Random photos

All from Mysore a couple weekends back:

I took about 120 shots so those of you who aren't forced to look at 'em all, count your blessings!

I'm in Manila now; off to the island (final destination!) tomorrow at 4am. I think this is my record length of days without sleeping - should sleep well tomorrow!

Love,
Gwen

I stole that photo from the world wide web, just so I'm upfront about it. Those are the colours from when I landed this morning, though! I don't have my camera cable . . . and, perhaps more importantly, the ability to take a photo of the outside of the plane I'm IN when it's landing.

That would be a good trick.

I mean, what a useless superpower, but neat.

Moving on - I guess I'm about three weeks behind on this thing! Truth be told, a lot did happen in Bangalore in the last three weeks, but the main thing being that I stopped feeling much like a traveller there and settled into a daily routine with work and . . . no, mostly work. Every day for the last few weeks was a struggle at IBM, but on Friday I left feeling pretty good about it. I will miss my team in India and their tendency, near the end, to rattle off a few sentences at me in Hindi before switching to English mid-sentence (at which point my face would go blank while my brain would race to catch up.) There were many small details and things that happened - I finally did that trip to Mysore to see the palace and the silk markets, I learned four new dishes, I even went to an ashram for a few meditations. (No state of enlightenment yet; I will keep you posted. I did love the building and the quiet and the sense of calm in the meditations - who knows? I may even keep it up at home.) Mostly I settled into life there, though, and while I could never live in Bangalore, I did learn to love it's weird blend of abrasive shouting, pollution and noise mixed with colour and laughter and unapologetic . . . Bangalorosity.

What, I can't make up words? Since when?

Ultimately in Bangalore I found something that's common to everything I've ever read about India - not matter how brash or shocking it can be, it is always honest about it. In the last book I read by Karan Bajaj, he says of Bangalore, "It is what it is. Don't like it? Change yourself."

I'm sure I will bore you all for months with Bangalore stories soon enough, and the nine thousand photos I have taken. Right now it's nice to have the time to sit and have a coffee and watch the planes land for a few hours before I get on the next one to Manila! I'll try and post some photos from the hotel tonight.

Love,

Gwen

p.s. Kuala Lumpur, the little bit I can see from the airport and from when we landed, is beautiful - Malaysia just got bumped higher on my travel list.

A little local flavour

Today was my first Indian cooking class!

Long story short: I wanted to do a bit more with my free time before work - I usually have a few hours after I wake up - but I can't do much sightseeing as all the sights to see are pretty far out of town and, well, let's just say that if anything these days I need to be EARLY for work. So I asked around about taking a cooking class. Unfortunately the only one is a three month to 2 year course, and is eight hours a day, but somehow word got back to the kitchen here and the chef offered to spend a couple hours a day with me and teach me some of the dishes they serve! better than I could have hoped, really - Chef Biranjee is among the top chefs in the south. Also he's just very kind and generally happy.

So today I learned to make Zaffrani kofta, which is a paneer dish (indian cottage cheese, but has the texture and thickness of firm tofu) in a cashew sauce. It's my absolute favourite dish so far in India, which is shocking now that I know exactly how much green chili goes into it. The kitchen is huge, just huge, and the pots they use to cook in are about the size of my coffee table at home. They did tell me all the names, but I've forgotten . . . hopefully I can start to commit them to memory over the next two weeks before I leave!

More photos and then I'm off to work:

This is the kitchen - those clay pots are for Biryani, an Indian rice dish with different kinds of meat that's cooked in this wide, shallow metal pot, covered by another metal plate and sealed with bread dough. It's basically a little pressure cooker.

This is the 'kofta' portion - little balls of paneer, chilis, spices, and saffron rolled up and dusted with flour, then fried for about half a second. I didn't have a chance to take photos of the in between steps - so here is the finished product! -

- With a bit of cream, chili oil and coriander for presentation.

That's it from me - off to work!

Love,
Gwen

p.s. my training is finished and the new team is now 'live' at work, with us Canadians acting as support staff until they learn the ropes. It's been educational and frustrating and rewarding for me, and since this is the first week of real work for these guys, I'm a little nervous for them today. Wish us luck!

Gwen goes on a walking tour

The walking tours of Bangalore are famous for their ability to show all the city's sights in five short hours. Unfortunately these tours all start at 7am, a mere two and a half hours after I lay my IBM-Night-Shift head down on a pillow.
However, the ever-present Lonely Planet also provides me with a map of the city and a list of
sights 'not to be missed', and if you put those two things together you get your very own walking tour which can be taken at any time of the day and, best of all, does not involve me and large tour groups. No more so than the streets of Bangalore normally do, anyway.

