Living in Bangalore
Monday, November 01, 2004
Some Clarification
So, I thought it would be good to post a clarification here about my thoughts on India, etc. Some people have sent me emails asking if it was worth it, etc, etc, that kind of thing.
I really, really, really think it's a good idea for people to go to India. Maybe not for three months, but it's good for people to go there and see what it's like. I don't really hold any grudge against it, and I consider my time there to have been spent very well. I learned a lot about myself and about a new part of the world that I hadn't seen before. Sure, I got sick fairly often and had a scare with TB, etc, but it was worth it.
If people don't get out of their nice familiar surroundings and see what's out there, they might as well just stick their heads in the sand.
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Tuberculosis scare
So, another update in the continuing saga. When I was in the hospital, they took sputum cultures to grow for a few months as a TB test. I got a call last week saying that the cultures had come back positive, which is not good. I went in for a checkup and have had no breathing problems, etc, so they had me get another chest X-ray. Luckily, that turned up no signs of infection so they think I was just barely exposed, but not enough to cause an actual infection.
At this point I'm not sure if this qualifies me as having a latent TB infection or not. My doctor said no, but that doesn't make sense to me.
Thursday, July 08, 2004
A little update
So, a little update. The Cipro treatment seemed to clear things up for a while, then a couple days after I stopped taking it, my chest congestion came back, though not nearly as bad as before. And the intestinal problems continued. I took ParaGONE (available at Wild Oats or Whole Foods, etc) for a while and that seemed to get rid of the intestine problems, so maybe I had picked up a parasite. Anyway, that's the good news.
Last wednesday I was coughing all day, though not having any breathing problems. I figured it was nothing big. That night, I could barely sleep because of breathing problems. Thinking it was "just bronchitus" or a cold or whatever I let it go, and stayed home from work on thursday, carring a hellacious temperature and having my heart beat really fast. Thursday night was no better than before, and I had also started to cough up blood so on Friday morning I called the doctor and went in that afternoon. Luckily the blood-coughing stopped friday morning, so I think it was just because I'd been coughing constantly for a few days. He didn't really know what it was, but sent me over to the hospital (across the street) to get a chest X-ray to see what was going on. After the X-ray, they had me get a CT scan with an iodine blood marker and sent me back to the doctor's office with the X-ray, telling me the doctor would discuss things with me.
Once I got back, my doctor basically said I needed to go the ICU immediately and walked me back across the street. I asked what the problem was, and it turns out I had severe pneumonia in both lungs and also had "very" enlarged lymph nodes in there too.
Once I was checked into ICU they took my story, asked me a bunch of questions and had me hooked up to 8 liters of oxygen. Once I told them I'd been in India for a while, they basically freaked out and moved me to a full isolation room, which has negative air pressure to keep whatever I had from leaving the room. Everyone who saw me had to wear a mask, surgical gloves and a smock because they thought I might have Tuberculosis. The attending doctor said I had an "impressive" chest X-ray. So, that's not good.
I spent the night in ICU, hooked up to an IV drip of Levaquin (same drug family as Cipro), an EKG, blood oxygen saturation monitor and a blood pressure monitor. They also injected me every few hours with Solumederol, which is a steroid similar to Prednisone (commonly used in short runs for severe asthma and bronchitus). All the wires hooked to this nice flat-panel display so I could watch my vitals while they ran tests. The machine would sound alarms when my oxygen saturation went below certain levels, etc. They took a bunch of blood samples and "sputum" cultures to check for TB and other nasties. The next afternoon I'd improved enough to not be in ICU anymore, so they moved me to a non-ICU full isolation room upstairs. After three days of taking daily TB tests, they all came back negative, so they didn't need me in full isolation anymore. There's still a 1/1000 chance that I have TB, but they won't know for sure for another month while the cultures they took are growing in a lab for more tests.
After a couple days, I was responding well to 500mg of IV Levaquin a day and had progressively needed less and less oxygen to keep my saturation at 95% or so. When I first checked in my saturation was in the high 70's or low 80's, which is really pretty bad. At this point, they still had no idea what caused the pneumonia. None of the cultures they grew came back positive, none of the blood pathogen tests came back positive, etc. So then they maybe thought I had developed full-blown AIDS since odd pneumonia is a sign of that, especially if you're not elderly. Luckily, that test came back negative too. Their best bet is that I caught something in India and brought it back, beat it back a bit with Cipro but didn't completely kill it, and then it just stewed in my lungs for a while till it was able to take me down.
Finally, after four nights in the hospital they checked me out and prescribed an oral Levaquin regimen, oral Prednisone, a Combivent inhaler, Advair inhaler and my regular Albuterol inhaler. That, and a $14,000 medical bill and I'm back in the land of the living again.
Quite a disturbing experience, actually.
Friday, May 21, 2004
Not Going Back
So, I've been back in the US for about a month now. I just quit my job and will not be going back to India....
I've started another blog, so if you're interested go to: nate's thoughts.
I went an saw my doctor the other day because I was still having, uh, "intestinal and digestive issues" even though I've been back in the US for a while. He wasn't sure what I have, but decided the best course of action was to kill everything with a ten-day treatment of 1000mg a day of Cipro. I have to say that having been in India for three months, that is one filthly and infectious place.
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Trip to mysore
Last weekend I made a short trip to Mysore by train. I'm currently trying to upload pictures of it, but the link from India to my hosting provider is currently super slow.
At some point, there should be pictures here of the trip.
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Holiday today
There's some holiday on today... I think. At least there are very small parades running around. Here's one:
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Seriously ill...
So, I find that I've been seriously ill recently with a bug that makes me want to travel. More specifically, to do nothing but travel. I suppose I can thank my friend Dave for this (thanks, Dave, very nice).
Websites like these don't help, either:
Karim's Desert Biking Disasters
Horizons Unlimited
Motorcycle Explorer
Ultimate Journey
Round The World 101
Where Is Story?
advrider.com
I find myself making lists of gear I should buy, and doing napkin calculations about when I'd be able to quit my job and "walk the earth" like Cain in Kung Fu. Or something like that, anyway. I probably wouldn't waste a couple weeks of my life trying to figure out what a "Function Sequence Error" is in DB2 if I was riding a motorcycle in Namibia.
