Adjusting - 25th of February 2005

Seven weeks down the line and we find ourselves having massala toast for breakfast, with fried egg on top and a pinch of massala spice. Who would have thought!

Our stuff from London has finally arrived. As tough as it was to see it all being wrapped up and taken away from us in December, as rewarding it was when it arrived here in our new home. A bit of a weird feeling kicked in as well, as these things reminded us on our life back in London, which seems like ages ago.

Raja [driver] made us laugh the other day, we stopped by the market to buy some flowers, and this young Indian guy followed me around all the time, being annoying, asking for money in a very rude way. I snapped at him, but he kept on following me which freaked me out. When I got back into the car he was still standing next to my window. I mentioned it to Raja, and he had a real go at him. Raja's english is not great, but when he got back into the car he just said ‘lazy bugger’ and drove off.
We gave a toaster to him as we had bought an interims toaster when setting up life here. The next day he came back and said he couldn’t figure out how to use it. Brilliant, it didn’t even strike my mind to explain how it works. Bought him some massala toast and cream cheese and explained the procedure. He said he liked it, but he might have just been polite, as usual. Am picturing his entire family standing around the little magic thing watching the toasts pop out…

Will we ever be able to get used to this? Every little task takes about 15 times longer than necessary, involving 6-10 people [just to put up a toilet roll holder, yes!]. When having a leak in the bathroom 10 little guys come by to fix it. And at least 5 of them leave hand prints everywhere on the white walls. When telling them off they hold each others hands and smile at you. Great, makes you feel like telling off small children.

You can get receipts for bribery here! Isn’t that taking it a little bit too far? Corruption is all around you, and you certainly do yourself a big favor to get used to it quickly. Fighting it is a waste of energy. We had to deal with corrupt customs; they decided they would like some extra money in order to release OUR shipment. Nothing really you can do about it. So I went with a pile of money and paid them off.

We went to Goa for 3 nights to escape our then still empty flat. We realised quickly that we went to the wrong end of Goa, the north. It seemed like there was not much left that reminded you of the country we were in. The Saturday night market was ruled by Europe’s ‘hippie’ community, hardly any of the sellers were Indian, everyone had exactly the same clothes on and… its hard to describe but it felt a bit wrong, we did not enjoy it much. The locals do visit the market, as it is a pretty exotic experience for them indeed. They might not realise they are saving themselves a trip to Camden market in London.
We left the north the next morning and for every mile we drove toward the south the big bill boards started to disappear [one ad showing a very happy woman next to a dishwasher and the headline ‘so your wife can come straight to you after dinner’], the trance and techno music faded away and you could see beautifully painted houses, rice fields and palm tree forests. We did not have much time to look around, but we will certainly go back to that end of Goa.

A trip to the Bangalore nursery was unexpectedly brilliant. Wild monkeys jumping around everywhere, very cheeky ones, trying to nick things, rushing around between palm trees, totally annoying the nursery staff, brilliant. It took me a while to be able to concentrate on the plants again, as I absolutely love monkeys ... as most of you know.

Seeing elephants in their natural environment was pretty amazing. We went to a small wildlife park further south; five hours drive away from Bangalore. They took us on a boat safari when the sun was setting, and we saw elephant herds and big buffalos coming to the shores. Did not have much luck with the leopards and tigers; only found fresh paws in the dirt, but they had buggered off already.
The owner of the little hotel we stayed in wanted to convince us to go for a swim with him in the morning, just highlighting the healthy minerals in the water. He assured the crocodiles would always stay further down the lake. What if they are taking a stroll that day? No way.

We found a picturesque little vegetable and fruit market in Mysore on our way through and had a chai break with some locals. They made us sit down in their little market shag, gave us yummy and piping hot chai tea and had a chat to us. What a refreshing experience after being ask ‘madam, want buy soap? Want buy rose water, smell nice? Sir, want buy rosewater for madam? fruit madam, nice fruit, yes madam, yes?’

Still being in the process of settling in we very much enjoy our new life... the weather, the food, exotic fruits and flowers, and the divers Indian culture … I realized the adjustment process had started when re-visiting this rather unimpressing little supermarket we found in our first week… just that this time I was thinking ‘god, this one is brilliant, lots of stuff we can get here’.

Patrik and his boss Keith can't really concentrate on work these days, as a confused wood-pecker is constantly 'pecking' on the glass of their office window thinking it is a bloody tree, and they can't get rid of it. Very funny.

Voila!