Home at Last

7/17/11

I’ve been back now for 4 days. I fell back into the groove of U.S. life pretty easily. The plane rides weren’t that bad but felt soooo long. It took 34 hours door to door! I became very nervous when I got to the airport and found out that my Kingfisher airlines flight from Bangalore to Dubai was delayed by 45 minutes, meaning I wouldn’t have much time to make the flight in Dubai to Atlanta. Luckily they rebooked me on an Emirates flight that left 45 minutes earlier! Emirates is a glamorous airline…very cool to be able to enjoy a little of the luxury. I had a couple free glasses of shiraz and chatted with a lady next to me for most of the 4 hours. The flight from Dubai to Atlanta was 15.25 hours!!! It felt like 3 days long. Every time I looked at the clock I couldn’t believe there was more time than a full work-day left. I could hardly sleep and watched 3 movies: the Hall Pass (stupid), the Notebook (for the 52^nd time), and Dear John (so cute!). When I got to Atlanta I couldn’t believe I still had ANOTHER flight. I had to go through customs and immigration then get my suitcase, then re-check it again. The flight to Tampa was only an hour, thank God. I managed to stay away the entire day and crashed around 9:30pm—and slept until 8:30am the next day (11 hours!). After that the jetlag was pretty much over, although I’m still waking up kind of early on my own each morning.

It’s really good to be back, but I definitely miss India. I know I have to go back some day. It’s just such a different life there and I feel strange knowing that hardly anyone here knows what it’s like. It feels like I have a secret that even if I told someone, they wouldn’t understand. It’s hard when people say “how was your trip?!” How the heck am I supposed to explain 2 of the most incredible months of my life in a few-sentence response? I just tell people to read my blog to get a little glimpse of some of my experiences. No one could ever understand what I did, saw and felt…but I hope they at least might get somewhat of an idea.

It’s back to the real-world now…finishing my special project and graduation requirements, bills, trying to find a job, and dealing with my new roommate—Trooper the cat! I sincerely hope you all have enjoyed reading my blog. I know I’ve really enjoyed writing it and chronicling my experiences for myself and everyone reading has been fun and rewarding. I hope if you get an opportunity to do some out-of-the-box traveling one day, you pick India!

Last day in India 7/12

I’m sitting in my room at the Annexe staring at my two giant suitcases all packed up and sitting by the door, ready to go. I’ll leave here in about half an hour and get some lunch and head to the airport. It’s so surreal to be leaving. Two months in the scheme of a lifetime is nothing, but when I’m sitting on the tail end of the two months thinking about all the things I’ll miss, it feels like a while that I’ve been here. I’ve really fallen into a groove of work, hanging out with friends, traveling, etc. It’s more carefree here than in Florida, perhaps because this isn’t my normal day-to-day life. When I go back I have to worry about bills, finding a job, finishing my special project and graduating. Reality will smack me in the face! Before leaving for India, I thought, “there’s no way when I return that I’ll experience any reverse culture shock.” Now, I’m not so sure. I’ve gotten used to the hustle and bustle of a busy city and to the way things work here. It’s so, so different at home and I don’t really know how I’ll react. I’m anticipating being a little bit bored with life at home. It all just seems so mundane now. I guess we’ll see what happens in just 1.5 days, when I arrive back in the U.S. I’m flying Kingfisher Airlines from Bangalore to Dubai, then taking Delta to Atlanta then to Tampa. I’ll arrive in Tampa just before 9:00am on Wednesday morning. Funny, because I’m leaving India Tuesday evening. I gain a day back, which is kind of nice. I’m hoping the flights go off without a hitch and more important, that my two suitcases arrive in Tampa with me and in one (or two) piece(s). I haven’t purchased much here, but what I’ve bought is important to me, so it better make it home! I’ve got Indian clothes (mostly just kurtas), shoes, spices and tea. Wish me luck.

Pondicherry Trip 7/9- 7/11

I went to Pondicherry with 4 others, just for the weekend. The bus left at 11pm Friday night and arrived in Pondi at 5:30am. There are two roads to Pondi- the old, bumpy road and the new, smooth highway. Guess which way the driver decided to take? The bus was a seater and the seats didn’t recline that far, so I just napped when I could. We got a couple of rooms at Hotel Green Park (or Palace?) and they were very nice- and air conditioned!! It was so hot and humid the whole time there. Every time I leave the plateau Bangalore sits on, I’m drenched in sweat. It’s going to be a rude wake up call to go back to Tampa.

