Banana Pancakes

What a great invention- how could these possibly be forgotten? I’ve been reminded of this absolute treat recently and think maybe I should eat more of them. India also has a fabulous drink called a Lassi, a yoghurt based drink with fresh fruit- again with banana is good. In fact, it may raise a few eyebrows when I say that I didn’t really have many problems with the food at all, a lot of it was absolutely delicious. In Mamallapuram Joel and I ate tiger prawns the size of my hand, soooo tasty.

As this is my last blog on my India trip (I arrived back home yesterday) I thought I would do a little award ceremony for those bits and pieces I haven’t included. Just bear with me…

Most Stupid Question Asked.

My flight back to London left at the ridiculous hour of 5:25am so I hung out in a 5 star hotel lobby near the hotel, being one of the few places serving food and drink 24 hours a day. At about 2:30am I went into the deserted 24 hour cafe- in fact the entire hotel was totally deserted, reminding me that everyone was tucked up in bed and I was fighting sleep. So I sauntered into the large cafeteria with literally nobody in, apart from one waiter who came up to me and asked: “Smoking or Non?”. 

Most Excruciating Moment

I was asked to report at the High Court’s annual day celebrating women lawyers by myself and I really wanted to prove my worth. As I have mentioned before (I think),  Indian  events are full of ceremony and can be very long-winded. I had been sat in the conference hall for three and a half hours watching dances, people singing and the commotion in between, preparing for the next act. When the opening speeches began they were in Tamil (the local language) but that seemed quite normal and meant I just had to sit and wait- for another hour. Finally, the person presenting the guest speaker (and reading out his background, current CV, likes and dislikes…) spoke in English for about 15 minutes and just at the very end of her speech, welcoming the guest speaker on to the stage said “And as he is so respected in Tamil Nadu, I implore him to please do his entire speech in the local language.”  Four and half hours to wait for a speech I couldn’t understand.

Most Vile Moment 

Some of you may not know that I have this ridiculous, irrational dislike for ketchup. It’s not that I can’t have it with chips or something, but as soon as it’s just on a plate not being used or if there’s ketchup on the bottle in front of me, it makes me go a bit weird and can’t touch it. That said, I was in a cafe with three friends I had made, when the food arrived and a ketchup bottle was put on the table. Just wanting to swiftly move it out of my sight, I went to pick it up and instead knocked the bottle over and it went all over the girl sat opposite me. I was horrified and knew that I should help her wipe it off and clean up her bag but I just couldn’t bring myself to touch it. I just sat there saying how sorry I was, feeling like an utter bitch for not helping. I would possibly consider that to be my worst nightmare had that happened to me. Yecchhhhh.

Moment That Felt Most Like A (Brief) Holiday

Mamallapuram had a festival celebrating the opening of a new temple while we were there. There was a stage on the beach with dancing, singing and music and all the locals sat on the beach with their families and friends to enjoy it. There’s something about the buzzy atmosphere on the beaches I have been to here that makes me smile like a fool, it’s so contagious.  If beach and temples are your thing, Mamallapuram is the place to visit, so I’m told.

The Most Difficult Moment of the Trip

Leaving. And more specifically, leaving Mamallapuram. That was the signal to me that my time was up and I was homebound.

What a mad, cool, surreal, insightful, inspiring trip. India; I’m not done with you, I’m just biding my time to come back for more.

Disgraced, skeptical female. GSOH.

I have said my own name more times in the last few weeks than I have done in the last year compiled. That’s because it’s the first question anyone asks me- even if I’m buying something from a shop, or travelling by rickshaw, or ordering at a restaurant. The second question is which country I’m from, we can all imagine that, and then I’m asked if I’m married. Typically these questions have been asked when I have been by myself (so most of the time) but for the last couple of days I have been with a few other westerners and it’s not so much (and neither is the staring, thank goodness).

