I have seen a dead rat and a dead goat - both of which might well have died of old age - and one car accident that looked kind of ugly but other than that we haven't seen any accidents. This is truly amazing given the way transportation is functioning (or not) here. Those who have traveled to Asian and probably a few other places around the world as well know this all to well but for those who haven't see it I'll try and describe it. Picture Boston (well-know for its aggressive drivers in the US, in Germany pretty much any town, village, city, hamlet will do everybody drives aggressively) on a full-moon and the daily newspaper featuring a front page article saying something like: "No traffic fines today!" with a subheader reading "Police encourages drivers to test the limits of their skills and vows not to impose any traffic fines until midnight", then repalce about 50% of the cars by three-wheelers and motorcycles but confiscate about 80% of all helmets and tell the drivers that it is their foremost responsibility to get from A to B quickly regardless of the consequences. Encourage pedestrians to walk on the roads maybe by promising cash prices for the most reckless behaviour and let a bunch of hungry animals loose. There you have it - traffic in India.
The difference is: there would be dead people and car wrecks lining the streets of Boston and Anytown, Germany but here - with this one exception - on a steep road in the mountains - we haven't seen as much as a fender-bender. If I wasn't such a staunch Darwinist I'd almost feel inclined to propose some kind of Lamarckism at work here - an old theory which postulated that learned behaviour is passed on to the next generation in some hard-wired fashion.
For the rickshaw drivers it is a badge of honor to drive on the wrong side of the road (whatever that might be in India) and try and squeeze through the tiniest openings between a cement truck and an overloaded bus with school kids from the province. Motorcycles generally hold up to 4 person families: older kid on the gas tank, helping daddy - right behind him/her - steer, then, in a position reminiscent of how the ladies rode their horses in Victorian England, the wife - in saree, sans helmet - holding the baby sort of casually with one arm and a weeks worth of groceries in the other. As the groceries seem to contain ice cream or some other quickly perishing item the motorcycles by and large drive furthest on the wrong side of the street, passing a rickshaw that is passing a car which is passing a bus or cement truck. What must save the pedestrians - at least the women - are their bright sarees. the many shades of orange, pink, red and purple are seen from afar and since - generally - the goal of this whole exercise is not to kill people, motorized vehicles will swerve at the last split second to avoid the pedestrian. Don't know how the men survive, I guess generally they drive.
Then there are the boats or ferries. Every time we enter one to make or trip to Old Kochi and Matanchery Ican't help but think of headlines I have read in the past along the lines of "Ferry sinks in Indonesia - 483 dead" only that in my head it is "Kerala" not "Indonesia". An alternative possible headline - more for the local newspapers would be "Blonde blue-eyed baby boy drowned after stumbling over railing on ferry". I never enter one without immediately checking for the life saver and I sit ready to snatch one at the slightest sign of trouble and stuff the so called "baby boy" in. Alternatively, of course, he could be mauled to death by the ferries engine which is completely exposed with sort of a railing around - or at least part of the way. You could drive a tank through the gap and for a little engineer it is very very tempting to take a very close look at all those moving parts.
Other than that, transportation has been good so far. The planes were very clean, new and on time - always appreciated by a German. Our drivers were okay, the one who drove us from Munnar to Ernakulam would just need to learn that, when passing and trying to accelerate one ideally shouldn't go 30 km/h in 5th gear but other than that - no problem. We are planning a trip to Varkala in the south, probably by train, next week (even Indians admit that the roads are somewhat in disrepair and so it might be more comfortable to take the train) so stay tuned for reports about transportation by train - or at least transportation by luxury train for foreigners as I am so done with the romantic notion that I have to experience life like the poor in India experience it.
Completely unrelated but sort of interesting - I find - is how the local language (Mayalam and in the more eastern parts also Tamil) get mixed with English. Numbers, business and financial terms seem to only exist in English and so the typical conversation between two Mayalam speakers will sound something like "mayalammayalammayalammayalam fifteen percent discount mayalammayalam corporate rate mayalammayalammayalammayalam threethousand rupees mayalammayalammayalam twentythird February mayalammayalammayalam credit card.