It's an almost purely romantic idea, given that I don't even really know how to ride a motorcycle. But seriously, how hard can it be? I see all kinds of people here in India that don't know how to ride motorcycles, and that doesn't stop them from nearly being killed by busses on a daily basis. OK, so maybe that's not such a good example. Really, though, this could work.
Note: I added this links page over on the wiki with this info in it. I'll update it instead of this blog entry.
Monday, March 29, 2004
Daily transportation
I've posted some pictures I took over the weekend... kinda a study in daily transportation with a few other things thrown in.
Planning for a big trip
I'm starting to plan a big sweeping train tour of India for just before I head back to the US permanently. Since I probably won't be in the neighborhood anytime soon, I figure I should take advantage if I can. I'm looking into an itinerary like this:
- Bangalore to Colombo, Sri Lanka by air
- Colombo to the town near Adam's peak by bus (?)
- Adams peak climb, one extra day
- Back to Colombo by bus
- Colombo for two days
- Colombo to Bangalore by air
- Bangalore to Goa by train, 16 hours
- Goa for three days at the beach
- Goa to Mumbai (Bombay) by train, 14 hours
- Stay in Mumbai maybe 3 days
- Mumbai to Delhi by train, 18 to 24 hours
- Stay in Delhi a few days
- Deli to Agra, 2 days
- Agra to Varanasi and Sarnath, 4 days
- Varanasi to Kathmandu by bus, 2 days
- Kathmandu stay, 3 days
- Kathmandu to Varanasi, 2 days
- Varanasi to Kolkata (Calcutta) by train, 15 hours
- Kolkata stay, 3 days
- Kolkatta to Chennai (Madras) by train, 30 hours. Maybe more... that's basically the entire east coast of India
- Chennai stay, 2 days
- Chennai to Bangalore by train, 5-7 hours
- Bangalore to Frankfurt to Denver by air, 20 hours
That's, I think, something like 40 days, depending on the lengths of stay in various places. To prep for this, I'll need to pick up a few things while I'm back in the US in late april.
Friday, March 19, 2004
Heading back for a couple weeks
I just got back from the local Lufthansa office, where I finalized my return schedule. I'm heading back to denver for a couple weeks of catchup with the group there and for some time with friends and family. I'll be heading back on April 26th. Two ten-hour flights with a five hour layover in Frankfurt. Wooo! I can't wait.
Saturday, March 13, 2004
Badami trip report...
I finally got around to doing a write-up of the Badami trip, so here goes:
February 27, 2004. I've arrived in Badami, India -- roughly 500km (310 miles) north west of Bangalore. Last night was a blur, at least I now only remember it as one. At about 7:15 last night I headed out for the main bus terminal (the KSRTC terminal) in Bangalore and arrived at about 8:00 after a 60 rupee rikshaw ride. I still don't really know where the terminal is, but that's true of many things in Bangalore. Most places are simply on the other side of a rikshaw. Anyway, I arrived and started to try and figure out how to get a ticket for the bus. First I ask what appears to be the information desk, and they say "Platform Two" in answer to any phrase I utter which has the word "Badami" in it. Other phrases are met with a blank stare. Looking around, it seems like lots of other people have some kind of ticket, so I ask the information desk about tickets. "Platform Two" comes back. I've found that many Indians speak english in the same way and for the same reason as drunken Scotsmen -- specifically, incoherently and because they were once colonized by Great Britain. Sometimes I swear that communication would be easier if they (or I) didn't speak any english at all. At least then there's less chance of two cultures using seemingly similar words in totally different ways. Anyway, after looking around some more, you can buy tickets ahead of time, but only up to a couple hours before departure. Since I'm here thirty minutes before departure, that's not an option. So I go back over to platform two and hang out next to the bus. I point at the bus and say "Badami?" a few times, and people point at the bus and say "Badami". So this bus is probably going to Badami. As it turns out, you just get on the bus with or without a ticket. It goes something like this: as you're getting on, the ticket-guy says "Ticket?" and you say "No" then he says what sounds like "sheet 21, sheet 22, sheet 23" and you say "what?" -- this repeats several times. Eventually the one person who speaks english on the bus says "you can take any seat after 21" and then you say "Thanks". I take a seat in the next to last row, next to a window, catching the eye of everyone on board. I swear they've never seen a white person before. The bus starts to fill up, and at about 9:00 the bus starts and we begin to pull out of the terminal.
I soon discover that my plan of sleeping during the ride is going to be something of a challenge. Now, the bus is described as "Ultra Deluxe, with air-ride suspension". This is, perhaps, the greatest overstatement of all time. Now, I'm willing to accept the "Ultra" and "Deluxe" parts, given what I later learn about "regular" busses. I'm not willing to accept the "air-ride suspension" part, unless you consider that the tires are (probably) filled with air, so you are riding on a cushion of air in some sense. Still, the description seems wildly optimistic. Don't get me wrong -- the bus is generally comfortable. There's good seats, and the windows open. The chill night air rushes in, carrying various smells and sounds with it. The bus rattles and shimmies with every bump and probably a few that are just echoes of other bumps making their way around the frame of the bus. Everything and everyone bobs and bumps and sways with the motion of the road as we make our way out of the city. We make stops a couple times on the way out, letting some people off and letting others on. Eventually the ticket man comes by, says "Baad amee?" and I nod and hand him a 500 rupee note. He gives me my tickets (in odd sizes, like 17 rupees, etc) and my change. It's 265 rupees for the ride (about $6).
