Advertisement
Published: June 30th 2008
so been here a few days now, think it's about time for an update. first impressions: i hated india and wanted to come home. arrived to sticking sizzling hot weather. not the 'oh wow, it's hot today' kind of stuff, i'm talking about 'bitch-slapped, burn baby' kind of hot. the kind where you walk out your door and feel like you've slammed into a wall of pure fire ball heat. Couple this with, i started feeling a little ill on the flights over, thinking it was probably due to the air in the plane, didn't dwell on it too much, until... let's just say for the first 3 days i was completely floored, fever, chills, headaches to the point of feeling like i'd been kicked in the head, and the worst snott ridden nose and cough. hmm perfect timing.
stayed in chennai, i've been told india smells amazing, seeing as i can't smell a thing i'll just imagine it smell of roses seeing as chennai is possibly the filthiest city i have EVER seen, and I've seen my fair share to make a pretty good judgment.. rubbish litters every corner, and when it rains (and since its almost mosnoon, the
rains tend to come at least once in a day) the streets pool with this thick slush of gunk which you have to wade through to get anywhere without being rammed over by the fooking MENTAL traffic! To top that, men with monkeys tried in chains walk up and down getting them to climb on ppl for money. oh god..
i all but ran out of chennai as soon as i could stamachany food and walk more than 100 mentres without running back inside, to the sea,where, apparently it's 'cooler'.. umm.. ok NOT. Went to a place called Mamallapuram, a world heritage village, due to it's numerous monuments, temples and sacred places, is beautiful really. Very very run down and touristy, but get far enough into the fishing villages and the ppl are super friendly, erring on ther slightly creepy, and the food is amazing - R26 for grilled fish and chips at a 'tourist restauant' (read:rip off..) haha!! staying at an amazing place for next to nothing too.
this place does have it's serios flaws tho, the fishermans village has shit all over the beach, the women are treated like dirt, yesterday i witnessed a man beat
up a woman on the street with all his friends cheering him on. From what i could make out, she didn't make way for him to pass in the street..it nearly made me sick. women have to be so subservient to men here, heaven forbid you go first in lin with a man behind you, he'll shove in from to go first. and my all time best, try get a mans attention to serve you anything at a very local place (i'm not talking abt a tourist restaurant here) i'm talking about a small cafe or something in the local part of the village. it's just not done for a woman to go in and order anything.
anyway, spent the first few days chilling out, secluded in my room coughing and sneezing away, but eventually ventured out onto the beach for a few walks, have yet to brave the ocean for a swim, a strong rip tide is just off the shore, lived through an earthquake (although nothing much to report seeing as i didn't feel it, probably slept straight through it knowing me..), managed to sourse a project for next 11 weeks, find a house, cook and transport.
pretty good going rekons me. 😉
more news on the project to follow next weekend, picking up the new volunteers this week, have one grumpy which should be interesting, the house we staying at is more rural that any madventurer house I have ever stayed at before.. going to be great.
hold thumbs for me, think this might just work out after all..
xx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.084s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 10; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0409s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
penny
non-member comment
"the ppl are super friendly, erring on ther slightly creepy" that is such an accurate description! hah :O