Images of India (part II)

This was the entrance to our hotel room. Ryan in the photo is about as tall as me, and just around the corner was a step up, further lowering the ceiling.

This is Crawford Market in Mumbai. Very chaotic, but a really cool experience. Many of the actual roadways in India look like this, execpt with cars and scooters in the middle.

The sign says it all. Yeah, I'm a rebel.

This was in front of the police headquarters too. You can't see it, but behind Edwin is an armed MP behind a barricade of sandbags at the entrance. And I love the look that that guy is giving me on the right.


These are some of the students we met at the college during our project trip. They guy with glasses is Ko, one of my fellow interns.

This is the Taj hotel, one of the locations attacked by terrorists last November. I believe they are still renovating some floors, and the security was huge.

To the opposite side of the Taj is the Gate of India. This was constructed for the arrival of King George in 1911. It actually wasn;t finished, so the just threw up some painted cardboard when he arrived. They later really finished it in 1914.

A sunset at our project site. I only wish those power lines were gone.

The most gigantic grasshopper in the world. fyi

This was the vehicle we drove around in in Tamil Nadu. The Tata Magic. Note the size and suspension on the wheels... :)

This is me in Chennai. That is the Bay of Bengal behind me.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Well, I'm back! and it seems like I rode almost every form of transportation known to man besides boats and animals. Overall, the project trip was spectacular, but the constant travel really wore me out. Its nice to be back in Mussoorie.

The Indian train system is a marvel in and of itself. It is the single largest company in the world, employing more people than the country of Australia. We mostly traveled in sleeper class, where there would be two bunks on one side of the aisle parallel, and two rows of three bunks on the other side (perpendicular to the aisle). By day these would fold down into seats. The accommodations are fairly comfortable, but it takes a night or two to get accostomed to sleeping in the bunks. Every hour of the day there are chai-wallahs and other poeple trying to sell wares, walking up and down the aisles yelling out their product. Occasionally you will get beggars gently pulling at your elbows and knees, or eunichs/transvestites clapping at you for a hand out. Hinduism is quite superstitious, and it is believed that curses or blessings from eunichs/transvestites are especially potent, so people try to appease them with money. There isn't much to do besides sleep, eat, read, or look at the scenery. So far I've finished three books and I'm on the verge of finishing two more.

Mumbai was a very interesting city with a bunch of attractions. Unfortunately, the internet is refusing to work with pictures so I can't upload any visual aids. We stayed in a backpacker's hotel and had a few days to walk around the city. I've often said in the past (probably to many of you) that I couldn't cut it as a backpacker. Well, Mumbai changed that. After India, backpacking in Europe would be a breeze (except for the fact that its about 20 times more expensive...).

The weather was much hotter in the plains of central India where the first project was. It was still quite dry though, so that made it more comfortable. Most of my time was spent out surveying the site, or examining the buildings for water and waste issues. The students were very friendly, and we were welcomed with garlands of flowers that smelled wonderfully. I wish that I could have pressed it and taken the whole thing back with me. A great example of Indian hospitality is that the college actually brought in a western-trained chef to cook for us, and he was incredible! We didn't just eat western food though, he also made some great local specialties, and there was delicious fresh papaya almost daily. The internet place is closing so I'm skipping ahead...

The second project was farther south, and little bit hotter. The people of Tmail Nadu are much darker than those in the north. The diet was mostly rice based as well, with very little wheat available. My favorite dish was these little rice cakes called uti (I think) that you would eat with a dal (like a lentil stew, very common all over India) and a coconut chutney (which was a bit spicy and totally amazing). This project was one that EMI has been working with for some time, and many of the buildings have already been constructed. We were only visiting to consult on some problems that had arrisen. After this, we spent a short day in Chennai and flew back to Delhi. There wasn't much time to sightsee in Chennai, but we did get to go to the beach and take pictures of the Bay of Bengal. And, I can say that I was at both sides of the Indian Ocean in the same week.

Now I have another month (at least) back in Mussoorie to start finalising the project reports. I'm looking forward to this time in one place. I know feel much more comfortable in India having been here awhile and seen a lot, so I hope to get more intimately acpauinted around town. My thanks again to all of your kind thoughts and birthday wishes; its always a pleasure to hear from my friends and family. Take care and God bless!

Last one for a while...

Well, I washed my clothes by hand for the first time yesterday, and what a chore it was! We only had these 40 liter buckets to work with (the same ones we use to bathe with) and made the mistake of doing our laundry all together at the same time. I also used too much soap and had to rinse out my clothes 3 or 4 times before the soap was diluted enough to hang to dry. This consisted of plunging the soapy clothes in and out of a bucket of fresh water until the water was too soapy to continue, wringing out my clothes (again by hand) and then fill the bucket with more water and repeat. The clothes are still hanging outside now because they weren’t completely dry this morning. I think the whole process took me about three or four hours.

We haven’t really sunk into a daily routine, since orientation ended last Wednesday and tonight we leave for Mumbai on our project trips, but we always have a daily devotional at the office around 8:30. We have lunch at 12:30 and chai at 3, and dinner at around 6:30. After dinner, the interns and Ryan head back to Tiperary where we usually play games or cards. By the way, they do have Settlers and Risk here! After we come back from our project trips, we will get involved with local ministries and churches.

On Saturday we took a hike to Bare Hill, which was only about 40 minutes. We saw our first rhododendron tree in bloom. As the weather warms, we’ll be able to see more and more red scattered through the hills as the rest of the trees open up. There is a lot of flora and fauna here, which can actually be a nuisance at times. Monkeys are everywhere, and while I haven’t had a run-in yet, they have certainly woken me up once or twice in the orning. The one pictured is a grey languor, there are also brownish rhesus monkeys as well. In addition to the monkeys, there is everything from leopards (very unlikely that I will ever see one, but we got a great picture of Oopi inspecting some fresh droppings!), flying foxes, tons of birds, weird cat-like things, scorpions, and spiders the size of your hand. However, we’ve only seen monkeys, birds, and some medium sized spiders.

As my birthday is tomorrow and we’ll be spending the entire day on a train headed to Mumbai, we had a small birthday celebration during chai today. Everyone is looking forward to the project trips, and the chance to see more of India. I would love to keep you updated in a timely fashion, but it’s unlikely that I’ll have any e-mail access for at least two weeks. So I will

leave you here and look forward to the chance to tell you more about India. And if there is anything you want to hear more about, or if you’re curious about something specific please let me know and I’ll write about it. Thanks and take care!

This is Corin, the Nepali-Chinese-Canadian-Indian son of our friends Bogut and Evey, wearing his Chinese New Year outfit. This kid is the essence of adorability and might possibly give my cousins a run for their money.