Every once in a while, the bus slows down very quickly and you feel the front end ease over one of the larger bumps or dips -- I quickly learn to dread this chain of events. Then the driver accelerates, and by the time the end of the bus is making its way across the obstacle it's become more of a jump that anything else. I am flung perhaps six or eight inches into the air and come crashing down. It doesn't sound like much, but try it a couple times a minute for thirteen hours sometime... it gets old pretty quick. I sink a little inside at this point, thinking how far we still have to go and I wonder how people sleep on trips like this. Time marches on and I begin to acclimate to this new, rattling and rumbling world. I wonder what time it is, but I don't check for fear that it's only been twenty minutes or something. It's best to just let it flow over you and watch the night scenes go by. We pass through a tool booth, and while waiting in line for the driver to pay the toll, people are running around selling various spiced chips and other bits to people in cars and busses. My window is open so I get plenty of offers to buy this or that. Most of the sellers are wearing construction-style dust masks to keep out the dust and exhaust. After about an hour and a half, we pass out of the city and into farmland. It's only briefly uninhabited, though, as we pass many small towns every so often. At 11:00 we make our first extended stop. I think I was at least briefly asleep since I'm jolted to consciousness by a series of signals from a high-pitched whistle blown repeatedly right by my window as someone guides the bus into a parking spot. People file off the bus to take a leak next to my window, or next to some other bus. Since the back row is now vacant, I move back there since there's at least a chance of lying sideways across the back rows. I also wanted to get away from the guy sitting next to me. Over the last couple hours I'm pretty sure he go up to vomit numerous times. He's suddenly jolt up, run to the other side of the bus and stick his head out the window for a few seconds. I doubt he was spitting sunflower seeds or something, since he seemed very intent on getting to the window as quickly as possible. Makes me wonder why he didn't just take one of empty seats next to a windows, but whatever. Since the bus is basically empty, I take this chance to get my backpack down from the overhead compartment and pull out my GPS. We're sitting at N 13 degrees 28.244, E 77 degrees 2.105, wherever that is. To pass the time, I pull out a copy of "The Dalai Lama's Book of Transformation" and, surprisingly enough, open directly to a page talking about how we should think positively in situations of real physical pain or discomfort. I decide to concentrate on experiencing my surroundings rather than judging it against my own expectations. We stay here for about thirty minutes and then the bus starts to fill up again and we head off.
We stop again at 2:15am at N 14 degrees 13.604, E 76 degrees 23.777. At this point I at least know we're heading north-east. At 5:45am we're at N 15 degrees 16.517, E 76 degrees 23.349. 7:15am is N 15 degrees 45.102, E 76 degrees 11.630. 8:30am is spent at N 15 degrees 41.687, E 75 degrees 44.111. None of those places are marked on the internal map in the GPS, but that's not too surprising since there's only a few cities in all of India that are listed. Hopefully soon I'll have a way to show maps of those coordinates, and I'll update this with links there... for now you'll just have to imagine for yourself.
I stare out the window trying to catch glimpses of things flying past in the dark. Sometimes I try and sleep, but that's nearly futile. I rest on my side, curled up in the fetal position over two seats, trying to find a position that's both comfortable and relatively immune to allowing me to be thrown into the air. The former, while difficult, is infinitely more possible than the latter. We're constantly either careening over some bump or avoiding oncoming traffic by veering to the left, horns blaring. So mostly I decide to sit up and stare, drifting off into a quasi-sleep state that's more like a waking dream than rest.
The sun begins to rise at maybe 6:30 or so. The sky is filled with a giant glowing orange/red orb, light rippling through the thick atmosphere as it creeps across the line of the horizon. As light fills the air, it reveals a rural area green with plants and occasional trees. A heavy mist covers the land, the humidity is palpable. Occasionally there are signs of modern India: a few concrete-shell shops or houses, other traffic. Generally, though, you could look out the window and think it was 8,000 years ago. People are living in huts with walls made of either palm leaves or a mix of tree branches placed vertically with bark or bamboo slats woven horizontally, then covered with mud. Roofing is almost always a reed thatch or a carpet of palm leaves. It's amazing. Here and there are posters advertising the 2004 self-imposed WHO deadline for eradicating Polio, a debilitating disease that's still ravaging rural India. Wild pigs run around the more populated areas, eating garbage from still-smoldering piles alongside the road. People relieve themselves by squatting in the gutter or the road or the field they are working. Some of this is good -- people continuing the traditional ways of life of their ancestors, and some is so very bad -- contaminating the local water supply, causing cholera outbreaks and all kinds of other things.
In any case, after just over twelve hours, we arrive in Badami. It's a small town (I'm not sure how many people, maybe 20,000 or something) and looks pretty much like you would expect. As I get off the bus, I ask the driver when tomorrow's bus comes to go back to Bangalore and he says 7:30am. Fair enough. I walk over to the terminal to get my bearings and stretch a bit -- it's been a long night, and I smell ferociously. I thumb through my Lonely Planet India guide and decide to splurge and get a room at the local KSRTC hotel, so I catch a rikshaw. He charges 20 rupees, which is easily double what it should be, but who cares. I arrive at the Hotel Mayurka Chalukya. When I get there, it appears to be completely abandoned. I walk through the halls, all the doors are opened and the only occupants are stray monkeys. I keep wandering around and find the other wing of the hotel -- the new wing, where they have people. The proprietor says that rooms are 350 rupees, and I ask to see one before agreeing. In the old wing, with the monkeys, rooms are 200. I take a look at the upscale room; it's got a bathroom with hot water, a lock on the door, a ceiling fan and a pair of small beds. Quite good enough for my needs, so I tell them I'll take it. Luckily I brought a bar of soap, since they don't provide it.
The terrain around here reminds me of many parts of Colorado. Huge wind swept sandstone formations, scrub brush and red soil everywhere. Overall it's dry but there are small streams here and there.
