Monsoon Rain

From India Training

We've gotten to experience a week's worth of monsoon rain. Not only are the roads flooded but even our hotel lobby! Traffic is crazy enough here normally but it gets even more exciting when you add two feet of water. Chris had earlier made the observation that the traffic here flows like water so to see it flowing literally in water seems appropriate. Considering that people dump trash everywhere and the sewer systems are probably less than adequate, I can only imagine what's in the water. The power lines are not exactly up to code either and I've seen articles in the newspaper about downed lines in the water.

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As we were driving home in the rain one night, Chris and I saw a guy on the side of the road welding. Forget about welding goggles, this guy was in bare feet operating electrical equipment in the rain.

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One night we were in the bar of our hotel playing dominos when water started seeping in. The bar floor started filling up so they asked everyone to leave. We took our drinks out to the lobby to enjoy the show. Hotel employees were using brooms to try to push the water out the door while a large group of people stood outside under the awning waiting for their rides who were stuck in the hellacious traffic.

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We had a good laugh with the hotel staff when they asked us not to drink in the lobby. Chris responded with something like "Are you really worried about beer in the lobby when the hotel is flooding?"

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Celebrity Golfers

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We went golfing today at a horse race track with a golf course inside it. When our car pulled up, a group of eager young men swarmed us like paparazzi. They were tripping over each other to be our caddies.

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The fee was only $6, club rental $4, and the caddy is only supposed to cost $2 but we gave them more in the end. It's surreal how inexpensive it is here. We ended up each getting a caddy and a ball boy. The caddy's were good coaches as well so we had lessons, caddies, ball boys, umbrella holders during the rain storm, and beer fetchers all for $5.

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The mystery of the bobble head

One of my goals while I'm here is to try to figure out what it means when Indians bobble their heads while talking. It's not an up and down "yes" nor is it a left and right "no". I've been confused in the past when I asked a cabbie whether I had paid him enough or not and he did the bobble. I had no idea if that was yes or no but asking him repeatedly always got the same response so I just walked away.

The Lonely Planet book that I got from the library says that the bobble head sometimes means "yes", sometimes "no", and sometimes "I don't know". It's nice of the book to speak to the subject but that doesn't really clarify it. Here's what Wikipedia has to say. Still not entirely satisfying.

We made a breakthough last night when we asked Venkat about it. His explanation is that the head bobble with no hand jesture means "ok ok" but if your hands are turned up or your shoulders are shrugged then it means "i don't know". Hmmm...very interesting. So the bobble is contextual based on the converstation or other body language.

I don't think the chapter is closed yet on this subject...

Chidambaram Natarajar Temple/Pondicherry

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We took a day trip to Chidambaram and Pondicherry with Arul as our guide. His hometown is neary Chidambaram and he studied at the university there. It was nice to get away from the frantic, dirty city for a while and see the countryside. The region is famous for growing cashews, mangos, and jackfruit (shout out to Mel for introducing me to it).

From India Training

The temple at Chidambaram is beautiful. It's got four large colorful towers on the outside and a famous golden hall inside. There were so many intricate carvings and paintings. We got blessed by an elephant and a priest. Getting blessed by an elephant consists of putting money in the elephant's trunk and then bowing so it can lightly touch your head before giving the money to the guy who's poking it with a stick. The priests that take care of the temple live there, study Sanskrit, and only get money from donations. They chant and do something with fire (called puja) to the statue of one of the gods then they smear ash on your forehead before forcefully asking for money.

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Afterward, we drove to Pondicherry which used to be a French colony. It has a different atmosphere from the architecture to the culture. People are more laid back there. The city has a special status in India somewhat like Puerto Rico in the US whereby they don't have to pay taxes so everything is super cheap there, even by Indian standards. We had a nice meal with drinks for five people that came out to $20. It's unbelievable.

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Diwali

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Diwali is a major Indian holiday where people light firecrackers non-stop for days. Venkat drove us around for a tour of the city that day including the Chennai Snake Park, the old British area of the city, the Marina beach, a major Hindu temple (Mylapore) where people line up to get some flowers from priests and have their food blessed before they go home and eat, and a church where one of the original 12 apostles (Thomas) is buried. I had no idea there was an apostle buried in India. This place is full of surprises.