Today, unfortunately, was also Bangalore's bi-weekly Torrential Downpour (I'm kidding, it's not like they mark it on a calendar) and guess who got caught in it? Right. Now. I'm from BC, right? A little rain shouldn't hurt me, should it? Yes and no. No, it doesn't hurt, and it's warm enough out that the rain does a nice job of cooling the air and me at the same time. It's also warm enough that once it stopped raining (I had my doubts this was ever going to happen) I was bone-dry in half an hour. But a little rain? Oh no no, my friends, this is what monsoon season means! This is what the word 'downpour' was invented to describe! Within ten minutes the streets were all turned into rivers and where there are gutters, they overflowed. This cancelled the first part of my tour for me because the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens, as nice as they may be on a sunny day, are generally open to whatever weather the skies choose to dump on them.

Instead I spent a couple hours in the Museum of Art - aptly named because it is not exactly a gallery (too many arrowheads and clay pots from archeological digs) and too much art to be called a museum. No photography allowed inside; but here are some photos of the building and the sculptures outside:



The art inside is incredible - If you have a chance look up K. Venkatappa. There is a whole separate building devoted to his art.

Afterwards I spend the last few hours of daylight wandering around - there's a lake near my hotel and a trail that wanders around it, which leads to an Ashram surrounded by a beautiful garden - I took off my shoes as instructed and went inside. There are two levels inside and I was the only one in there, and it was so quiet!! (This is very very rare in Bangalore.) There is a library and a reading room, and a meditation hall which runs meditations at 6pm every work day (too bad, as that is when I have to actually BE at work!)

That's all from me - time for dinner and then killing time till 3am in an effort to keep on my work schedule. Hope all's well in Canada!

Love,
Gwen

We interrupt this blog for an important announcement...

Because I am so very far away and cannot toast to them in person, I have decided to publicly embarrass my dear friends on the blogger.

The lovely and talented Leanna Platt

and

The dashing and brilliant Brian Hill

Have publicly declared their love for each other with a ring that Ms Leanna will now be sporting on her left hand.


I send you love and congratulations from India!!


(Also, don't send me photos unless you're okay with me publishing them online. I love the hats.)

Goaing to Goa

A slightly blurred photo of the Secretariat building by night.

Actually, I'm back from Goa, but that doesn't make for as catchy a title.

With Canadian thanksgiving, my team had a long weekend this past weekend, and I decided to make the most of it by going somewhere that required a plane ride. Goa seemed like a natural choice - I mean, I couldn't imagine how anyone could mix Portuguese and Indian culture (The answer? They don't mix; they just sort of . . . run parallel) and it was only an hour away by plane plus a long bus ride into Panjim, the city where I was staying, and my . . . hostel?

The question mark is there because really, I have never seen a hostel like this:

That was my room. Honest to god, it's $12 a night. 

Breakfast area

Pretty incredible! I chose Panjim Inn because it was supposed to have amazing Portuguese period furniture, and it did not disappoint. From what I heard about the other guest houses in town, this is definitely the place to stay.

I really only had one full day in Goa, so I picked some highlights out of the book, got up early and went to the spice plantation. This is, first off, an amazing ride through the country with a couple stops at temples and markets along the way. The plantation is an organic farm where they take you on a 45 minute walk and explain what all the spices are, and how they are harvested, and what healing properties they may have.

Of course, this isn't a farm, the way we might normally think of a farm. There are no neatly planted rows. It's more of a forest, and the walk is along little deer-trail-sized paths. Here are some of the spices:

This is a vanilla bean vine - vanilla is the second most expensive spice in the world (saffron being the first). The bean pods aren't ready to be picked until nine months after they grow on the vine --"This is the same as it takes to grow a baby," our guide informs us -- and they have to be picked as soon as they start to split, so they are checked daily.

Apparently black, red and white pepper all comes from the same plant. They're picked at different stages of ripening, and if you can find organic ones, apparently you can boil three peppercorns for several minutes and sweeten with honey for a soothing stomach tonic.

This one's Nutmeg, you might have to make the photo bigger to get a good look at the little seed pod. When they split they are ripe and are harvested. Apparently it's a bit of a dangerous spice in large quantities (? - this was never quite explained) but in small amounts can help to reduce high blood pressure. Cinnamon does the same.

This is a cocoa pod. They, um. Make chocolate with it. You know. Also . . . hot chocolate powder. It's a very pretty tree. (Frankly I was kind of distracted by a bird during this part of the walk.)

Coffee beans!! The red ones are almost, but not quite, red enough to be harvested.











After the walk through the 'forest farm', I had water and lemongrass poured down my back to cool me down. This is traditional, and believe me, it works! Pro tip, kids.