The main attraction of Pondicherry is the French quarter, which is situated along the Bay of Bengal on the east coast of India. Pondi is about 4 hours south of the main city of Chennai. After a couple of hours of much-needed sleep, we headed out to the French quarter to check it out. There’s an interesting way of transportation in Pondi called the share-auto. It’s a slightly bigger version of the auto-rickshaw and they cram about 10-15 people in the back on benches. Kind of a fun experience except for the camera phones in our faces. But anyway, it’s only 4 rupees (9 cents) each way…dirt cheap!! The French quarter had some beautiful architecture and all the street names are in French (e.g. Rue Saint Ange). It was a charming little town and it wasn’t nearly as crowded as I thought it would be. First we went to the coast/beach (tiny beach, mostly it was rocks) and hung out for a bit and dipped our feet in the Bay of Bengal. The most fun was walking underneath the pier, hopping from plank to plank (they weren’t really planks but I don’t know what else to call them) and taking pictures. Afterwards, we went to a café that was playing Kenny Chesney! You have no idea how happy that made me. It was all country! We had some beers and hung out for a bit but decided not to eat lunch there, as the menu was a bit pricey. The alcohol in Pondi is relatively cheap compared to Bangalore because it’s Union Territory (not part of the state of Tamil Nadu). By 2pm we were starving, as we never had any breakfast, so we stopped into Madame Shaste, a restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet, for lunch. Marie, Steve, and Vanita had some tasty looking pasta dishes and I just had some stuffed paratha and a cheese naan. We fixed a plan for the rest of the afternoon and decided on the famous ashram in town. The Sri Aurobindo Ashram (http://www.sriaurobindoashram.org/index.php) was founded in 1926 and it is most famous for “the Mother,” a woman who was entrusted with everything spiritual at the ashram. Her face is everywhere! It was peaceful to go sit in silence for 5 minutes and just be. I did not get the chance while in India to go to an ashram for a stay (at least staying a few nights) but I think it would have been an ‘enlightening’ and distressing experience for me. After the ashram we were all completely exhausted from the long day, barely and sleep, and hot sun, so we stopped at a bay front café to have ice cream (I had black currant flavor! Yum) and then went back to the hotel to rest before dinner. We headed back down to the water via share auto for dinner around 8, and we were really lucky to see a live rock concert! At the same café where we had ice cream, a large crowd had gathered and a 3-man band of young guys from Bangalore was covering songs by Jimi Hendrix, Dire Straits, and others… then they had some of their own material too. Young and old all listening to this band…big crowd, right on the water, lots of fun! They had a lot of those plastic chairs they love so much put out and lots of old people were sitting in them, listening to an Indian band cover Purple Haze…awesome! After we had enough of the concert we went to a dimly light restaurant with lots of options, however, almost all of us ended up having delicious brick-oven pizzas. Pondi has lots of good pizzerias so I wanted to try it. I had “Hawaiian” which strangely enough was nothing like a traditional Hawaiian pizza with Canadian bacon and pineapple- actually it had neither of those. It had chicken, capsicum (green pepper), and some other veggies. Really tasty, but not Hawaiian. We had dinner with some guys Corinne met-one was from France and the other from Quebec. So, the 7 of us had dinner together- American, Indian, French, Canadian (Quebecois), and British.

Sunday we had an amazing breakfast at the same café we had ice cream at the day before. We had cheese omelets, toast, and coffee while looking out over the bay. Corinne and I even split a pain au chocolat J, which is kind of like a croissant filled with Nutella. We went to the rocky beach again and just hung out for a while, but the sun was way too hot to sit there for long. We took a rickshaw about 15 minutes to Auroville, a town nearby (http://www.auroville.org/). Auroville is “a universal city in the making in south-India.” The website says: "Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity." It reminded me a little of scientology…slightly creepy. We got dropped off in the parking lot and then walked into the visitor center, which was a combo of museum and gift shop. We watched a short video on the whole “meaning” or Auroville and what it’s supposed to be about, then we took a walk over to this giant gold golf ball looking structure that looks just like the Epcot ball. The ball is called the “Matrimandir.” We took some pictures then went to the cafeteria for some cold coffee and fresh lemon soda. They put a small amount of the lemon concentrate in the bottom of a glass, then they give you a bottle of club soda and sugar to make it yourself.