The other day I was on the train from Chennai to Pondicherry trying to doze when I sensed something close to me. I opened my eyes and threw myself back in surprise when I found a toddler’s face inches from mine just looking at me. Now, we all know I’m not much of a fan of children anyway but to suddenly find a face so close was a bit much. But the toddler was elevated in order to reach my face- she was actually dangling off her mother’s side and she was stood next to me, leaning in to allow her child to get a closer look. As I recomposed myself, we started talking a little and ran through the first lot of questions and started talking about where we both were heading. She pointed at her daughter and asked “You children?”

“Nooo. no children.”

“Huh. You married?”

“Nooo. Not married.”

“Huh. You how old?”

“24”

“24?” Silence. “Huh.” And with that, she swivelled on her feet and turned her back to me. She stood there for the rest of the journey but didn’t turn around, and when her daughter swivelled around to look at me, she directed her daughters face away so she couldn’t see me. For any Mighty Boosh fans, it was a turningmybackonyou sort of moment and I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or feel ashamed of my disgraceful self.

Auroville is a 70’s style galaxy near Pondicherry where people live from all over the world with the common bond of acceptance of humanity. Aurovillians must denounce all politics and religion when entering and spend lots of time meditating, growing as individuals and gain absolute awareness of the Divine Consciousness. I’ve decided to include the link because, with all due respect, many of you would think I had simply been smoking too much and I’d just made it up. Oh no, it’s really there. And about as mamby-pamby as you may imagine, although slightly less love than I would have expected.

We (myself, an Australian guy named Joel who I’m with today and a Swedish couple) had been walking in the midday heat for ages to the restaurant ony to discover that we couldn’t have any food because they do not use money in Auroville (the idea is that you work and help others in exchange for food and accommodation…nice idea but they actually do get money, a little amount though it may be, and it’s put into an Auroville account which will only ever allow you to withdraw half of your wages). We were told we would have to walk back to the visitor centre which was 4 km away in order to eat with the rest of the tourists. There is a bit of a contradiction in their view of tourists. They charge for you to enter, they talk about their fabulous crystal, they say all humanity is equal and accepted and then they treat you like an unwanted refugee when you get there. Very Animal Farm. We will accept everyone on earth, but only if you’re in our club. And if you want to get into our club you’re going to have to join the queue and prove your worth and then maybe we’ll think about adding you to the list of wannabees.

This is all said with the bitter taste the experience has left. I don’t mean to be disrespectful- each to their own- and some people that we talked to were very friendly. There was one guy in particular that gave me a ride on his push bike for about an hour when I had lost my friends, it was very hot, I was heavy and I felt very grateful to him for doing this. It was a very surreal experience and have brought brochures away with me because people wouldn’t believe me if I told them about this in the UK.

Aaaanyway, that’s all I have time for folks. Home time is approaching, I’m heading back to Chennai.

Fffzzzzt

So my hair has now reached new fuzzy heights. The humidity here is really high and I’ve reached the point where combing it, or even just trying to run my fingers through it will just poof it up even more within minutes. So for those Friends fans out there, the episode with Monica’s hair in Barbados…it’s not a patch on mine. Let’s hope it calms down before next weekend, otherwise I may not be able to fit my head in the car to drive myself home.

The weekend seemed to come and go in a flash. One major difference  to the game plan, I suppose is that fact that I am actually still in India when I should have boarded a plane back to London approximately 19 hours ago. Woohoo! I stayed! Today I went to work with Frontline to get a better idea of how it’s all put together. I cannot believe how few people actually go into making that magazine, it’s incredible! Quite an insightful day.

I have failed miserably at finding myself a rickshaw driver for the past fortnight. People advised me to find a good driver to trust at the start of the trip and then you can call them whenever you need them to pick you up and they won’t rip you off because they want your repeat custom. So the first guy that I decided was friendly, not pervy and gave an honest price gave me his number but when I phoned him to get picked up the next day, his rickshaw had hit a bus. I was totally horrified and asked him if he was okay. “Yeah yeah,” he said “But I just might be a little late.” Urhhh, no. Don’t think I should continue this beautiful relationship with a blasé bus-hitter. So I moved on.