I wash my hands and face, change clothes and take off after leaving some things secured in the room with my trusty PacSafe strung around some plumbing. I walk out to the street and catch a rikshaw to the cave temples. The driver continuously hits me up for a tour of the surrounding area, and I repeatedly turn him down. Eventually, I agree, though, since I may only have a day here and I don't want to walk around the whole time. When we get to the cave temples, he says he'll wait for me and pulls the rikshaw off into the shade. I walk over to the temples and go up a set of steps. There's someone there to stop me waiving his hands, but he's very crippled and I assume he's begging for money. I've taken to not giving money to beggars since it only attracts more beggars -- it seems harsh at first, but it's basically the only thing you can do. Apparently, though, he's not a beggar. Someone else comes after me a minute later shouting, so I turn around. I guess I'm not supposed to go up this set of steps. The guy tells me this is not open to the public and that I need to buy a ticket and go in the other gate, but he's not too pissed at me since there's no signs (at lest none in english) saying that. So I buy my 100 rupee ticket and head up the other set of steps. I spend a few hours wandering around, looking at these temples. There's pictures of these temples here:
Badami cave temples
After a while, I come down the steps. The driver comes out of the shade and we head off. Another passenger has joined me in the rikshaw, a friend of the driver. We drop him off in town on our way to the next set of temples. This next set I don't have any pictures of, and I didn't really see. It's an active temple, so I took a picture of the outer wall and that's about it:
Second temple, and other pictures
Then we head off the Pattadakkal. This is really an impressive set of temples. Many very close together here. Indians are let in for 10 rupees, and gringos get to pay 250. It's basically highway robbery, but since that's still only $5 so I can't complain. Some of the temples are being restored, others appear to be in completely original condition. Most were built in the 7th century, making them about 1,400 years old.
Pattadakkal temples
We next head to Aihole (pronounced ahh-eeeh-oh-lee), and see a few old temples:
Aihole temples
After a long day, I head back to the hotel. The manager says there's no morning bus heading to Bangalore, only ones at night. So, that would really be unfortunate since I don't want to head back overnight if I'm going to arrive on monday morning. Fitting these trips into weekends is going to be tight if I'm going to adjust at all from the bus trips. I decide that if I'm going to have to take another overnight bus, I'll take one tonight and make this a marathon, then crash for a day or two in Bangalore. I quickly pack my things and run to the bus station. After some broken english conversations, I determine that there is indeed a morning bus to Bangalore and that the hotel manager doesn't know what he's talking about. I make my way back to the hotel and get my key back (luckily without having to pay again) and crash for the night. The morning bus is at 6:30, so I set my phone's alarm for 5:30. There's no cellular service here, but the phone makes a good alarm clock and a descent flashlight when the power is out, which is often.
Here's something I wrote in my travel journal at the time: "(written by the light of my phone) I think next time I do an outing like this I'll try the train, or an airplane if all else fails. God damn it's hot here. (then, a few minutes later) Hell yeah, the power just went back on. Not 10 minutes after I finished writing. Now, let's just see if it lasts till morning... that fan sure feels nice."
Next morning, I wake and take a bucket-bath and then pack my things and head out. The 6:30 bus is not "Ultra Deluxe" to be sure. An ancient TATA bus with bench seats, room for two people on each bench on the left and three people on the right. The driver sits in front on a seat suspended on springs and made from a kind of wire mesh. Each of the bench seats has an inch-and-a-half thick pad made from foam covered with vinyl. If the previous bus had an air-ride suspension, this one has a suspension similar to that of Fred Flintstone's car. I learned my lesson from the previous trip and have taken a seat near the front of the bus -- the main reason to get advance tickets. Bumps are far less pronounced up front than they are in the back. As we drive down the one-lane country roads (well, one paved lane in the middle and half a dirt lane on either side, used when passing) I close my eyes and enter a world composed entirely of physical jolts and a cacophony of rattles. There are many distinct rattles, each at a different pitch and volume, occasionally converging harmonically into a thunderous crash. Once in a while it sounds as if some huge piece of sheet metal has come crashing down. I'm reminded of an Einsturzende Neubauten concert I once went to where the turbine from an old jet engine was used as an instrument. This is far more loud.
We stop in some small town to let someone off, and the engine rattles off. Then it refuses to start. People begin filing off the bus and I think that we're going to need to find other transport back to Bangalore. Turns out some of the passengers were just getting off to push, then the driver pops the clutch once we're started rolling at a snail's pace and the engine shudders back to life. At 10:30 that morning we stopped to fix the starter at N 15 degrees 21.092, E 76 degrees 8.808. At some point the ticket man collected 68 rupees and we made out way progressively east. I was wondering where we're going since we didn't seem to be making any progress southward, but every time I asked if we were going to Bangalore the ticket man said we were. At 11:30 we stopped in Hospet, a city that's a bit south of Badami and pretty far east, though still about 350km from Bangalore. Here, another 123 rupees was collected (the last time any fare was charged) before we started off again. There was some kind of festival going on in Hospet that weekend with people milling about in festival-looking outfits. Next, we stopped at 1:10 at N 14 degrees 53.598, E 76 degrees 23.639. Then at 3:00 we were at N 14 degrees 13.596, E 76 degrees 23.639. 4:45 brought us to N 13 degrees 44.444, E 76 degrees 54.158.
Some impressions of the ride. Since this one was done in daylight, I was able to stay coherent and had a much better view, if a less comfortable ride. Roads are, like I said, basically one-lane. The crown of the road is paved, and tapers off at the sides into dirt. The paved sections appear to have been strafed with 20mm canon fire for hundreds of years. Tiny potholes litter the surface, some merging with each other into great rifts and canyons. Passing and avoiding oncoming traffic is an exercise in playing "chicken" with an oncoming bus, car, cow-drawn cart or bicycle. I don't doubt that tens of thousands of people are killed every year in accidents. Enough that the Peace Corps at one point (perhaps still to this day) has banned the use of busses by their employees in India. We were literally within a second of a head-on collision at least fifty times during the day. Each time we pass, the bus accelerates toward the vehicle in front of us, then at the last second swings out and around, missing the vehicle we're passing my inches. Then we either make it past them or not. If we do make it past, we dart back into our lane at the last possible second. Sometimes it becomes clear that we're not going to make the pass, so the driver hits the brakes and lurches back into our lane and waits for an opportunity to try again. Each time, the bus sways as weight transfers from side to side, everyone holds onto something to steady themselves and we all watch intently to see if we're about to collide. A few times, we come to a halt facing an oncoming truck whose also come to a halt, usually within twenty feet of each other. The larger roads really are two lanes, one in each direction, but that's pretty uncommon. The final 200km from Chitradurga to Bangalore was on its way to being four lanes, but for now it's two lane sections on alternating sides of an embankment as the opposite sides of the road sections are being constructed.