After Auroville we headed to the beach and I rolled up my pants to say I’ve been in the Bay of Bengal. Steve went in the water, but that’s easy for him to do because he’s a guy and no one is going to stare at him! He lost his glasses in the water L and was pretty pissed… I guess I would be too. We went to lunch at a restaurant nearby and waited- I kid you not- an hour- to get our food. By the time we ate it was 3pm and I was starving! We got on the local bus afterward to head back to the hotel and my wallet got stolen!!!! So annoying—I always keep such a good eye on my stuff and pride myself in being alert and careful not to let something like that happen, but somewhere in that crowded bus someone must have reached into my bag and taken it. I think I got really lucky though because also in my bag was my cell phone, my iphone, my passport, and camera…and they didn’t get any of that. The only thing in my wallet was about $80-100 US dollars worth of rupees and my ATM card, plus my room key at the Annex at St. John’s. The key was about $5 to replace (the sister was NOT happy) and I had my dad cancel my ATM card immediately so there was no fraudulent activity. Losing the money sucked, but I would have wasted it on shopping for clothes anyway. Such a crappy way to end the Pondicherry trip, though. The bus ride back was awful too- we literally got the last 5 seats on the bus and they were in the way back, over the engine, so despite it being AC it was hot as hell and they took the old, bumpy road again. The seats don’t really recline back there either so I got basically no sleep. Luckily when we got back around 6am I could go right to sleep and not have to worry about waking up for my internship. I slept til about 11! I remained pretty lazy on my last full day in India.

View of a funeral procession from our hotel room. Fireworks and everything.

Little dip in the Bay of Bengal

Matrimandir in Auroville

Irony at its best

Scooter ride- Indian style!

Last Week of Internship

French restaurant "Cafe Noir" for dinner one night- this is my lemon tart :)

Yoga class with Marissa

Mixing paratha with chicken biryani in Ambur (Tamil Nadu)

7/8/11

The last full week of my internship really flew by. Monday and Tuesday I worked on a couple papers and Wednesday I got the opportunity to visit a shoe factory in the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu. It was a 3 hour drive and Andre, Dr. Deepthi (a doctor in the Dept. of Comm. Health) and I went by hired car to Farida Exports in Ambur. I was eager to see some occupational health in action before my stay was over. The shoe factory visit was really a wonderful experience for me. First, Andre and I have become friends so getting to go with her was nice. And I hadn’t really had the chance to talk with Dr. Deepthi so it was also nice to be able to chat with her a bit and learn more about what she does. Andre taught a class to 15 women about reproductive health. The class was taught in Tamil, the language spoken in Ambur. Andre is from Pondicherry so Tamil is her native language. The women learn about various health topics. These women take around 6 of these classes (all on different topics) and then go forward with the materials given in the class and teach the content to the rest of the factory workers. This factory has around 1500 employees and 80% are women. The classroom and manager’s office were on the upper level so I had a bird’s eye view of the factory operations. They make Timberlands there! Too bad I couldn’t get any pictures- this was prohibited. We stopped for a yummy breakfast on the way there and I had a masala dosa, which was surprisingly different than the ones in Bangalore because we were in a different region (different tastes to the foods in different areas). For lunch we had biryani delivered to the factory by one of the local restaurants. Ambur is known for their biryani, which is a very flavorful rice dish. I had the chicken biryani, but we also ordered mutton biryani (goat)…but I had never tried mutton the whole time in India and didn’t feel like starting then! Because the place is so famous for biryani, Andre and Dr. Deepthi ordered lots of extra food to bring home. We even stopped on the way back for more take-out!