My Mayalam efforts are stuck with Noonie - thank you - although a teacher from the province and about 30 of his pupils - after they were done fussing over Max who was hiding - tried to teach me the basics such as their favorite "what is your good name?" and "where is your house?' It's useless. I can't remember it. I'll learn French before Mayalam and that's saying a lot - my old classmates from high-school will be able to attest to my age old war with the French language and my undying contempt for any effort to teach it to me in any shape or form.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Unfinished Jobs
The “Unternet” – as Max calls it – is down so this blog will be posted with a delay. It’s amazing we even have Internet connection at all. The day we moved in here they were putting the wires in which basically meant that two guys showed up went on one of the balconies, pulled in a wire that came from above, started drilling holes where they saw fit and disappeared again. It has been working, slowly and intermittently ever since but, hey, it’s been working. The power outage today must have done it in, though, and I just hope that there are more people in this building who miss internet access as much as we do and will call – whomever – and get it fixed – eventually.
The whole city/state seems to be filled with these half-done jobs or jobs that were once done and then promptly fell into disrepair. A bit of history: Kerala was once, actually twice, but that would be going into too much detail, ruled by a communist government. Whatever negative things one might want or has to say about the communists, they are generally good at achieving better conditions for the poor. That is exactly what one can see in Kerala where literacy is higher than in the rest of India, life expectancy is at US levels and child mortality way below what one would expect from a Third World country. Land reform has improved the lot of the small farmers and despite what I wrote about the latent sexism yesterday the female to male birth ratio is about what one would statistically expect - unlike in much of the rest of India where still suspiciously few girls are born (or making it through the first few days/weeks of their life). After a period of stagnation Kerala has started to prosper again beginning earlier this decade and the developing middle class is doing rather well (and so does the “average” citizen – whatever that might mean for the “real “citizen”). It seems a large number of projects where undertaken at sometime in the not so distant past with lots of enthusiasm but then sort of quietly fell by the wayside and in disrepair.
Like the Childrens’ Amusement Park we went to today. Located right by the waterfront it takes up excellent real estate next to the main Ferry Jetty to Old Kochi (itself a modern building somewhere between one half and two-thirds finished with no signs of continuing work). The entrance fee is 10 rupees for adults, 5 for kids. Not dirt cheap but affordable for local families. It was planned real nicely: little cars with pedals, streets and street signs for traffic education, a small pond with little boats to paddle around in, a large number of climbing structures, slides, seesaws etc. – everything is almost but not quite falling apart. The pond is but a smelly, brown, brackish liquid with an oily film on top, the jump house lies deflated in a pile, most of the cars have some part or another missing, and the associated “Renewable Energy Park” has sun collectors that power nothing and is reminiscent of a ghost town. We were the only ones venturing there and only because we seemingly where the only ones who didn’t know any better. Somebody built it with the best of intentions but whoever is responsible for the upkeep apparently has not seen the need to budgeted for an ongoing maintenance allowance. Whatever money they make through the admission seems to be spend on three people sitting in the ticket booth selling you entry tickets, plus two more opening and closing the gate plus another three selling the (additional) boat tickets plus the guy who pushes the boat into the pond once the guests have embarked.
We saw similar efforts in other places. Munnar had a really nice park with flowers along the river – the bridge to the gazebo in the middle of the pond was – you guessed it – broken and the climbing structures for the kids where dangerous - and by that I don’t mean dangerous in the American sense where, if you jump head first off a structure you can’t possible harm yourself too badly.
We saw plenty of signs advertising a “Green Kerala” reminding people to keep Kerala clean and not to litter. Good luck with that – not a trash can in sight anywhere and everybody merrily tossing their trash everywhere (we were stared at for reclaiming the wrappers of the cookie we shared with the tea pluckers and putting them back into our backpack). So you’ll have the Do not Litter sign right next to a pile of plastic bottles, ice cream wrappers, chips bags, coke cans and worse.