At one point, our driver was apparently deeply offended by the behavior of an oncoming truck. I don't know how this particular situation was any different than literally hundreds of other situations that day, but it was to him. We came to a halt in the road, and so did the oncoming truck. The drivers pulled up so that their windows were facing each other and and began shouting and waving their hands. This went on for perhaps two minutes, then they became really agitated. Our driver tried to open his door, but it only banged into the truck's body. He then leaped out of his chair and ran for the door at the back of the bus. The driver of the truck made a similar maneuver to get onto the road. The two stood in front of the bus and continued shouting for some time, though they never came to blows. Eventually, the ticket man was able to convince the driver to get back in the bus, and we were off -- drivers giving each other the evil eye as we passed.
Scenery rolls past. It fluctuates between what I traditionally associate with African savanna and southeast asian rice paddies. The savanna sections are all red soil, occasional small knurled trees stooping in the sun, rocks dotting the land and sharing space with a bush or two. The rice paddies are just that -- rice paddies, terraced land with rice growing in saturated soil that's more mud covered with a layer of water than anything. As we approach Bangalore, we pass perhaps a hundred kilometer stretch where the sides of the road are filled with nothing but row after row after row of coconut trees. Some are so straight and tall that it's hard to believe. Usually the trees have some bends or sway, but some of these are incredibly straight and perhaps the height of a six story building. Farther north, closer to Badami, it's clearly harvest time. People are pulling grain off the fields and separating it. Some use machines, other beat it against the ground, and still others lay it out in the road in columns so that passing traffic will crush it. Once the vehicles pass, they move in to sweep some of it aside and to reform the rest back into columns for the next vehicle to crush.
I have seldom looked forward to anything as much as I looked forward to getting out of that bus at the end of the trip. It was extremely interesting and also quite painful. I can't adequately express how uncomfortable it was on the bus after thirteen hours. Really. The temples, I think, were worth it though. They were so amazing that you have to look at the pictures to believe it. Truly amazing.
Monday, March 01, 2004
Quick Badami trip report and pics...
So, I made to to Badami and back last weekend. I'll post a more thorough account of it later, but here's a link to some pictures:
Badami and surrounding areas
A quickie bit of info: 13 hours in any bus is a long time, but 13 hours in a bus on roads in India is way too long ;-) Once I got there, though, the temples where really amazing. There's so many there that it would take weeks to see them all.
Here's a couple good pics from that archive:
A temple at Pattadakkal:
One of the cave temples at Badami:
The fourth cave temple, Buddha with mushrooms:
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Toys
So I broke down and bought a toy today. Mostly a toy anyway ;-) I got a Nokia 6600 phone. It's a "smartphone" or whatever. Has all the gadgets and gizmos that a phone obviously needs, like a video camera, still camera, IR port, bluetooth, color screen, Java VM, MMC memory expansion slot, etc ;-)
Really, though, the phone is pretty cool. I'm a big Nokia fan -- they actually put work into making the phone usable, instead of just cramming features in with no thought to the UI. I've used Motorola and Sony/Ericsson phones in the past and been constantly disappointed at, for instance, how hard it is to add an entry to the phone book. It should work like a phone with extra gizmos, not like a bunch of gizmos thrown into a box that is shaped like a phone. This thing works very well as a phone.
Anyway, now that I'm in "Asia" I can get fancy phones that aren't available in the US. Amazingly enough, India also has a good data-rate plan, so for Rs. 500 a month (about $10 US) I get unlimited data on top of the prepaid service, so I can browse the web and check email on the phone. Hutch is the local division of Orange Mobile and seems to have good coverage, etc. The web browser isn't the greatest (since the screen is so small) but it's good enough to check email and get news, etc. Considering it's the only network connection I have outside of the office, it's pretty good.
Showers
At this point, I would really, really like to take a hot shower with water pressure. For over three weeks now, I've taken "bucket baths" since there wasn't enough pressure to get water to actually escape the confines of the shower head. And for the last few days, I turn on the hot water side of the faucet and nothing comes out.
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
This is the second time I've tried to compose this, so hopefully it won't get lost as a result of a power outage again. Hopefully.
So, last weekend I was going to go to Ramohalli to see a four acre, four hundred year old Banyan tree. Instead, I spent the weekend working on an architecture re-design for my employer. Oh well. I'm going to take this coming friday off to have a three day weekend. I'm planning to go to Badami, which is about 500 km (310 miles) north-west of Bangalore and is home to some ancient stone temples (some built out of caves). There's a KSRTC (Karnataka State Regional Tourism Corporation) bus route that goes there. It's an eleven hour overnight ride, so I should be able to spend at least two and possibly three days there. I could make it back just in time to go to work on monday morning.
I wanted to get a few impressions written down before I forget about them, or at least before they become so commonplace that I don't even register them consciously.
Last night I went over to the shopping district on MG Road to wander around. On weekend nights, there's tons of people on the sidewalks, accompanied by herds of rikshaws, street vendors and a few beggars. For Rs 5 I bought some crisp rice from one of the vendors. It's basically crisped rice (pretty large rice, too) that's flavored with chili powder and stored in a big basket. The seller keeps it warm by setting a little crock pot filled with burning coals on top and occationally moves it around to keep from burning the rice, stirring the rice as he goes. It's served in a page torn from a magazine which is then rolled up like a waffle cone. Before giving it to you, he tops it with a handful of peanuts then shakes it to distribute the nuts evenly amongst the rice. I was surprised to find out it's spiced with chili since it doesn't look like it would be, so after I walked around for a while eating the rice, I bought a small cone topped (not filled) with soft-serve icecream for another Rs. 5. Soft-serve icecream seems to be pretty popular since it's sold in about twenty places around MG Road's shopping district. People are swarming about everywhere. I'm offered small chess boards and "real" designer watches from a variety of hucksters. A few small children are trying to get people to come to the edge of the walk to step onto the bathroom scales they have set out. I'm not sure what the deal is there -- I don't think they guess your weight, I think you just pay to step on it. They didn't seem to be drawing much business from the crowd. I walked into a bookstore and picked up a copy of "Let It Come Down" by Paul Bowles and "1984" by George Orwell. Classics seem to be popular with bookstores, as do random used technical books. "Who Moved My Cheese" (a book about outsourcing told as a kind of nursery rhyme) is on sale nearly everywhere, including by the book dealers who exhibit their books on the sidewalk or piled on the window sill of random buildings here and there.