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That night, Arul invited us over to his house. His son, Boopala, was so excited to see us. He had made cards for us and wanted to show us his school projects and legos. He's a very smart and articulate kid. The fireworks going off around the house were so loud it sounded like we were in a war.

From India Training

The previous night we had bought three big bags worth of fireworks (all for $40) which we brought to Arul's to add to his stockpile. Over the course of the next hour or so in muggy haze of sulfurous gas, we light all the fireworks. Boopala was gitty watching us setting them off. Even Arul's pregnant wife helped us out by lighting sparklers which we then used to light the other stuff. It was a blast (pun intended, ha ha)

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Mahabalipuram

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Rico, Matt, and I went to see intricately carved stone temples in a place called Mahabalipuram near Chennai. Our driver's name is Venkat and he's been driving professionally for 18 years with no accidents. He told us that he would get fired if he ever got in one. It's amazing considering that people here completely ignore lanes and traffic signs and generally drive very aggressively. Instead of rear view mirrors, they honk to let people know they're passing. Well, they pretty much honk for everything. Anyway, Venkat told us that it's the law that you have to honk, otherwise an accident is your fault. As long as you honk first, it's their fault.

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We stopped at a crocodile santuary on the way. They had an amazing variety of crocs, most of which I had never seen before. Some of them were very large and even hissed at us and displayed their teeth. That sends a tingle down your spine. There were also a couple of cobras. All that and the admission is less than a dollar!

From India Training

We went on to Mahabalipuram and saw really impressive stone temples from the 7th century AD. We picked up a guide, Velu, who was very knowledgable, so much so that we probably understood less than 50% of what he said, not so much because of the accent but because we're so ignornant of Indian history and of all the Hindu deities (Shiva, Krishna, Vishnu, Ganesha, Brahma, Lakshmi, etc...) and their relationships to each other.

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Velu took us to a modern temple as well where we got blessed by Hindu priest. He was great guide except at the end when he tried to double the fee we had agreed to.

We ate at the Taj hotel where we'll be staying later on in the trip. It's nice resort on the beach. We talked Venkat into eating with us. He was reluctant because it would be very expensive for him but we assured him we'd cover it.

The long journey to Chennai

From India Training

I said "the long journey" and 23 hours is long but it was made much shorter by getting business class on Singapore Airlines (called Raffles class after the British founder of the city of Singapore). I'm travelling with Matt and Durai. Our seats were on the upper deck of a 747 and I had the first row behind the cockpit. During boarding, they had a elevator music version of Bob Marley's "Get up, Stand up" playing, pretty much the last song I expected to hear in an anethestized, corporate format. That was a good laugh. The guy sitting next to me spilled my juice all over my seat with a clumsy wave of his arm. Luckily, I wasn't seated at that moment but the dude didn't say anything. He just sat there silently while I wiped up the mess. Not sure what his problem is.

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They served dinner at 2am right after take off but I wasn't ready to eat. I knocked out to some strong turbulence, woke up, played Mario Bros, watched Click and Cars, had breakfast and soon enough we were in landing in Hong Kong. This is my first touch down in Asia. It was beautiful scene as we flew over cargo ships toward the city surrounded by misty mountains. Walking through the airport in Hong Kong, we took a quick look in the Gucci store and saw some some simple mens leather shoes for $2900 Hong Kong dollars. I asked the sales lady and she said that was about $380 US dollars. Wow. We had a really short layover and were back on the same plane to Singapore, complete with a second breakfast (I feel like a hobbit).

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I was able to call Mel using Skype from the dope Singapore Airlines lounge here in the airport...only 2.1c per minute. Sweet. Free food (nice buffet), drinks, and showers here. Singapore has been covered in a dense haze for weeks because of forest fires buring in Indonesia. We took a short boat tour around the city and then went to a mountain with a cable car that takes you to a theme park island. The theme park was lame, completely unimpressive but we enjoyed the cable car ride.