The following day I was supposed to go to Mugalur for one last time, but the car was full. It was OK though because I had a lot of work to finish up in the Department. Thursday afternoon I got a cake for everyone to say thank you and goodbye. It was a caramel praline cake and it was all gone in about 5 minutes! They devoured it. I felt bad because I don’t think everyone got a piece, but I really wasn’t expecting it to be so popular! It was a big cake, too. I passed out thank-you cards to people that had made an impact on me, and tried to talk to each person before I left. Friday was my official last day but by then I was done with my work, so I took a half day. Friday afternoon was relaxing! I prepped for the trip that evening to Pondicherry. Weird to be done with the internship but 2 months really flies by—it felt like no time at all. So happy to have met everyone and had such a wonderful field experience—especially because I know some others that are not having such great field experiences! I feel quite lucky!

Weekend in Bangalore and Last Full Week

7/4/11

Happy 4^th of July, everyone! This means nothing in India, of course, but that’s OK. There will be other 4^th of Julys to celebrate, I suppose. I’m at work today in the Department and it’s official—I only have this week left and then I’m done! Wednesday I may get the opportunity (barring approval) to go to a garment factory to do a little occupational public health observing, and Thursday I’ve arranged to go to Mugalur for one final visit (maternal and child health clinic day). I’m finishing up the manuscripts I’ve been working on this week and then it’s off to Pondicherry on Friday evening for the weekend. I bought some thank you cards for select people in the Dept. and will also bring in a cake for everyone some time later in the week. Monday I will be busy packing, tying up loose ends (like returning the cell phone and books I’ve borrowed), maybe getting one last cheap manicure and pedicure, some menhdi (henna), and perhaps visiting some of my favorite area pubs J. I’m going to try to get to the airport by mid-afternoon Tuesday even though my flight doesn’t leave until 6:15pm. There’s no way I can chance missing that flight! I think I’ll miss India but 2 months is starting to feeling like a while now—ready to get home soon.

I got to see a lot of Bangalore that I’ve been meaning to see this past weekend. It was the reason I stayed in town this weekend instead of traveling. Saturday I attended a presentation given by interns in the Department—some sort of economic evaluation of diabetes in a rural section of Bangalore. It was slightly interesting but once again it’s hard to watch a presentation here because the poor presenters get interrupted every 5 seconds and torn to pieces by the chairperson and faculty in attendance. Constructive, I guess, for the presenters to get the feedback, but I think maybe they should discuss all the problems and ways to improve the study at the end of the presentations so at least there’s some type of order. I think it’s mostly just unnerving for those presenting. After the presentation I went to a coffee shop (Café Coffee Day, India’s Starbucks) to work on my paper and got a solid 3 hours of work done. My epi. advisor gave me the long weekend to finish things up and I’m pretty close now; I have 20 pages written and the main table is 80% finished. I’ll breathe a huge sigh of relief when the whole thing finally gets signed off on and I can graduate.

Saturday night I went clubbing!! So much fun! I went with Vanita and 3 guys, including Steve and two of his friends. The place was called Athena and it was in the basement of Leela Palace hotel (www.theleela.com/hotel-bangalore.htm). It got pretty crowded by about 10:30 (bars close at 11:30 and the hotel was only open maybe a half an hour later!) We danced the night away! I felt totally comfortable dancing and everyone was just enjoying themselves. I feel like it was a lot less judgmental than clubs at home. A lot more modest dancing styles, too, if you know what I mean. For once I wasn’t stared at. Don’t know whether that was because it was dark or because there were a handful of white people there (it’s probably a combination of the two).

Sunday I slept in for once and then worked on my paper until about 1pm, at which time I went with some friends to the other side of Bangalore to the more “trendy” area. We ate a late lunch at this awesome restaurant called Queen’s and then went to Commercial Street for some shopping. It was similar to New York City in the sense that there were tons of stores and huge crowds, minus the skyscrapers. I liked that area and would go back if I had time (which I don’t). It was a bit overwhelming but there was definitely great shopping there. Didn’t buy anything as I’ve already finished my shopping, but it was nice to walk around. We went to Guzzler’s Pub on Church Street (off Brigade Rd, another popular area nearby) afterwards for a drink and then I actually got a personal pan pizza from Domino’s to take home to have for dinner. Yum!

Here are some pictures from the weekend. Enjoy!

Dinner at Sukh Sagar (one of my fav spots) with Corinne and Marissa.

