makes 'age' very external and easy to spot. Another comment regarding clothing is that in the UK, it is easy to spot where somebody is going according to what they are wearing.  For example a girl in a short skirt, tight top and 4 inch stilettos is probably going out clubbing/dancing with her friends (or to work, but hopefully not).  A girl wearing 3/4 length sweat pants, a t-shirt and asics trainers is probably off to the gym, and a lady in a skirt/suit with medium heeled court shoes is probably off to work (in a power job).  In the western world we allow appearance to tell other people:
                       * what we are doing
                       * where we are going
                       * how old we are
                       * how much money we have

Here in India however, this is not the case.  There are 2 types of dress for ladies and that is a sari and the salwar kameez (tunic and trousers with a scarf).  These types of dress are worn by EVERYONE regardless of age, size, income and indeed what they are doing.  For example, ladies often work on building sites here, and they wear the sari to build.  Yesterday I was in the gym with a lady wearing the salwar kameez...  And so it got me thinking.... Is it pure over indulgence in the western world that has led to us having different clothes for every occasion, each of them parading a statement?

With everyone wearing the same style of clothing and everyone having long hair, regardless of age, means that it is virtually impossible to put an age on Indian people.  So 2 ladies walking down the street together may well be mother and daughter, and I thought they were friends.  And 2 ladies may be walking down the street together and one may be going to the gym and another to a job interview, and I thought they were both going out to eat together.  So do we give away too much in the western world just by our appearance?

Personally I think it's great to be able to own lots of clothes for every occasion.... but wouldn't life be so easy if you only had to choose the colour of dress in the morning rather than emptying your entire wardrobe and then wearing the first thing you tried on anyway? (Should I wear jeans, should I wear a skirt, should I wear a dress with tights.........??????)
And wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to think.... maybe I'm too old to wear this now... or maybe my arse got too big to get away with this style now?

I don't know the 'right' answer.... and for sure the weather plays a part in the UK... but I have to say, despite the fact they are all dressed in the same style in India, I have never seen 2 sari's the same.... and the colours are truly mesmerising.... far more so than the jeans, skirt or dress with tights you (and I) considered donning this morning.....

Some of the other things I have been thinking about I will share another time, in another blog... just to keep you reading ;)

So as you know we went to Goa at the weekend... on thursday Simone told me that our landlord (who is one of the Sir's at work) had told him the gas people would be delivering another bottle to us on friday.  Of course we were not going to be here and so Simone told him this information.
That is as much as I heard about it, assuming they were going to deliver it another time.
When we arrived home last night there were 2 new gas bottles in the house.  I asked Simone about it and he said
"yeah yeah, he said they may still deliver it"
"you didn't tell me that"
"yeah yeah I forgot"
Well had I known they were going to be coming round I would have at least made the place presentable.... especially as our washing was hanging directly in their path.... with my knickers on full display, and tampons dotted generally around the place.....  but oh well, I guess I'll never have to see them so who cares... right??????
WRONG...  I bumped in to 'Sir' (our landlord) today......
"Oh hi Lucy.  I wanted to see either you or Simon tell you that I left the gas bottles on friday, one in the kitchen and one in the utility room"
OH LORD.....you left the bottles.................... I wanted the ground to swallow me whole.... HE SAW MY KNICKERS..... hanging everywhere........ aaaaggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  So when I saw Simone I could have killed him;
"But my knickers were hanging right there for him to see.... and tampons..."
Of course Simone thinks this whole thing is hilarious..... oh and Simone's pearl of wisdom.. "he won't even know what they are... he will think they are bullets"
One word..........M O R T I F I E D.

Goan times

Ehi there. Long time no see. Where have you been?
I apologize for long period without posts, but life has become a little bit more routine and we felt there was nothing interesting to tell.

Things are doing great. In work children with malformations come out like mushrooms after a storm. So always lots of surgery and lots of patients on the wards.

We have spent a couple od sundays doing not a lot.... relaxing, eating out (and drinking of course) and one sunday we went to a local national park..