For me, having grown up in Germany at a time where the Green Party was all the rage and we were spoon-fed the importance of environmental conservation starting as small kids it is painful and at times - I have to admit - completely incomprehensible how people can treat their environs with such utter disrespect. I have to remind myself over and over again when I see grown-ups unwrapping their ice cream and just throwing the paper on the ground wherever they are not to yell at them or call them names – something I would probably do in Germany (and to some extend in the US) and wouldn’t be alone in doing so. I have seen the same thing in China 20 years ago, in Southeast Asia 10 years ago and somehow I had hoped by now everybody who lives under conditions advanced enough to be using plastic bags in absurd numbers to have understood that they won’t just go away or disappear or biodegrade. (I don’t want to give the impression that this is an Asian problem, Mexico is full of trash and I have occasionally fantasized about being part of an Anti-Litter-Squad on Kauai where we would lie camouflaged in the greenery waiting for idiots throwing their Dr. Pepper bottles down the waterfalls and fine them the maximum allowed amount of $1000 – each, for every bottle). The term I have heard recently was ”photo-degrade” which basically means nothing other than: they break down in smaller and smaller pieces so eventually one doesn’t see them anymore but the plastic material itself will not “go away”.
I could go on ranting, but enough already. Hopefully on an more upeat note tomorrow.
The whole city/state seems to be filled with these half-done jobs or jobs that were once done and then promptly fell into disrepair. A bit of history: Kerala was once, actually twice, but that would be going into too much detail, ruled by a communist government. Whatever negative things one might want or has to say about the communists, they are generally good at achieving better conditions for the poor. That is exactly what one can see in Kerala where literacy is higher than in the rest of India, life expectancy is at US levels and child mortality way below what one would expect from a Third World country. Land reform has improved the lot of the small farmers and despite what I wrote about the latent sexism yesterday the female to male birth ratio is about what one would statistically expect - unlike in much of the rest of India where still suspiciously few girls are born (or making it through the first few days/weeks of their life). After a period of stagnation Kerala has started to prosper again beginning earlier this decade and the developing middle class is doing rather well (and so does the “average” citizen – whatever that might mean for the “real “citizen”). It seems a large number of projects where undertaken at sometime in the not so distant past with lots of enthusiasm but then sort of quietly fell by the wayside and in disrepair.
Like the Childrens’ Amusement Park we went to today. Located right by the waterfront it takes up excellent real estate next to the main Ferry Jetty to Old Kochi (itself a modern building somewhere between one half and two-thirds finished with no signs of continuing work). The entrance fee is 10 rupees for adults, 5 for kids. Not dirt cheap but affordable for local families. It was planned real nicely: little cars with pedals, streets and street signs for traffic education, a small pond with little boats to paddle around in, a large number of climbing structures, slides, seesaws etc. – everything is almost but not quite falling apart. The pond is but a smelly, brown, brackish liquid with an oily film on top, the jump house lies deflated in a pile, most of the cars have some part or another missing, and the associated “Renewable Energy Park” has sun collectors that power nothing and is reminiscent of a ghost town. We were the only ones venturing there and only because we seemingly where the only ones who didn’t know any better. Somebody built it with the best of intentions but whoever is responsible for the upkeep apparently has not seen the need to budgeted for an ongoing maintenance allowance. Whatever money they make through the admission seems to be spend on three people sitting in the ticket booth selling you entry tickets, plus two more opening and closing the gate plus another three selling the (additional) boat tickets plus the guy who pushes the boat into the pond once the guests have embarked.
We saw similar efforts in other places. Munnar had a really nice park with flowers along the river – the bridge to the gazebo in the middle of the pond was – you guessed it – broken and the climbing structures for the kids where dangerous - and by that I don’t mean dangerous in the American sense where, if you jump head first off a structure you can’t possible harm yourself too badly.
We saw plenty of signs advertising a “Green Kerala” reminding people to keep Kerala clean and not to litter. Good luck with that – not a trash can in sight anywhere and everybody merrily tossing their trash everywhere (we were stared at for reclaiming the wrappers of the cookie we shared with the tea pluckers and putting them back into our backpack). So you’ll have the Do not Litter sign right next to a pile of plastic bottles, ice cream wrappers, chips bags, coke cans and worse.
