Massala everything - 28th of January 2005

They just love it... omelette massala, croissant with massala filling, massala magic crisps, massala dosa, massala-taste chinese ready noodle soups, massala everything. I bet massala flavoured chewing gum would be a winner here!

Pushing a far too small trolley through the tiny supermarkets, people staring at the choice of your purchases, and in the background some funny Indian music is pretty amusing. Some woman come up to you, standing right next to you, just watching, and then taking the same product out of the shelve and reading the label with great interest.
We would call these shops corner shops, not supermarkets. Shopping takes approximately 4 hours.... there is a shop where vegetables are good [meaning not full of pesticides that would make our delicate tummies sick], than at the other end of town is a great place for bread, some other shop sells good imported cheese [on a lucky day], and then there are special places to buy cakes, and certainly special places to purchase meat.
Went to buy meat the other day, was hilarious, felt like going to buy forbidden treasures... you enter this private home in a residential area, a tiny old woman sitting on the floor peeling beans, pointing her head towards two chairs in the corner... I figured it meant I should take a seat, so I did. Another woman came over after a while and walked me to the huge freezer units. Very bizarre.
When coming home from shopping you have to put the vegetables, salads and fruits you are planning to eat raw into a ''Potassium Permanganate' solution, to make it suitable for our tummies as they have been washed/grown in contaminated water.
But we are getting used to it, slowly...

Going to one of the western style shopping malls is great fun... Indian families going there on a Sunday and you can witness husbands trying to get their wife and daughter to take the escalator up to the next level. I guess they have never been to a mall before. They are so scared; carefully placing one foot onto the moving step and then quickly stepping back again, laughing nervously. This is cute and makes you realise that their reality looks very different from ours... they walk around town with entire shopping baskets on their head, to have their hands free to carry their babies around. I guess I would not make such a good impression either when trying that myself!

And yes, we both had our 'welcome to India' tummies. Stacked up on curd, the Indian yoghurt as it is supposed to help building up a more resistant tummy. Stayed away from spicy food for a bit which certainly is a challenge. Went to get a simple snack the other day, a vegetable roll and checked with the guy first if it is spicy and he indicated 'no'. That thing was so spicy that I could not even think about eating it, my tummy would have freaked out. No way would this man not call this spicy... and then I remembered the head wobble. He did say yes! He bloody said it is spicy. I fell for it again, damn!

You don't always feel connected to the people here, the differences in our cultures don't always fill the gap... but there are still lots of situations when you have a laugh about something and someone on the street picks it up and has a laugh with you. Little things… feeling pretty big.

Our current driver is brilliant, he answers a lot of the questions we have in daily life. And he helps me crossing the street [I know, did not think I would need that before the age of 80]. He helps us to distinguish between people we should give money to, and the ones we should not. He is funny, smart and does not say 'yes mam' all the time. He knows all the short cuts in town and helps you communicating with people that are less skilled in speaking English.
A driver here is not just a driver; he spends all day with you, helping you with everything. I know it sounds like a strange concept... but your view changes quickly when being here just for a bit. I did not like the thought, felt sorry, felt horrible.... but having been here for a while you realise that their job is not that bad, and that they know your friend's drivers after a while, so they hang out and have lunches, read the papers, sleep... whenever they are waiting around. Fact is you can't get around here, there is no public transport apart from the little 'autos', but they are not safe and you do inhale fumes which makes you feel rather sick.

There is people everywhere, and it is hard to get some space on your own. But looking at how the locals interact it seems in a way more human than in our culture. Everyone speaks to each other, and if a guy is reading his newspapers sitting in his car it is totally fine for another guy to lean into his window to read the latest news with him.
Imaging trying that in London, someone would most likely beat the shit out of you for being so bloody indiscrete.
Love the details people give attention to here. Woman put flowers in their hair, and even when just sweeping the dusty streets, they dress most of the time better than us on a big night out. Our driver arranges a new fresh flower decoration in his car every morning. Everyone smiles at you here, the south is so friendly and laid-back, which is very enjoyable.

You don't really feel like dressing up here in the daytime, makes you feel stupid, standing in yellow high heals at a traffic light, next to a cow! No way. Loving my muji flip flops, much more low profile. And they can take the needed daily shower with you.
Saw some good looking cows yesterday, kind of dressed up, they live on 13th main street [we are on 14th main], so I will try to find them and take some pictures for you.

Last weekend we went with the Indian times to our local coffee shop for breakfast, the morning temperatures right now are just perfect, and we realised that we haven't done this before, just sitting around watching the honking world go by. God, I bet the day we will leave this place we will miss the honking in a weird way...
Drove out to Patrik’s office campus to pick him up one day, nice to get out of the city, more space and less honking. The campus canteen seems to serve brilliant food, south-indian/vegetarian every day. Will sneak in one day to try it out!

The first time we really got away from the honking was on Wednesday [holiday], we went with a bunch of people out of town, planning to go to the wildlife park as we heard we can walk through it. Apparently that was not possible anymore as a tiger had eaten a baby. Good thing they closed the park for walking tourists at least after the incident.
Went to the zoo instead and felt like we were the main attraction. People giggling and pointing at us, little girls not being able to take their eyes off our strange hair colour. Very cute.

We hiked around the dry countryside a little and were all of a sudden not sure if we made it accidentally into the park. We just talked about how nice it is to see and hear nothing, no honking.... and all of a sudden I hear this sound approaching from the right... similar sound to a motorcycle approaching... I looked and bloody hell... a huge swarm of bees came towards us, thousands of them. It was really freaky.
Luckily my friend Tanya from Kenya told us quickly to lay down flat on the ground, to get out of their way. She had seen these things before. They passed right over our heads; they seemed to have a mission to go somewhere else. Our heards were pumping. Hearing tiger 'voices' after that we decided to turn around. Tanya said they sound like they were in an enclosure, but we did not want to end up in the Bangalore times with the headline '5 blonde stupid tourists eaten by bees and tigers'.

A head wobble from sunny Bangalore