The next impression is my walk to work in the morning. First, I stroll down the 17th F Main (the side street that the guest house is located on). Birds are chirping (strange, "jungle" sounding chips at times), people are out washing their cars and motorcycles with rags and little pails of water. They make frequent trips back to the faucet for water. I can hear my footsteps as I walk down the street. Occationally a vehicle comes past.
When I make my first corner, India crashed in like a thunderclap. Busses assault the air with diesel exhaust, horns blaring, they leave a cloud of dust in their wake. Rikshaws, motorcycles and cars dodge the larger vehicles and honk their horns. People, being the bottom of the vehicle food chain, get out of the way of the smaller motorized vehicles.
Women are bent over at the waist, swaying to and fro as they sweep the street and gutter with reed brooms. They make little piles of debris and leaves every few yards which are picked up by other women pushing flat-top carts carrying small, round garbage cans made from blue plastic.
Vendors push their flat-top carts around too, stacked with fruit or herbs or any other thing. Each has four bicycle wheels, make steering impossible save for picking up one end and rotating the cart about the opposite set of wheels. As the push their loads, the hoot and hail their products in a strange tongue. Hindi or Kannada, I can't tell the difference.
On my way I pass a few houses which are in various stages of renovation or construction. Piles of sand, loose stones, bricks and concrete blocks share the construction site with the semi-permanent housing for the laborers and their families. Bricks are almost always stamped with the initials of the manufacturer (I presume) on one face, imprinted about 1/4" deep. The temporary housing ranges from simple tents made out of blue tarps to more permanent brick construction with metal roofs. All the families cook their meals over open fires, burning twigs and wood and other things gathered from the neighborhood. Tiny children scurry about, playing with each other or just by themselves. Some are fully clothed, some are not, depending on the affluence of their parents. Occationally and old woman or young girl will walk by balancing a load of firewood on their heads. They carry wood, water, fruit, laundry -- almost anything perched up there. A rolled piece of fabric acts as a buffer for their head and a stabilizer for the load. Some of the older children also help their parents at the job site, presumably learning the trade of their parents to carry on the tradition. When they are digging or moving sand and dirt around, they tend to use a small hand shovel, about the size of a US Army entrenching tool. It has a handle about 18 inches long, with a flat slightly concave blade about 8 inches by 12 inches attached to one end. The blade point back against the handle, and angles away from it at maybe 30 to 45 degrees. It seems effective, if back breaking.
People honk their horns incessantly in traffic. Not really as an anger outlet (though that does happen, usually accompanied by shouting) but more as an announcement to the world of your presence. Especially when passing, the pess-er will honk repeatedly as they come upon and then overtake the pass-ee. People occationally get out of the way of the smaller vehicles, but it's just as common for them to make the motorcycle or car wait for you or move around you. People get out of the way of busses and the larger trucks, though, which are also less likely to move to accommodate you.
Sometimes people honk their horns in a feeble attempt to get stray cows to move. It's usually not effective. As everyone knows, the cow is sacred to Hindus, and with a majority of the population being Hindu, people leave the cows to go about their business. Even if their business is chewing on something in the middle of the road. Traffic on larger roads can come to a standstill while people wait for a cow to make its way across the road. I want to know if some of those cows really are strays. Some have signs of ownership like collars and noserings, but others appear to be completely on their own. They seem to wander at will, eating leftover fruit or garbage where ever it's to be found. The cows move for even less traffic than some people do -- but they definitely get out of the way of the busses and larger trucks. You can honk as much as you like at a cow it's just as likely to give you a dirty look as it is to actually get out of the street.
I've noticed another funny traffic habit, at least with rikshaw drivers. They put their hand out the side of the rikshaw, palm down, slowly patting the air. Sometimes the palm is slightly up, almost like they are trying to use The Force to stop traffic. It doesn't work very well. Intersection crossings and turns are often as much an exercise in collision avoidance as it is anything else. Two swarms of insects crossing paths, hoping that nobody collides. Traffic behavior is amazingly similar to schooling fish or swarming insects, actually. Unless there's an intersection, your main task is to just watch whatever is close to you and try to keep a balance of the distance between you and all your neighbors. It's amazingly effective, except, like I said, in the case of intersections. Traffic generally moves pretty slowly. Say maybe 30 mph or so. That's lucky since you may be mere inches away from your neighbors. Slightly faster and more maneuverable neighbors will sweep past the slower like snow sweeping around boulders caught in an avalanche.
In some cases, traffic moves with this jerking, halting lurches, motorcycle suspensions put to the test as the weight of rider and bike shifts from front to back to front every second or so. The rider inches forward, alternating full throttle with full brakes, each time advancing a few inches or sliding back a bit. It's very entertaining, at least from a distance. On the really large roads, like the "Ring Road" speeds can be much higher. Near 60 or 70 mph, at least for short distances of a mile or two. Traffic is more spread out except for the occational passing maneuver that can be extremely close. Bicycles (but rarely pedestrians) share the road even here, but stay well to the side. The bicycles here are what I usually imagine when I think of a "gentleman's bicycle" from the 1920's and 1930's. Full fenders on both wheels, a very upright rider posture and traditional handlebars. They even have full chain guards, presumably because of all the dust. Some have a rudimentary suspension on the front, and nearly all have a center stand which rotates down from the back along the rear axle instead of a kick stand. Many even have a bell (used as the horn is used, if perhaps less often) that makes the classic "brrrrrring brrrrrring" sound at the flick of the rider's thumb.