Corinne has a cheese masala dosa, Marissa has a mango lassie, and I have a North Indian Thali

Guava man on the street. He puts a little bit of masala and salt inside the cut guava! Tasty

A road parallel to Commerical Street, Bangalore

Clubbing at Athena with John, Steve, Vanita, and Jithan

With Vanita at the Filling Station for dinner and drinks before the club

Stressful Week In Progress

6/29/11

This week is and will continue to be very rough, as I have several manuscripts to work on in the Department and my special project first draft is due FRIDAY! There just aren’t enough hours in the day. Today is already Wednesday and I still have at least 13 pages of my SP to write. I have a meeting with one of the doctor’s later today to go over the manuscript for the alcoholism study, so I’m hard at work at that.

Last night I was invited to one of the Department’s doctor’s homes. She lives alone in the staff quarters just off campus. A post graduate student also came. She took 2 hours to make a wonderful meal of palak paneer, chapattis, rice with a curd sauce, and a chicken kebab dish. There was also a yummy homemade pudding/spongecake for dessert! We had a good time just talking, relaxing, and watching Spiderman 3. It was such a lovely evening and a nice break from all the work this week.

Not the best quality pictures...but it's all I've got:

Ashwini and Rashmi cooking dinner!

Making chapattis

With Dr. Ashwini (post-graduate student) before dinner

With Dr. Rashmi

Taking tomorrow off from work so I can get a full, solid day of special project work done. I’m staying in Bangalore this weekend to explore the city and see the spots I’ve been meaning to get to—MG Road, Commercial St., and Brigade Rd. That’s all for now!

Munnar Trip 6/24- 6/27

The four of us (Corinne, me, Vanita, and Marissa) in the middle of the spice garden

The trip to Munnar was amazing! It’s my favorite place that I’ve visited in India simply because of the scenery and calmness. The landscapes are breathtaking—I literally was left speechless at times. After about 10 hours on the semi-sleeper bus we had to transfer to a much smaller bus that was capable of climbing the steep hill and navigating the hairpin turns as we weaved our way to Munnar. The last couple of hours of the drive were unforgettable. The first tea plantation we saw out the window left everyone going “ohh..wow!!” and every single person’s camera came out immediately. Munnar is famous for its endless rolling hills of perfectly manicured tea plantations and arranged like a puzzle. Of course it’s rainy season there now, so we dealt with off and on showers, but it really didn’t take away from the experience at all. In fact, I think it added to it. It was so chilly there…somewhere in the mid-60s I would say if I had to guess. I had my sweatshirt/sweater and scarf on the whole time.

After we arrived, the taxi driver picked us up from the bus stand and took us to a restaurant for breakfast. After not eating for the past 16 hours, we were all starving. I had a masala omelet and some idly, which is kind of like a paddy of cooked rice (wet, not dry). Of course, being in Munnar, we had to have tea too, and it did not disappoint! That was the first of MANY cups of tea in Munnar...

After breakfast we went to the resort to check into our bungalow. It was a decent place; two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a patio that backed to the woods, and a full kitchen. Being in the middle of the woods, there was no cell phone signal and the internet sticks wouldn’t work, so we were literally stuck there and had to place a lot of trust in the reception folk that they would bring us our dinner and breakfast and pick us up to go back to the main office. The resort was so peaceful in the middle of the woods (lots of bugs, though!). A couple other issues were there was no heat (and it was freezing, especially at night), and the hot water and gas did not work so we couldn’t take showers or make tea to warm us up. The perpetual dampness in Munnar also meant a damp bed and damp sheets. I just told all the girls to pretend we were camping and that helped keep my spirits high…plus it was only for one night! The place was cute and we got an incredible deal on it because Rohini’s and Steve’s cousin is the managing director, so we really couldn’t complain!

After we checked in, we went to ride elephants!!! My trip to India is complete now that I’ve worn a sari, gone to an Indian wedding, and ridden an elephant. It was a small place tucked away in the woods and luckily it was just 2 to an elephant, so I rode one with Vanita. Fairly cheap at Rs. 200 a person ($4.50), too. The elephant walked super slow down a path in the woods about 200 meters long, then walked back. It was about 10 minutes total but honestly that’s all you need, otherwise it’s a bit boring. It was so cold out that it was nice to sit on a warm elephant J. Such a cool experience!

We also took a drive and went to some scenic viewpoints to take pictures. There were so many gorgeous waterfalls and rolling hills of tea plantations. We went shopping for a bit at a market and also went to a very crowded spice store, where I purchased a few more spices on my list.

