A Month on the Road - Part II

Here is part two of the catch-up blog.

Back to Bangalore for a couple of days, which was good since I was able to get a few things sorted for my eventual move to India. Also gave me some time to reconnect with a few friends from school who were still in town. My travel companion caught up with me a few days later on our way headed down south for a bit of beach time. We had a few days to check out City Market and the main park but not really any time to do much exploring.

Varkala once more, to meet up with Nithya and get in a little r&r on the beach. Nithya picked us up from the airport with a friend who has a new Toyota SUV (quite the luxury vehicle for this area of the world) and garlands of jasmine flowers. Definitely a much nicer ride than the alternative of taking one of the locally available ambassador cars that are norm; no shocks, no a/c, and no seatbelts. It is strange how all those little things we take for granted like standard safety features become a luxury after a few months in India.

It was almost the end of the tourist season, so you could see there were a lot less people and we were able to get a very good deal on a/c rooms at a very cute resort near the cliff. It also helped that I had picked up a bottle of vodka for the resort manager prior to my departure from Bangalore. It is amazing what a friendly gesture like that can do for you. It also helps that he is a friend of Nithya's so I knew which kind of vodka to buy!

I had picked up a couple items in Bangalore for a lady who runs a beauty parlour near the cliff (I think she may have even forgotten that she had asked me to bring them back for her) and ended up getting a free hair cut. It is really nice that karma is alive and well in Varkala, and friends are easily made. It is also very easy to settle into a nice routine of lazy. Sleep late, wander down to Nithya's shop and visit with tourists and locals alike, go to Lucky's for lunch, take a nap in the a/c room, watch the sun set from Nithya's shop before dinner at Lucky's, then watch a movie before bed, do it all again the next day. Kind of like lather, rinse, repeat, but for the soul rather than the hair. It was definitely the recharge down time that I needed.

But there is also a time when the battery is finally charged and it is time to turn the power back on the machine. After five days of recharge, Nithya and I headed north to his home region of Coorg. My travel companion had left some time earlier as the heat and humidity were getting to her, and Varkala does have both in abundance. I am an atheist, but in that place I do make a point of praying to the gods of a/c once a day, for survival not salvation! Luckily up in the hills of Coorg, the air is cool and dry, there are very few tourists and you actually get to see a very different India.

Our home for the next few days was an adorable home stay on the outskirts of Madikeri, with well tended flower beds, a beautiful view, and very bad phone reception. You can't have it all I guess. We would have to walk over to the far edge of the parking lot to send or receive calls, which actually was nice for me because I am not a slave to my cell. Nithya on the other hand should have his implanted! He does need it for his work, since travel agents seem to be on call 24 / 7. We tourists are a pretty needy bunch, especially when travelling in places like India where even the simplest of tasks seem so much more complicated. But even still, Nithya was able to kick back and relax for a fair bit of the trip, a well deserved rest after a busy season.

One of our first stops was at Nithya's friend Kishore's estate. When we first arrived the festivities of the final day of Kishore's wife's brother wedding were in full swing, with guests and family members around. I don't think they knew what to make of me, and I was feeling very self conscious and underdressed in a plain cotton salwar suit. I asked Nithya if I would need a nice outfit and he said no since we wouldn't be there for the actual wedding, and I hadn't brought anything appropriate. So there I was looking slightly sunburnt, no makeup, no jewellery, in a rather well worn outfit, feeling completely out of place. But I should have known better. The people I visited with were pleased that I was wearing Indian clothing, and treated us like honoured guests. A few of us snuck away to a very nice secluded spot near the river (still on Kishore's estate), had a few drinks and a great conversation. By the time we got back to the house everyone else had already eaten, which meant they could turn their full attention to feeding us. And I finally had my first taste of the much talked about Coorgian pork. Now I liked the pork, and I would definitely recommend it to any other visitor, but it was a little disappointing after the build up it had received. Nithya had been waxing poetic about the pork of his homeland (okay I exaggerate, but only a little) ever since we had decided to go there for a visit. Sort of like a Saskatoonian living in Montreal and talking about the Vietnamese food back home. And you certainly don't see Coorgian pork on any menus in Varkala, so I guess I had to cut him a little slack.

We spent the next few days travelling to many of the sights of Coorg. My favourite by far was the Tibetan settlements. When you enter these communities there is a sense of being in another place, different from the rest of India. They are calm, clean, organized and quiet. The temples are beautiful and there is an obvious pride in their surroundings exhibited by the Tibetans; ornate gates at the entrance to the temple grounds, beautiful paintings on the roads, and not a bit of litter anywhere. Even stencilled on the walls are notes from various lamas reminding people to protect the environment and keep their settlement clean. Cattle were tied up in pristine walled court yards of the private homes and provided with feed unlike the wandering animals of most Indian communities. The homes are very nice and well built, and it seems that the Tibetans have done very well for themselves in India. The few I have met in Varkala are all very hard working and humble people. I was not surprised to see this reflected in their lifestyle in their home in exile. There were actually very few people on the streets, mainly robed monks. I think I only saw two women the whole time we were there. It makes me wonder what happens to all the women when so many of the men are monks?