For me, having grown up in Germany at a time where the Green Party was all the rage and we were spoon-fed the importance of environmental conservation starting as small kids it is painful and at times - I have to admit - completely incomprehensible how people can treat their environs with such utter disrespect. I have to remind myself over and over again when I see grown-ups unwrapping their ice cream and just throwing the paper on the ground wherever they are not to yell at them or call them names – something I would probably do in Germany (and to some extend in the US) and wouldn’t be alone in doing so. I have seen the same thing in China 20 years ago, in Southeast Asia 10 years ago and somehow I had hoped by now everybody who lives under conditions advanced enough to be using plastic bags in absurd numbers to have understood that they won’t just go away or disappear or biodegrade. (I don’t want to give the impression that this is an Asian problem, Mexico is full of trash and I have occasionally fantasized about being part of an Anti-Litter-Squad on Kauai where we would lie camouflaged in the greenery waiting for idiots throwing their Dr. Pepper bottles down the waterfalls and fine them the maximum allowed amount of $1000 – each, for every bottle). The term I have heard recently was ”photo-degrade” which basically means nothing other than: they break down in smaller and smaller pieces so eventually one doesn’t see them anymore but the plastic material itself will not “go away”.
I could go on ranting, but enough already. Hopefully on an more upeat note tomorrow.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
I have a maid/housekeeper
and no idea what to do with her. It sounded like a good idea back in Sunnyvale when I agreed to the arrangement. She's been the landlady's housekeeper for an eternity or two, has even stayed with her in London for 4 years and sort of came with the house. Who am I to turn down the offer for help that comes at 300 Rupees per day, that is about $7.50, if that might support a person or more. So she came this morning and I had to quickly run up the stairs and talk to the parents of the cousin of the landlady and ask them kind of sheepishly "what do I do with her? What kind of work can I ask her to do?" Roshni, as her name is, speaks just enough English to constantly misunderstand you and so I jumped head first into the first problem by asking her whether she will do shopping and she explained to me, sort of, that the watchman does the shopping. You "just" give him the list and he will take care of it. As it turns out there was a little problem with this arrangement: the watchman does not speak or read English and my Mayalam is still woefully inadequate. Wanting to avoid another faux-pas like that seemed like a good idea. It so easy to get it wrong, here I am thinking that shopping is the cool part as opposed to washing the laundry (by hand, the washing machine was out) or sweeping the floors but that doesn't seem to hold true here. We eventally settled the issue: she sweeped, washed some clothing, washed dishes, went shopping and prepared lunch for us. The laundry is done, we have enough food for another day or so - so what do I do with her tomorrow? It might be hard for rich/privileged Indians when they move to the US to make due without all those servants,maids, housekeepers, drivers and gardeners they are used to but it ain't easy to get used to having them either when you grew up strictly according to the motto: "wash your own damn dishes".
Another thing that takes some getting used to - in fact I just might not get used to it at all - is the role, or lack thereof I seem to play here as a woman. It does not amount to overt discrimination or sexism but its the small things that are harder to pin down that I am just not used to from either Europe nor the US. Like I ask somebody a question "Excuse me, where is the next ATM?" and the person will almost always direct his answer at Uli "Sir,if you just turn right there and take a rickshaw you'll see one after 2 kilometers". When we sit down to dinner in a restaurant Uli is almost always asked soemthing like "How are you today, Sir" I can't remember that anyone ever inquired into my well-being so far, maybe Max's but me - nope. Since I probably won't change India or even Kerala within the next couple of weeks by making scenes I decide to just zip it and am trying not to get upset or offended. The advantage I derive is that I don't have to ask directions anymore (normally Uli's argument will be "you go ask for directions, you are so much better at it!" - fake smile). Now I just say: "No, you go because I won't get an answer anyway so why bother!" (triumphant smile)
Today we went into "Old Kochi" which involved the inevitable rickshaw ride and a ferry ride across some brown liquid that might, at some point, have been water. Kochi seems to have a reasonably busy port and so there were things to see along the way. Old Kochi is actually a very nice, fairly small, rather quiet town situated on the tip of a peninsula. It was nothing like I expected it to be but honestly, I have no idea were my preconceived notions came from. I read about Kochi in travel guides, read about the Fort etc and pictured in my minds eye narrow streets with huge, dark old buildings all very stern and such. In reality the streets are narrow and the buildings are old but they aren't tall and so the whole thing has more the feeling of a pleasant small town somewhere in the countryside. It is geared heavily towards the British a
nd French tourists, which are out in force, with plenty of Internet Cafes, handicraft stores, beauty parlors (no men) and the ubiquitous Coke-chips-cookies-lottery tickets-lentils by the kilo (the latter two for the locals, I presume) stores. We looked at the famous Chinese fishing nets which are sort of neat but I won't even try to explain how they look, I'll try to upload a picture later, a pictures is worth 1000 ....