I then found another rickshaw on my way back from the beach but on our way home he suddenly stopped and said “Do you mind if we carry on driving with the cable cut?”. Of course I asked him what did he mean the cable was cut, and he showed me that the cable leading to the left side of his bike handle was, in fact, snapped. “You mind? Perfectly safe madam.” We did actually manage to jolt a few more hundred metres before grinding to another halt.    “Taxi!”

People in the main are really, really nice and very polite. Hospitality is high up on the priority list here and I would be very surprised if other travellers felt differently. HOWEVER. There are just a couple of things that have touched a nerve and once you’ve noticed you can’t help but get irritated by it. The first of these is queuing. I will first raise my hands and confess that I am a die-hard Brit when it comes to queues and it seems nowhere in the world (including Europe) seems to match it- perhaps you can correct me here. India is no exception.

I ended up queuing for a shameful amount of (unnecessary- as later it infuriatingly turned out) time today for a train ticket and quickly learned a few rules.

1) Dive in. As you’re about to join a queue, don’t wander to the back and wonder whether this was in fact the end of the queue, the right queue or how long you may have to wait. Dive straight in. In those precious few seconds, people will fill that two-foot gap and keep pushing you further backwards.

2) Take a shawl, because the incessant breathing on your neck will become too much after 15 minutes, and the condensation build up gets sticky after an hour.

3) Get ready for the crunch. The closer you get to the ticket booth, the more of a squeeze it’s going to become, so get ready for face-in-face action where people will try and shave off a few minutes waiting by slipping in front of you.

4) Tutting and giving evils are pointless. It might work at home; we’ve all been there when we’ve given a very telling tut to someone for trying to push their way in, they usually become embarrassed and that’s the end of that. Here, if someone pushes in in the queue, point and shout at that person, rallying everyone around you to do the same thing until the whole line is doing it and the person are forced to leave the building.

This isn’t so much a rule, but I have also observed that men will quite happily stare at your breasts to while away half an hour but the minute you get to the ticket booth and he’s pushing in front of you, suddenly you’ve become totally invisible.

And this is my two pence for the day.

 

Note: This blog was actually written on Monday but the power went whenI was writing it. Thank goodness wordpress has an automatic save. Thank you thank you thank you.

 

Staff motivation

I’m not sure how most companies would feel about this, but at this company if you go to the toilet you will find your toilet paper to be ripped up sheets of the very newpaper you write for. I’m not sure what this will do for staff morale; knowing today’s hard work is someone else’s arse wipe tomorrow. Needless to say, I carry a loo roll in my bag.

So my weekend day consisted of going to Dackshin Chitra (going to have to check the spelling there) outside of the city, which is Chennai’s answer to St Fagan’s, showing you villages of how people would have lived throughout different states of southern India in the past. It was good to get out of the city. I then went out for dinner and have been fairly inebriated for the past few days in various forms. It’s quite difficult to get drunk in Chennai so I have really shown determination on this front. There is a law in Tami Nadu (the state in which Chennai lies) that says you have to have a certain number of rooms in order to serve alcohol, therefore only 5 star hotels really have bars. There is one bar that I have become familiar with called Zara’s (I don’t know how they got round the room conundrum) but there are no nightclubs open during the week… a little bit of me died inside when I found this out.

Anyway- love to all you pretties!

pom x

Spitting Image

It’s amazing how much men spit in Chennai, so much so that I decided to blog about it. The guy in my rickshaw today spat so much the entire journey that it’s any wonder the guy hasn’t totally dehydrated himself. And we’re not just talking a little excess-fluid spit here, we’re talking about guys hocking-back, real gut-crunching, slime summoning nasal passage activity.