Two-wheelers, bicycles includes, are commonly multi-person vehicles. Bicycles are almost always limited to two people, but motorcycles, scooters and mopeds can hold as many as four. A family may commute on the family moped if they don't have a car (or two mopeds). Dad usually pilots with mom sitting behind him, sometimes riding side-saddle. One child rides on dad's lap and another on moms, or is cradled in her arms. On scooters, two small children sometimes stand on the platform in front of the rider, their heads peering out from just above the handlebars. You see the less powerful mopeds struggling to get up one side of a hill, faster traffic swerving to avoid them. Then on the downslope they speed up using gravity's extra pull on them to build momentum.
There seem to be two types of cows here. At least I've identified two that look different... I'm sure there's many different types. First is a more or less normal looking cow, except they are solid colors like brown, white and black as opposed to the classic black and white splotchy US cows. These are the ones I generally see milling around as strays or being herded in groups of four or five. The other type has a pair of horns growing out the top of their heads (not the sides), curving slightly together pointing away from the nose. Sometimes the horns are painted red or yellow and have bells attached to the ends. Every once in a while you see one that's really festooned with all kinds of bells and things. Usually in this case, the whole cow has all sorts of decorations and so does their master. These types of cow are also used to pull big carts hauling fruit or stacks of reeds or whatever.
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Much less cranky now after getting fully adjusted to the time difference, though I've had some persistent digestive problems (no need to go into great detail there) the last few days. Hopefully that's just me adjusting to the various new bacteria here. I havn't been going out of my way to drink only bottled water, since I figure I need to get adjusted to it sooner or later. Besides, not all the food or drinks (especially fruit juices) are going to be 100% clean here, so I may as well adjust. I'm writing this a bit late since it's hard to keep up with this thing. I find that I don't really bother to write things down when I'm thinking of them, so I'm going to try and carry a little pad of paper with me to jot down notes that I can expand on later. Also, I don't have net access at the guest house and I'm a bit worried about spending time writing in this thing at work -- I'm going to get a little USB drive so I can write on my other laptop at night and then just upload things here during the day.
This weekend I went for a few rides around on autorikshaws (I'll post a picture of one later -- imagine a three wheeled vehicle with room for two adults on a bench seat in the back, and a seat for a driver in front. Controls are similar to motorcycles, and there's a windshield and roof, but no doors) to various places around Bangalore. I visited the neighborhood where the new office will be (JP Nagar) to see what the situation is over there. I also went over to the intersection of MG Road and Brigade road, where there's a big shopping district.
I had been looking for a good book store for a few days, and found a half-descent one in that shopping district. A friend sent me this link which has a couple more in that area that I didn't find this weekend. That area has lots of small malls and shops and such, and some western chain restaurants (Pizza Hut and KFC) which I stayed away from. I picked up a copy of Fritjof Capra's The Hidden Connections which is a really fascinating book.
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
I took some pictures this morning... here's the road outside the guest house:
And these two are on the walk into the office:
Monday, February 02, 2004
My luggage arrived today! That's a very good thing. And it doesn't even look like anything was stolen. So, now I have all the things I'd meant to bring with me, including a GPS receiver. It says that the guest house I'm staying at is located at North 12 degrees, 56.353 and East 77 degrees, 37.397. Or pretty close to there anyway.
Water pressure. I could really use some. Really. The shower here effectively has no pressure at all - the water just barely dribbles out of the shower head. So that makes getting soap residue off something of an issue. I suppose that's why there's a bucket and ladel in the shower, but I really dislike those things. Can't say why, it just seems wrong to shower with a bucket every day.
Last night I crashed at about 6pm. I told myself I'd just rest a little, then I woke up at about 9pm (when the guys who work here called to tell me that Lufthansa called and my luggage would arrive in the morning). After a dazed converstion about my luggage, I went back to sleep and woke up again at about 3am, then went back to sleep and woke sometime in the morning around 8. The jet-lag seems to be fading now, so hopefully tomorrow will be a little more normal. Tonight I'm going to try and stay up to 9 or 10.
I have to say that the conditions here appear to be much worse than the other non-first-world countries I've been to. Not that I'm so fantastic world traveler, but conditions in Morocco and Brazil were far more modern. That includes some pretty small towns in Morocco. Garbage piles in vacant lots seem about the same here as in Morocco, but overall it seems dustier and less clean here. I can't quite vouch for the worst favelas in Brazil compared to here, but certainly this overall situation seems worse. Most of the streets I've seen are almost identical to the favelas I've seen there. Perhaps it's just that there's no real boundary between slums and regular housing. For instance, right next to the PlanetAsia.com office (a few blocks from the guest house) there are people living in tiny brick huts about 100 feet from the front door, burning all kinds of things in little stoves.
I've noticed that people stare at me like I've got lobster claws instead of arms. You'd think they've never seen a white person before or something. Or maybe they've never seen someone with large ear piercings or something, but they arn't that large, so I don't see what the problem is. In any case, it's a little unnderving that their eyes follow me, then avert quickly when I make eye contact. Oh well. At least they don't seem to be following me around waiting for a good time to commit a robbery.
Tomorrow I'm going to have to actually go to work for the first time in a week or so. I've been meeting daily with people from work since I arrived, but it's been informal lunches and things like that, so not "real work" - though I think that real work won't start for a while. First we'll need to do interviews, etc. But I'll be in an office most of the day tomorrow at any rate.
Sunday, February 01, 2004
So, after a marathon of packing all my belongings into a storage container in Ft. Collins and then two nine-hour flights, I've arrived in Bangalore, India. It's a little humid and somewhat hot. Packing everything into a storage locker is a pretty strange experience in itself. I wish I'd been able to get rid of my car, but I didn't have time. As it is, I didn't have time to really pack everything so I ended up leaving a number of things behind in my apartment.
I just barely made my connection in Frankfurt yesterday. If everything had gone as planned, I would have had 45 minutes of layover there, but we took off 20 minutes late from Denver and had some delays in-air, including what appeared to be a landing delay that sent us east of Frankfurt by about 50 miles or so. Anyway, by the time we landed and I made my way from the 51st row of the 747 to the exit, I had about a minute to get to the gate for the flight to Bangalore. Amazingly enough, I actually made the flight, but my luggage didn't. It should arrive on tonight's flight and be delivered sometime in the middle of the night. Hopefully, anyway. Otherwise I'm going to need to buy some new clothes since the set I'm wearing are getting pretty ripe at this point.