In between the spice farm, which was in Ponda (south Goa) and returning to Panjim, I saw a few giant churches, a temple (beautiful) and a few markets, mostly selling necklaces made of flowers for people to bring into the temples:



For the most part, photography is not allowed in these churches. Here is 'Our Lady of Immaculate Conception,' a beautiful church and a central feature of Panjim:



At night I went on a 'sunset cruise' which should really be called a night cruise, because the sun doesn't mess around with setting here. It's light, and then at the predetermined time, it becomes dark. None of this twilight foolishness.

The ship provided three quick shows of Goan folk dancing, in between which there was a mad rush to the stage of everyone under the age of 15 to participate in a disco and show off the best moves of the 70's. It was awesome. On the boat I met two other travelers from Australia and New Zealand, and joined them for dinner after the trip. I love this part of traveling; trading stories and tips, meeting new people that you get along with. I'm always amazed how many people I meet and want to stay in contact with when we part ways.

That's about it for now, I think. Hope everyone is safe and happy at home, and Happy Thanksgiving!

All the dogs in India

(You know. Like 'all the tea in China'. )

I'm going to have serious trouble leaving this country without a dog. I adore them! And they follow me around. I mean, I know this isn't because of some kind of fate or misguided affection - Like everyone else who follows me around in India, they probably assume I have something to give. But - look at this face!


If I did have anything to give, I tell ya, that face would get it. I'm thinking about buying some food to carry around just for the dogs. I realize I'll have a small pack after me, though . . . like the pied piper, only less creepy, and probably a little crazy looking.

This little guy accompanied me on part of my walk through Cubbon Park on Sunday, where I found out exactly what my tolerance is for getting stared at by every. Single. Person. (It's about two hours before I start getting twitchy.) Some photos:

An unfortunately fuzzy photo of a family playing some kinda . . . horseshoes-like thing, which I had to snap because it really, really seemed like the cow was watching. You know the way people watch tennis? The cow was doing that. The next photo is of the State Library, which is pretty incredible. I went in there with some other tourists from Canada I had met outside (they were lost, I was - surprise! - also lost, or at least wandering somewhat aimlessly. We bonded.) We waited out the heaviest part of the daily Bangalore torrential downpour inside the library:

This place smelled like old books and rain. That smell always reminds me of the weirdly packed used bookstore on Ambleside in West Vancouver. (or maybe it's technically part of North Van? I don't think so.)

If you're ever in Bangalore, this is a nice place to get out of the crazy for a while, and sit quietly. There is, in fact, a man there whose job it is to make sure that you sit quietly. I believe his job title is 'shusher'.




Another view, from the second floor:

Pretty incredible! The place is huge. I think I'll be going back sometime - it's walking distance from my hotel, and even if I have to run the gauntlet of stares through the park, I think it's worth it.

After the rain stopped, the other Canuckians and I - their names are A.G. and Ruth, and they have been travelling for a year now - put some solid effort into finding our way back to the main road. It's difficult because none of the roads have names, and the ones that do are in Kannad, which I believe is the main language of Bangalore. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. - But the map books, the tourist guides? Well, they have conveniently translated everything into English for us. Actually, I might have had better luck just trying to match the symbols.

Key word: Might!

So onward - we stumbled into a market, where Ruth and AG tried to buy raisins. I don't know why . . . they travel well? They prevent scurvy? Some people actually like raisins? The point is, it was harder than you would think, but we did finally find a woman selling them on the street.


I do have a sharper photo than this, but it doesn't show the scales as well - and that was the best part. Some more haggling practice for Canadians, and we went for dinner. It was nice to spend some time with them, talk about traveling, remember why I miss the hostel experience - although it's nice not to have to worry about bedbugs/theft/getting up early enough to get some hot water out of the shower. Still, I hope I meet more people like them as I make my way through this month and the first part of November.

On that note, it looks like my team will have October 13th off for the Canadian holiday. Barring any major setbacks or any feelings I may have about how much we really need that extra day - and both of those things are serious possibilities, at this point - I might get a long enough weekend to go away somewhere. There are two weekend trips I really want to do. One to Mysore, which is close to here and home of a very famous spice market and the Maharaja Palace of Mysore. The other one is to Goa, which would be better for a long weekend (much further away). So we'll see. Fingers crossed that training goes well!

Anyway that's enough outta me. The Blogger Bosses have blocked my blog as they think I am a robot. I have to convince them I'm a real person by typing various words shaped like inkblots into blank spaces, so this may not post for a couple days. If it turns out they're right about the robot thing, it might never post.

I'm just saying.

You never do know....

Love to all,

Gwen(bot?)