The other day Nikhil and I went to a bookstore called Higginbotham and I found a book called “Why Indian Men Are Ugly”. I laughed so hard when I found this book, not because it was a comical book with things I agreed with but because the author- a female- was being absolutely serious. I found this sweeping generalisation so outrageous, it’s a wonder her book was on the shelf. I wondered who would actually buy it; Evil women who hate their husbands? Men with a real lack of self-esteem (only to plunge further down, no doubt,  after reading this treat)? Whoever would read it, believe it or not, the book was there. Although I didn’t actually read the book other than the blurb, I imagined later that there would be a chapter dedicated to spitting in there. I would have to say spitting is possibly the Number One least attractive thing to see a guy do. Although let’s not dwell on possible alternatives.

Well, well, well…that’s a week gone already. Yesterday I had my first reporting assignment by myself, which I was truly excited and I really didn’t want to mess up. If Marlene were to walk into the room right now, I would give her the biggest hug I have ever given, my shorthand has proved to be SO useful and meant that I was able to interview a couple of people at the end of the conference without looking too much like an idiot. Hoorah! for getting up at stupid o’clock for those classes.

Most evenings I have got in quite late, grabbed my swimming stuff and headed for the pool. On Wednesday evening there was just me and another guy in the pool but I was quite quickly disconcerted by what he was doing. He would flop himself horizontally onto the water, with his arms stretched out over his head and start flapping his body like he was trying to turn into a mermaid. This went on for about 15 minutes until he said to a member of staff that he couldn’t swim (the water is only 4ft deep). I carried on swimming for a while but it was no good, I had to say something (I doubt that surprises many of you). We started chatting and I asked him whether he had taken any swimming lessons at school. No, he said, but a friend had taught him to float and now he was practising. Within about fifteen minutes, I was trying to teach him Doggy Paddle (hey- you’ve got to start somewhere) and we were actually quite successful. The guy was actually moving from one side of the pool until about halfway. I felt quite fulfilled.

Mum, maybe you should stop reading the blog for this next bit. And anyone that might worry, so probably Danielle, Mads and my sisters. But Nikhil has a bike in Chennai which he is borrowing from his friend. I have to say, I’ve never really seen the attraction to bikes (apart from the hairdryer with wheels Diccon and I hired while we were in Thailand) but I went on it for my first time yesterday and had a lot of fun. It’s definitely the best way to see the city and much more fun than a rickshaw.

With my one day weekend (I was working today) I think I might try to go to the beach tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone who is reading this, it’s great to read the comments and see that I’m not just typing into cyber silence.

Pom x

It’s pink…it’s goopy…

That’s right kids, it’s Pepto-Bismol time!

Everyone warned me about coming to India and that I would only see the toilet bowl for the first few days while I “adjust”, but I’ve been really proud of myself for keeping everything in check. Okay…maybe a little cocky (and yesterday I even tried the spicy stuff at the canteen…”I’m…<sniff> fine actually…<sniff sniff>). The pepto-abysmal has actually acted as a preventative measure today, there has been no “goings on” shall we say, but I’ve been feeling a little rough. I’m fine, I’m fine.

I’ve met up with another intern here which has been great, he’s not from Chennai so we’re both in the Ihavenumberedfriendsandcountlesseveningstofill boat. Actually evenings are pretty short here, so far I’ve finished at around 7:30-8 but the staff can stay on until 10 pm.

I’m making friends with one of the chambre maids, she tells me what she did for lunch and asks me about my day. We have a little routine and it’s nice.  I also have a routine with the waiter at breakfast time:

“Hi can I have a table please?”

“For how many please?”

“Uh..for me. For one.”

“Just one?”

“Just One.”

“One. Okay”

I wonder if he’s going to keep this up. Maybe tomorrow I’ll order a banquet table.

 

Last night, today and stuff I forgot

So today has been Day One on the internship agenda. So far, so good. If I’m honest, I’m totally knackered but the rest of the team will be there until about 9pm this evening- yikes. I also found out that they have a tough one-day weekend which I’m pretty sure would have me crawling by week three, this Hindu crew are well solid. 