Back to last night. After negotiating customs in India (no problem there), I confirmed that my bags didn't make it with me. No real surprise there. I doubt that even German Efficiency could have transfered my bags in time. So, after that I found a cab to get me to the Guest House. The cab was a small van - top speed approximately 25mph. We wandered around Koramangala for a while trying to find "17th F Main" in "6th Block" where the Guest House is located. Along the way, we passed a number of cows sitting on the side of the road and many, many stray dogs milling around everywhere. The thing I remember most is that when idling, the engine in the van would stall out then come back to life about once every second or so -- jerking and rocking the whole van as it went. Lights dim then come back up, giving the scene some nice lighting. It's strangely hypnotic after you've been stuck in an aluminum can for 18 hours hurtling through the air at 570 mph.
At this point, I'm pretty tired. A 12.5 hour time difference is hard to get over in a day. The clock says 4pm now, by my body is saying 3:30am. Very loudly. Repeatedly. OK, so make that extremely tired. I was able to sleep on the Denver to Frankfurt flight with the aid of some Sominex, then I didn't sleep at all on the Frankfurt to Bangalore flight, and only had about two hours of sleep after arriving in Bangalore.
My first impressions of India are:
- Power failures daily
- Sprawl everywhere. I keep thinking there should be some kind of city center or something. Apparently there is, but it's not around here. So-far Koramangala (the "most fun" part of Bangalore) is pretty dull.
- Lots of random traffic everywhere
- Who has a 12.5 hour time difference? Not 11, not 12. 12 and 1/2 hours.
- People drive on the "wrong" side of the road here
- There are no sidewalks, just dirt
- It smells like burning. Kinda like a mix between diesel fuel and burning trash.
- I think I'm cranky from jet-lag
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
I picked up a video camera this weekend. After reading reviews online and talking to some friends that have one, I settled on a Canon Elura 50. Not too high-end so the price isn't insane, but it's tiny (2 x 4.4 x 3.5 inches) and shares the same battery with my still camera (a Canon S50). I should be able to shoot video, transfer it to my laptop via firewire and burn SVCDs or DVDs to send back home.
Also picked up a big "TravelPro Crew4" rolling suitecase. I've always used a carry-on, but since I need to take a bunch more junk I went for the (much) larger suitcase.
Thursday, January 08, 2004
Went to see my doctor today about a sore throat. I don't want to take any chances now that I'm three weeks away from leaving. He also recomended getting a meningitis vaccination, which I didn't even know existed. His guidebook said that if you're going to be in Delhi it's a good idea, so I went ahead and got it ($81 - ouch).
Monday, January 05, 2004
I'm trying to figure out how I should write in this blog thing. I've never been a diarist before, but I think it could be a good experience and (obviously) a good record of my time in India. Simply recounting what happen each day or week seems like a very dry way to go about things. I think I might try and write them short-story-style or something like that.
It still hasn't quite sunk in that I'm moving. I seem to be in this sort-of twilight zone where I know I've got to pack everything up and move, but I don't quite know how to go about it, or at least how to start going about it.
This is a really good opportunity to start things over. If I can get rid of my car I'll be totally debt-free, and with my stuff mostly in storage I'll be almost completely free of the bonds that come with having a bunch of junk to tote around with me. I just hope I can really take advantage of this time.
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Time to start making some lists of things to bring...
- GPS with basic world-map and extra batteries
- World-band radio and batteries (?)
- Portable water purification pump
- Regional (paper) map with GPS coordinates
- India road atlas
- India rail atlas
And places to see:
- Sri Pada, Sri Lanka
- Sarnath, India
- Agra, India
- The Ganges River
I went in for my first round of vaccinations today. The CDC has a list of vaccinations to get, and the WHO has a general site on India's health situation.
Here's what I got this morning:
- Hepatitis A, first in a two-dose series (part two in six months)
- Hepatitis B, first in a three-dose series (part two in a month, part three in six months)
- Tetanus & Diptheria (TD)
- Polio (IPV)
- Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR)
- Oral Typhoid (four pills taken every other day)
- Yellow Fever
The grand total was $275 at the Denver Health Travel Immunization Clinic here in Denver. Not too bad I guess - most were $35 or $40, except Yellow Fever which is $75.
Strictly speaking, I didn't need the Yellow Fever vaccination. I've been to Brazil recently, though, and since Brazil is a "red flag" country for Yellow Fever, I didn't want to get stuck in quarantine by some overzealous immigration agent when I arrive in India. I've certainly had the Polio, MMR and TD vaccines before but now I have a nice World Health Organization vaccination card that says it.
I need to go back the day before my flight to get the second Hepatitis B shot, then I'll have to finish that and the Hepatitis A series while I'm in India.
Note: I added this information to my travel vaccinations wiki page.
Saturday, December 27, 2003
January 29, 2004. That's the day of my flight. This has moved really quickly from "hey, how about moving to India in 2004?" to "you have just about a month left here". Whew. There are sooooo many things I need to do to prepare for this. I need to put a bunch of things into storage, hopefully get rid of my car, terminate the lease on my apartment, get a bunch of vaccinations, have some going away parties. Heh. Busy busy busy.
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Well, I found out today that the long-term India trip is definately going to happen. I'll probably be leaving early- or mid- february of 2004.
Basically, I'll be going over to help open a software development office for the company I work for (StorePerform Technologies, Inc.). I'll be doing interviewing, developer training and mentoring, dev work, etc, etc. And probably a million other things that come up. It should be really cool.
Besides, I must jump at a chance to live in India for a year. There's so many places I'd like to go while I'm over there, too. Sri Lanka, tons of places in India, Nepal and Tibet, the list goes on and on. Plus WRC Rally Cyprus, Acropolis Rally, and Rally Turkey are going to be running in May and June next year and they aren't that far from India. Rally Turkey is new, too, so there should be some great racing.