List of the spices I purchased in Cochin & Munnar:

- Coriander

- Fennel seed

- Candy-coated fennel seed (it’s the after-dinner mint here)

- Cinnamon

- Vanilla

- Black pepper

- Bay leaves

- Cardamom

- Garam masala

- Tea masala

- Turmeric

- Red chili powder

- Cloves

Big packets (100g) of these spices were anywhere between 30 and 90 rupees a pack, which is about $1-2. Wayyy cheaper (and fresher!) than you can get in the U.S., so I had to load up. I also got a ½ kg of broken leaf tea (B.O.P.) which I believe is just regular black tea. We’ll see when I get home and test it out! The art of making tea is something I’ve become interested while over here, especially with having at least two cups of tea a day. The process of boiling the tea with the water, then adding milk, bringing it to a boil again, adding certain spices, etc. is definitely something I will dabble in upon returning home. Especially with all the delicious spices I bought! Can anyone else think of any other spices I should look for?

After the spices and shopping we headed back to the bungalow and had dinner brought to us (woohoo..room service), which consisted of ghee rice, fried fish, a fish curry, chapattis, and veg korma. Yummy!

Breakfast was brought an hour late on Sunday…something about the kitchen “not being open” on time…eh, it was fine though. After the meal we headed out to some more scenic points and even stopped along the way to catch a glimpse of a wild elephant family walking through the woods! We went to a spice garden where we had a tour and learned about how all the different spices are grown. The driver tried to take us to a flower garden next but we decided against it (something he wasn’t very happy about because he gets commission at each tourist place he takes us to—whatever, it’s our money and our time!). We did a tiny, tiny bit of trekking- only about half an hour but that’s all we had time for. That’s where I took the video I posted to my facebook. I even saw an endanger giant grizzly squirrel!! It was huge, black, and awfully scary..and was darting through the trees. After the trekking I got some delicious ginger tea from a little tea stall at the top of the hill. It took at least 5 minutes for the man to make it and it was so cool just watching him at work.

We went to a lovely restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet called Rapsy Restaurant where we loaded up on lunch/dinner. Vanita and I took a different bus home than Corinne and Marissa because the other girls couldn’t get seats on our bus. The buses left between 4 and 4:30pm, so we had to make lunch last through the evening and night. We ordered tons of food!! Parottas (spun tortilla-like bread), veg korma, chicken chaps (spicy..yum!), lassies, and omelets. This restaurant is known for being tourist/foreigner friendly and there were all sorts of handwritten messages in different languages on the wall. Not to mention, the cashier kept striking up conversation with Corinne in French!

The bus back was lonnnggg..probably felt the longest out of any of the trips I’ve taken so far. This could have been because it was just a seater, not a semi-sleeper or sleeper, and the seats didn’t go back very far. It was impossible to get comfortable and my night consisted of a few 30 minute naps. People kept getting on and off and on and off…it felt like a local bus. We were jarred awake by the driver’s screams of “Madiwala!!!” (our stop) unexpectedly early, at 4:30am. We did not anticipate arriving until at least 6am. Good thing we knew exactly how to walk back to St. John’s after getting off because we were completely bombarded with auto rickshaw drivers asking us where we were going and if we wanted an auto. I had to repeatedly shout “no!” and tell them to leave us alone. It would have been a nightmare to someone who didn’t know what they were doing. Fortunately after having been here 6.5 weeks, they weren’t going to get to me. It was a little creepy walking back..it was only about 10-15 minutes, but we made it back safe. After sneaking in an open gate, walking past a slumped over sleeping guard, then passing another two slumped over sleeping guards about halfway through campus (awesome security), we got back to the Annex around 5-5:30am and could fortunately sleep for a few hours. I’ve never felt so relieved to get back there!

A tea plantation in Munnar.

I took this picture with my iPhone then used the Instagram app to give it this neat filter.

Passion fruit

The backyard of the bungalow we stayed at.

It was so peaceful sit out there and just listen and watch nature.

The spice shop we spent quite a bit of time (and money) in.

So crowded!

Elephant ride with Vanita

On the slow walk...

Me, atop an elephant! He/she was a sweetheart.