The handicraft peddlers got a little out of control at some point because I actually, stupidly stopped and bought something from one. They must have a secret system of letting the sellers of non-competitive products know that there is a willing victim. Anyway, I bought some stuff, it wasn't expensive, not much harm done and somebody will be lucky enough to get a piece of silk with an elephant family painted on it as a souvenir. That might ruin a perfectly great friendship but there are always the not so favorite aunts that could be on the receiving end of this purchase. There was wonderful silk and beautiful sarees - but truly, how many sarees does a non-Indian, even one living in Silicon Valley, really need. I am afraid the answer is one and I already have three and am planning on another visit to famous Jayalakshmi (Slogan: "Silk Sarees, Embroidered Sarees, Wedding Sarees, Fancy Sarees") and the other fancy saree shop right next to it. If this pattern continues we'll have to buy an apartment for me to decorate here. Uli, incidentally found out that a new three bedroom in a fancy high-rise can be had for just under $50K. But now, that's just crazy talk ....
Btw, some pictures are up at: http://bbettina1.googlepages.com/india
Another thing that takes some getting used to - in fact I just might not get used to it at all - is the role, or lack thereof I seem to play here as a woman. It does not amount to overt discrimination or sexism but its the small things that are harder to pin down that I am just not used to from either Europe nor the US. Like I ask somebody a question "Excuse me, where is the next ATM?" and the person will almost always direct his answer at Uli "Sir,if you just turn right there and take a rickshaw you'll see one after 2 kilometers". When we sit down to dinner in a restaurant Uli is almost always asked soemthing like "How are you today, Sir" I can't remember that anyone ever inquired into my well-being so far, maybe Max's but me - nope. Since I probably won't change India or even Kerala within the next couple of weeks by making scenes I decide to just zip it and am trying not to get upset or offended. The advantage I derive is that I don't have to ask directions anymore (normally Uli's argument will be "you go ask for directions, you are so much better at it!" - fake smile). Now I just say: "No, you go because I won't get an answer anyway so why bother!" (triumphant smile)
Today we went into "Old Kochi" which involved the inevitable rickshaw ride and a ferry ride across some brown liquid that might, at some point, have been water. Kochi seems to have a reasonably busy port and so there were things to see along the way. Old Kochi is actually a very nice, fairly small, rather quiet town situated on the tip of a peninsula. It was nothing like I expected it to be but honestly, I have no idea were my preconceived notions came from. I read about Kochi in travel guides, read about the Fort etc and pictured in my minds eye narrow streets with huge, dark old buildings all very stern and such. In reality the streets are narrow and the buildings are old but they aren't tall and so the whole thing has more the feeling of a pleasant small town somewhere in the countryside. It is geared heavily towards the British a
nd French tourists, which are out in force, with plenty of Internet Cafes, handicraft stores, beauty parlors (no men) and the ubiquitous Coke-chips-cookies-lottery tickets-lentils by the kilo (the latter two for the locals, I presume) stores. We looked at the famous Chinese fishing nets which are sort of neat but I won't even try to explain how they look, I'll try to upload a picture later, a pictures is worth 1000 ....The handicraft peddlers got a little out of control at some point because I actually, stupidly stopped and bought something from one. They must have a secret system of letting the sellers of non-competitive products know that there is a willing victim. Anyway, I bought some stuff, it wasn't expensive, not much harm done and somebody will be lucky enough to get a piece of silk with an elephant family painted on it as a souvenir. That might ruin a perfectly great friendship but there are always the not so favorite aunts that could be on the receiving end of this purchase. There was wonderful silk and beautiful sarees - but truly, how many sarees does a non-Indian, even one living in Silicon Valley, really need. I am afraid the answer is one and I already have three and am planning on another visit to famous Jayalakshmi (Slogan: "Silk Sarees, Embroidered Sarees, Wedding Sarees, Fancy Sarees") and the other fancy saree shop right next to it. If this pattern continues we'll have to buy an apartment for me to decorate here. Uli, incidentally found out that a new three bedroom in a fancy high-rise can be had for just under $50K. But now, that's just crazy talk ....