But this actually got me thinking about the British race as a whole and I’ve been asking myself one contstant question: Why are we so laaaaaaame?! Now, love to you all (and to myself, I’m still Poppy from the Rock…family joke, sorry) but we can’t handle the heat at all well, which other nationalities find amusing.- Can I just interupt my though process there? – This is for those of you who just read that last sentence and shook your head thinking “well I’m fine”: No you’re not. You’re no doubt the person on the plane on the way back from holiday who has to linger by the toilets because you can’t quite sit down on your fuschia bum yet. You think you’re fine, but you’re not, are you? And if you’re coating yourself in factor 30 the entire trip, very sensible, but you’re proving my point.

Anyway, we also can’t eat anything hot, especially when you compare the UK hot to the Indian hot. Today I had lunch in the office canteen with Mr Jacob who  pointed out 90% of the options on offer and advised me to knock them off the menu, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. Thank you thank you thank you Mr Jacob. I modestly went for the soup, descibed as ‘creamy’ and almost swallowed my tongue in agony.

So a brief outline of the day included meeting the internet editor, the picture editor, the sports deputy editor and some of the reporters. This evening I went out reporting with Meera, a really kind girl who later helped me argue the price down with a rickshaw driver, but tomorrow I think I’m making a day of it. I’m quite glad I wasn’t reporting all day today for the simple reason of my ridiculously light skirt. In an office environment it’s a suitable, modest, smart piece of attire that works, and it’s a very thin cotton which makes it nice and cool. But take this thin slice of cotton and place it in a breezy environment (as we did) and you have a Marilyn Monroe-style AAHHHHDIDYOUJUSTSEEMYPANTS kind of moment. Suddenly, not so cool.

After writing my blog yesterday I decided to take a rickshaw to Marina beach straight away, while it was still light. The beach is something crazy like 13km long, wider than any beach I can think of in the UK and had tonnes of people on there. It was great to wander around, soaking up the atmosphere and trying to ignore the fact that I was being stared at (to the point where I thought it best to check I hadn’t suddenly wound up naked like in a bad dream). It’s a common place for families to go on a Sunday to spend time together, many people were flying kites while others jumped the waves or had a ride on a man-pushed merry-go-round. It was great.

I forgot to metntion the hospitality of the people at my hotel. On the morning of my arrival, I was woken up at about 10am (but not in my body) by a persistant knocking. I eventually surrender to it and slither out of bed and stumble to open the door to say my room didn’t need cleaning, to which the guy said it was okay, he just wanted to ask me if I had an laundry that needed doing. I arrived this morning, I reply. So do you?  Returned his question. No, I’m good I say, closing the door. The man then stops me and says in that case could he please just check the mini bar.

So I let him in, mumbling that I had arrived in that morning and I haven’t drunk anything but the water I bought and then realise that I was wearing my rather slinky, silk lingerie with a low cut top and very short shorts. The guy is now in my room, having checked the mini bar and is asking me about my flight while pushing back the curtains. I jump into bed at my sudden realisation of tartiness and politely say that I’m yet to really get up due to such an early flight so I’m going to go back to sleep. The guy is light and friendly and doesn’t come across as sleazy, but still he decides to start pointing out landmarks from my window while I’m sat in my bed yawning and trying to cover myself up a bit. I think he’s getting the hint and before leaving asks if I have anything I would like ironed. Replying no, and that I was probably going to do it myself was clearly a big mistake as he disappears and returns in a flash with an ironing board and an iron. Thanks, thank you very much, I’m not going to do it now though but just leave it there and I’ll make sure I do it, thank you. But it’s too late, the guy is setting up the board and plugging it in.

I eventually have to get out of bed, say thanks and walk towards the door to send him on his merry, very hospitable, way. I tumbled back into bed not knowing whether to laugh or sleep. I clearly chose the lattre.

So, to an interesting and exhausting start. Hope everything back home is just peachy.

x

And we’re off!