The temples are beautiful both inside and out. The walls around the entry way and inside the temples are painted with intricate drawings in vibrant colours. And inside there are evenly spaced rows of cushioned mats for the monks to sit on while at prayer, and the most amazing displays of sculpture. There is always a chair at the front for the Dalai Lama and another for other Lama's. Even though the colours are vibrant, and the statues elaborate, you feel a peaceful spirituality that I have experienced rarely in my life. (Side Note - Other spiritual moments: St. Peter's Basilica in Rome because it made me thing that there must be a God to have inspired such beauty. The Pantheon, also in Rome, a more secular feel of spirituality from the sense of age and human history it represented. A deserted beach in the early morning where I was alone with

Tibetan Community Road Painting

the ocean, a feeling of the immensity of nature.) Small birds fly in to the temple, sing sweetly and dart back outside. But amazingly there are no droppings anywhere, it is like nature could also sense the serenity of this places and offers respect in its own way. The monks are happy to show you around the temple and explain the displays to you if they are not busy. The monks just seem happy. Even the young boys are constantly grinning, were playing soccer with their robes hiked up in their hands. Adorable. I hear the Dalai Lama does teachings here on occasion. It is actually only a few hour trip from Bangalore so I hope to come back some time during the year for that.

But the Tibetan settlements were only one of the wonderful places we visited in Coorg. Next on the list was the Cauvery River. This river is very well known in Karnataka and in Tamil Nadu since there have been ongoing court battles over which state has rights to the water. A recent court decision awarding 2/3 of the water to Tamil Nadu resulted in major protests in Bangalore. The Cauvery supplies water to the agricultural regions in both states and is used as a water source in Bangalore as well. In a country where water shortages are the norm, you can imagine this is a hotly followed topic. We went to a park near the source of the Cauvery where the water is crystal clear and burbles around boulders in a lush mountain setting. And no this is no exaggeration, it really is that idyllic. With one major exception, monkeys. The river flows through a park which is like a small nature preserve, and there are monkeys around, but at least they are scared enough of people so they don't harass you. There were also rather tame deer in a fenced enclosure. It was the dry season when we were there, so there was not much fodder for the deer. But the people in the park would sell tourists sliced up cucumbers to feed to the deer, which would come up and eat from your hand. Very sweet.

We went to an elephant camp where tame elephants work with their humans in the lumbering industry. It is a beautiful partnership between these people and their elephants, which they work with all day. And even though they are working animals, they have a wonderful lifestyle, with one or two baths a day and extra feedings of balls of cooked rice mixed with other nutritional ingredients. They even get a piece of jaggery (unrefined sugar) for dessert! In the photo of the two elephants bathing, the elephant on the right was about 12 months pregnant, a little over half way through her pregnancy. While we were watching them bath, one of the elephants was trying to sneak out of the water and up the bank to her lunch. She was adorable, and kept checking over her shoulder to see if her man was watching. If his head was turned away she would "sneak" another few steps up the bank.

You can see chains around the ankles of the elephants and some with a chain on their neck. The ones on the ankle are used to "Hobble" the elephant during feeding times, but these mature elephants were so gentle they didn't even have to bother. The other chain hanging from the neck and dragging to the ground could have been used during work, but the trainers explained that at night the elephants are set loose in the forest to wander and forage for more food if they want, and the dragging chain on the ground leaves a trail for them to follow so they can find their elephants the next day. Only one of the elephants was wearing the chain, and this was because these two always stuck together.

Later on the cutest two year old elephant and his teenage trainer came for the elephant's bath and snack. The elephant has the cutest little tuft of black hair on his head, and a precocious twinkle in his eye. During his feeding he had to be hobbled because anything could distract him. But when he decided to eat, he was insatiable. His trainer would run from the central building with a large ball of rice and give him two mouthfuls in his mouth in rapid succession, and give him one in the crook of his trunk so he could feed it to himself while the trainer ran back for more food. After his main course, the trainer was teaching the elephant to eat his piece of jaggery off his head (video).

The next day we went to another park where there was a beautiful waterfall. It was quite amazing since it was the dry season, so I can just imagine what it would be like in the rainy season. After that we spent the next couple days visiting and relaxing before it was back to Bangalore.

So back to Bangalore again to start the search for an apartment and prepare for my trip home. Nithya also hadn't been to Bangalore in a while, so there was a lot of visiting to catch up on with many of his friends. Lucky for me, Nithya knows a lot of people in Bangalore, and one just happened to be a realtor in the neighbourhood near my office. Even rentals are arranged through a realtor in Bangalore, and without a local to walk you through the entire process it would be incredibly daunting. So thank goodness for Santosh, who within one day had found me a number of places to look at, and then was a big help in drafting rental agreements, directing me where to look for appliance and furniture stores, etc. And the apartment is great! I can see my office from the balcony so no need to deal with Bangalore traffic everyday, and there are good shopping and restaurants near by. It is a brand new construction (they added a third floor to a two story house, and the upper floor is all mine, with easy access to the roof if I want. There are two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, kitchen and dining room, all with marble floors. And let's just say that the price is right! And as it turned out, another of the exchange students from IIMB was staying in Bangalore for a summer internship and was having a heck of a commute from campus to his workplace. So we made all the arrangements for him to move into my place before I left, so now not only do I have an apartment, I have a roomy too! Not bad work for just a quick visit.

Next stop Canada, another round of quick visits, a lot of paperwork (taxes, employment contract, visas), and then a return to India with my kitty cats.

I will keep you all posted.

Eve

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Videos from "A Month on the Road - Part II":

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