Btw, some pictures are up at: http://bbettina1.googlepages.com/india
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Getting Used to India
We are back in Kochi and in our permanent apartment. It is much nicer than the one before which really was a dark, damp, smelly, mosquito-infested dump (am I being blunt?). More over we are well-rested and no longer jet-lagged which helps a lot. Sitting up at 2:30 am in a smelly apartment, with about 28 degrees Celsius and counting both the mosquito bites and the dead mosquitoes in the hundreds wasn’t much fun. This apartment is airier and lighter, the kitchen is actually useable, the dishes not crusted with some greasy substance and so far we haven’t seen a single mosquito. Max is sleeping – bliss, with one word.
Maybe we are also getting somewhat used to India. I don’t want to use the overused “culture shock” expression but it takes some getting used to India, the smells, the dirt, the heat, the poverty one is surrounded with, the traffic, and, well, the bathrooms. The pleasant climate and nice hotel in Munnar helped ease us into the India experience somewhat. We took a last little hike through the tea plantation this morning and were trying to avoid the large group of tea pluckers around the corner as Max had already, in no uncertain terms, declared that he for one wasn’t into being hugged and petted by a bunch of strangers and no cooperation was to be expected. They found us anyway climbing around one of the big rocks strewn around the tea hills and before I could do so much as say hello one of them had picked up Max was galloping down the steep hill with him in her cheapo flip-flops towards her co-workers. I always thought that I am a reasonably all-terrain kind of gal but I certainly couldn’t keep up with her. Max enjoyed the “ride” down the hill but not so much the inevitable attention he got afterwards. Suffice it to say it was another of those hasty, embarrassed retreats. I just haven’t figured out how to make a child who doesn’t want to smile and wave smile and wave – any advice is highly appreciated.
Around noon we said good-bye to the friendly staff at the Copper Castle. We were most likely the only tourists who stayed for five nights in the history of the hotel judging from the number of British and French travel groups and Indian families we have seen come and go during that period. On the way down everything seemed less daunting as it was when we drove up – definitely getting used to India.
I mentioned the fact that Kerala is very conservative and therefore an almost “dry” state before. We, European drunkards that we are, began phantasizing about Gin ’n Tonics, wine, rum and coke, beer – anything short of after-shave and eventually made our way to the official liquor store twice in Munnar and today in Kochi. I have to say, I never felt quite as ostracized and “dirty” before buying booze. It is an exclusively male undertaking and it’s not the elite of mankind lining up in the dingy liquor stores. One feels inferior, like publicly admitting to a very major short-coming, in short, it’s a shameful act. Once it is over and the purchases are chilled, though, I have to admit: never has a Kingfisher beer straight from a magnum bottle tasted so good. But after these experiences I understand better why the waiters at Copper Castle made a habit out of presenting us our bottle of chilled water like it was some expensive French wine – complete with a white towel to wrap it and a presenting of the bottle to the discerning guest who ordered it. Maybe the illusion helps people to avoid the shamefulness of buying booze.
I bought a couple of Indian photography magazines at Varkeys – the preeminent supermarket – today. It’s a funny read, very different from the photo magazines I know from the US and Europe. One of them features and article about a one day Fashion Photography Workshop in Mumbai which is teeming with phrases like: “Mr. K.O. Isaac, President of something or another addressed the participants wherein he made a mention of the Society’s glorious past spanning 150 years” or “the Society issued certificates to participating students” (none of which, it seems touched a camera during the entire “workshop”).