Or rather the chicken, eaten by the woman sat next to me on the plane, was. I have to admit I sway between being a nervous wreck on a flight to a cool, easy-breezy jetsetter. On this occassion, I didn’t fully register which one I was going to be as I was totally distracted about 20 seconds from take off when the lady sat next to me starting vomiting into her lap. It was around the crucial time when cabin crew had taken their seats (everyone’s signal that we really ARE going to take off this time) and therefore no assistance was to be had. Just me, her and the various plastic bags we had both scrambled to open (and mostly ripped in the process) were on board this particular ride. Whoop whoop.

I have to say, I felt terrible for this woman, she was actually very nice and after that we started talking (I suppose you feel somewhat closer to someone once you’ve been in contact with their internal fluids that even close friends and family should never encounter). I wished I could have done something more to help her, but in a weird way (which I joyfully pointed out to her later on), she helped me.

The rest of the flight was uneventful, apart from a few turbulant patches which reconfirmed that I’m still not 100% elated with the thought of being stuffed inside a tin can and being shot up into the sky. I don’t know about you, but long haul flights are typically uneventful (for which we can THANK the Lord) and yet to me there is always a sense of occasion attached to them.

As we all stepped off the plane 10 hours later, we all looked like shit. Sweat embedded hair, smeared remnants of make up, crumpled clothes and above all, smelly. But as we were waiting for our bags, some of the cabin crew breezed past to meet some colleagues at the terminal and I realised they all still looked clean, crisp and ready for a martini cocktail. Okay, okay, so you could argue that they are working; they’re not sitting in a seat and getting soggier with each Father Ted re-run, but they were still on a plane for 10 hours with cabin pressure, dehydration and whatever else it is we blame for making us look so awful. Well I’ve seen the ‘cabin crew only’ cabin between the two toilets. I’ve read the sign saying ‘please close the door immediately after exiting’. I can see what’s going on. They’ve got sky tv, massage parlour and a hot tub in there. Why else would it be so bloody stuffy about half way through the flight?  They’ve put the extra jets on full whack.

Anyway! The weird rant section is over. I arrived in to Chennai at 4:00 this morning and it was already 26 degrees c. I’ve managed to have a few hours sleep in my room but I’m trying to stay awake (and ignore the fact that I feel like I’m on a boat) until this evening to get into a sleeping pattern for tomorrow.

After a little food I decided to go for a walk around the hotel. I was a little confused as to where I should be walking, there seems to be a lot of construction work going on so there is no pavement. There is a dual carriageway outside the hotel (but it’s not that busy) but only one side of the road is in use, so both directions of traffic are picking out their paths, beeping uncontrollably and pegging it. Place me in the middle of that and we’ve got a rather comical picture.

Still, I ventured forth and have had a gentle wander around (not going too far just yet, it’s reallllly hot out there and knowing me, I’d get lost). The one thing that has bothered me, and you’re all going to laugh, is the amount of dogs. For those of you that think that’s lame (and I know it is…) I was bitten by a dog when I was 15 and now I hate the buggers. There were two dogs that sprung out from nowhere and started barking. Of course, they directed their entire rage at me because I’m the one that almost crapped myself at the surprise of the sudden barking, if nothing else. I’m reassured that the dogs just bark and won’t hurt me, it’s clearly just something I’ve got to get over. I remember I wasn’t that bothered by them in Thailand until one evening when we were surrounded by a pack of them in a deserted beach (remember Amy?) and we tried to defend ourselves by taking off our flip flops and throwing them at them. A couple of problems there, really. Firstly, you only have two flip flops per person (the flip flops were outnumbered 3-1), and secondly if-by sheer chance- we hit one of the dogs with them, it would do bugger all. Still, I live to tell the dramatic tale.

I think the beach is about 40 minutes from here so I might go there this evening to check it out. Right now, I’m going to go for a swim (the hotel has a pool…yesssssss!) so that the sensation I have of being on a boat will actually make sense. I must try and remember to take some pictures, I will upload them as I go. As nothing has actually happened yet, I think I’ll pop off.

Well, to anyone who may have taken a vague interest in my trip and started scan-reading after the vomit paragraph, thanks for your time.

Adios!        (Or maybe something a little more Indian..)

xxx