We work 6 days a week,  and are entitled to take one day of annual leave a month (in total 12 a year). As the year will end at the end of march we wanted to use those 3 days hardly earned. We decided to go to Goa......why not, its 1.30 hr from Bangalore on a airplane, there are cheap flights and , if we use a sunday  we can make four days in a raw ( c'mon, I know that among you there are professionals in this kind of thing).
And so we decided for the 16-19 of march. Flights booked, hotel booked, oncalls rearranged. Ready to go.

The flight was at 6.15 AM. We woke up at 2.30 (yes 2.30am...... wtf kind of time is that???? That is REM sleep time, not wake up time damn it) in order to catch a prebooked cab at 3. At 4 we arrived at the airport. As we walked in, we checked at what gate our flight was.......mmmm...... surprise surprise, there was no flight at 6.15 to Goa, but there was one at 5.10... ONE HOUR EARLIER than we were told. We double checked with the May I help you lady who confirmed the 5.10 departure time. Nobody told us, nobody wrote to us and nobody changed it on the website.  Phew, lucky we arrived early.


The flight was ok... After 1.30 half hour we realized that the plane was flying in circle over Goa. Some passengers asked why and the answer was that there was a thick fog  and we could not land. 20 min later the Captain announced that we had no more fuel to fly around waiting for the fog to go away and we were heading back to Bangalore. ?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!? we have no fuel to fly around for 30 minutes but enough to make a 1.30 hour journey back to Bangalore........mah.....I ain't no air-pilot, but there is something wrong.  APPARENTLY we were going to re-fuel and go back to Goa.... hmmmm likely story....
So we landed at Bangalore 3.30 hours later.  We took the bus to the terminal and instantly knew there was something fishy going on when we were taken to 'arrivals' and not 'departures'....

"Arrivals??????  Arrival from where..... Bangalore???"  FFS
 "You can collect you luggage at belt number 5"
There you go..... 6-7 hours after we got up we flew to Goa and back.
So there you go, our trip to Goa was like a trip to 'Lapland' as a child..... you fly there and come back without getting off the bloody plane...  The beaches did look nice though from 20,000 feet.. We asked for the refund of the ticket and called the hotel to cancel the holiday and have some refund back, tolerating some cancelation fee.

Brace yourselves....here comes the kicker.... The hotel told us that there was no cancellation policy and our reservation was not refundable.

So: Should we take an overnight train to Goa? bus? or give up?
" Never gonna give you up" and by YOU I mean GOA ( all nostalgic people click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&ob=av2n) we surfed the web and booked an overnight coach leaving bangalore at 20.00 and reaching Goa the following  early morning. CHEAP AS CHIPS BTW..... should have done it in the first bloody place, leaving on the thursday.... oh hindsight is a great thing...

So we went back home, had a snooze and went back to the city to take the bus.

It was a bus with AC, nice and comfy reclinable seats, blankets and television. We had really a nice journey with Bollywood movies out loud and snoring indians....but we got there better that expected (although Louise was shrivelled up like a prune.... Going from drinking100 litres of water /day to nothing for 24hours "incase I need a wee")
The cab was waiting for us and took us to the hotel.
......



Are you still awake??????


If yes continue to read....

White sand, very warm and windy, warm pool, nice food......seafood cooked fresh just after the fishermen came back......paradise ( again for nostalgic click this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlWPUFgrAos, for younger people this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G4isv_Fylg&ob=av3e).

Thank goodness everything went ok with the return flight, although neither of us was entirely happy until we were taken by bus to the 'arrivals' hall...

And FYI we have been on 3 more bus journeys that you could call 'the vomit comet'... and the flight to Goa (which actually was a round trip to Bangalore) had another vomitus passenger, sat right in front of us.... so the question is...
Is the incidence of motion sickness higher in the Sub continent that is India, or is this proof that toast is indeed a far better source of nutrition first thing in the morning than spicy curry?