Anyway, this was a typical “tidbit” blog of a uneventful day (counting almost being killed by oncoming trucks and buses about 15 times today as the non-event as which it is treated here) . Tomorrow we are hoping to make our way to Old Kochi and see some of the sites there. The trip should involve alengthy rickshaw and a ferry ride – hopeful that is enough appease Max and keep him cooperative foreven the shortest of sight-seeings.
Maybe we are also getting somewhat used to India. I don’t want to use the overused “culture shock” expression but it takes some getting used to India, the smells, the dirt, the heat, the poverty one is surrounded with, the traffic, and, well, the bathrooms. The pleasant climate and nice hotel in Munnar helped ease us into the India experience somewhat. We took a last little hike through the tea plantation this morning and were trying to avoid the large group of tea pluckers around the corner as Max had already, in no uncertain terms, declared that he for one wasn’t into being hugged and petted by a bunch of strangers and no cooperation was to be expected. They found us anyway climbing around one of the big rocks strewn around the tea hills and before I could do so much as say hello one of them had picked up Max was galloping down the steep hill with him in her cheapo flip-flops towards her co-workers. I always thought that I am a reasonably all-terrain kind of gal but I certainly couldn’t keep up with her. Max enjoyed the “ride” down the hill but not so much the inevitable attention he got afterwards. Suffice it to say it was another of those hasty, embarrassed retreats. I just haven’t figured out how to make a child who doesn’t want to smile and wave smile and wave – any advice is highly appreciated.
Around noon we said good-bye to the friendly staff at the Copper Castle. We were most likely the only tourists who stayed for five nights in the history of the hotel judging from the number of British and French travel groups and Indian families we have seen come and go during that period. On the way down everything seemed less daunting as it was when we drove up – definitely getting used to India.
I mentioned the fact that Kerala is very conservative and therefore an almost “dry” state before. We, European drunkards that we are, began phantasizing about Gin ’n Tonics, wine, rum and coke, beer – anything short of after-shave and eventually made our way to the official liquor store twice in Munnar and today in Kochi. I have to say, I never felt quite as ostracized and “dirty” before buying booze. It is an exclusively male undertaking and it’s not the elite of mankind lining up in the dingy liquor stores. One feels inferior, like publicly admitting to a very major short-coming, in short, it’s a shameful act. Once it is over and the purchases are chilled, though, I have to admit: never has a Kingfisher beer straight from a magnum bottle tasted so good. But after these experiences I understand better why the waiters at Copper Castle made a habit out of presenting us our bottle of chilled water like it was some expensive French wine – complete with a white towel to wrap it and a presenting of the bottle to the discerning guest who ordered it. Maybe the illusion helps people to avoid the shamefulness of buying booze.
I bought a couple of Indian photography magazines at Varkeys – the preeminent supermarket – today. It’s a funny read, very different from the photo magazines I know from the US and Europe. One of them features and article about a one day Fashion Photography Workshop in Mumbai which is teeming with phrases like: “Mr. K.O. Isaac, President of something or another addressed the participants wherein he made a mention of the Society’s glorious past spanning 150 years” or “the Society issued certificates to participating students” (none of which, it seems touched a camera during the entire “workshop”).
Anyway, this was a typical “tidbit” blog of a uneventful day (counting almost being killed by oncoming trucks and buses about 15 times today as the non-event as which it is treated here) . Tomorrow we are hoping to make our way to Old Kochi and see some of the sites there. The trip should involve alengthy rickshaw and a ferry ride – hopeful that is enough appease Max and keep him cooperative foreven the shortest of sight-seeings.
Munnar’s New Photographer
Today we ventured where seemingly no one has ventured before – judging by the near total absence of plastic bottles strewn around. Across the valley from the hotel is a little mountain with a cross on the top and we figured we had a reasonably good chance of making it up there with Max in tow. The approach from the back through the tea plantation seemed gentle and pleasant enough. As always, people were extremely helpful, showing us the way, letting us walk across their property and chatting us up. A normal conversation will go something like this:
“Hello”
“Hello! – we would like to hike up that mountain can we walk through here?”
“Okay, okay!” - “Name?”
“Uhmm, my name is Uli/Tina!”
“No, not you – him” (pointing at Max)
“Oh, this is Max”
“Son?”
“Yes, son”
“I picture with Max!”
“Okay, sure, why not. Max come here we want to take a picture.”
Max: “NO!! I don’t want to, NO, NO, NO!!!!!” (turning head the other direction, flailing with his arms and screaming some for good measure)
Father and mother, looking embarrassed: “sorry, he is shy and silly, sorry, really!”
(taking a hasty leave)
After 100 meters of strenuous hiking we were invited to visit a really beautiful garden and to take pictures of it. I gladly complied. We even got some strawberries from the little field by the house, which, predictably Max refused to eat (more embarrassment). A little higher up we run into the tea pickers. Tea seems to be picked exclusively by women who wear heavy rubber aprons, big knives to cut off the light green new leaves and big baskets to collect them. Men seem to come only in the incarnation of “supervisor” who’s purpose in life seems to be to walk around and not to do much of anything. We went through the whole “picture with baby” - “baby” was throwing another screaming fit - thing before settling on just picture, picture with friend, picture with me (elevated to status of “sister”), picture while working, etc. Pretty quickly word must have gotten around the tea hill and in no time we were surrounded by women eager to have their picture taken – alone, with friend, in groups of three, four, ….. I seem to have become Munnar’s new pro bono photographer over night. I can already see a picture book entitled “People of Munnar” or alike in my future – and not selling a single copy of it other than to friends and family who feel sorry.
By all accounts tea leave picking must be one hard, mind-numbing way of scraping together a living. The work must be physically challenging with all the hauling around of baskets on steep slopes it involves as well as lacking any kind of distraction and diversion. I used to think that cashier at a supermarket is the most mind-numbing job there is (I used to do that during my university years) but as of today I have officially changed my mind to tea picker. No wonder a couple of Westerners with a blond “baby” deliberately walking up the hill attracted some attention and provided some entertainment value. So I took another 250 pictures and the address of the supervisor with the promise to send him everybodies’ pictures. I have every intention to make good on this promise but I’ll probably have to set two days aside for picture processing. Getting them printed shouldn’t be hard, even Munnar has a couple of “Digital Photography” places. After the pictures we were asked for “sweets” and complied by raiding our hiking supplies – which didn’t go very far with the six or seven people standing around us.
We finally made it up to the top, complete with cross, and had what remained of the trail mix. It was nice and peaceful up there, warm but not hot with a nice breeze and nobody else even close. I guess in the All-of-India-in-10-days-tours climbing some minor peak in the Western Ghats doesn’t feature prominently, the Indian tourists prefer to have their driver stop the car by a view point, take two steps in between the tea plants, take the pic and be done with the whole thing, and the locals have had enough of running around the hills once they are done picking tea.
Tomorrow we are leaving for Kochi. Our “permanent” apartment is becoming available and so we’ll give the big city another try. Knowing what I know now, after even one week of traveling in India, I would have planned the trip differently and would have stayed away from the big cities instead of making one the “hub”. The pace out here in the boonies is saner, the air cleaner and cooler, the roads not quite as dangerous (a real concern when you travel with a 3.5 year old who thinks it a good way to assert his independence by pulling free from your hand and leaping onto the road at the most inopportune times) and people seem to be thrilled to have us around and show us a piece of their lives. We are planning a trip to the beach and Uli is already consulting the Kerala guide for another possible mountain get-away once he gets fed up with the heat in Kochi – which will happen about 3 minutes after we get there.
“Hello”
“Hello! – we would like to hike up that mountain can we walk through here?”
“Okay, okay!” - “Name?”
“Uhmm, my name is Uli/Tina!”
“No, not you – him” (pointing at Max)
“Oh, this is Max”
“Son?”
“Yes, son”
“I picture with Max!”
“Okay, sure, why not. Max come here we want to take a picture.”
Max: “NO!! I don’t want to, NO, NO, NO!!!!!” (turning head the other direction, flailing with his arms and screaming some for good measure)
Father and mother, looking embarrassed: “sorry, he is shy and silly, sorry, really!”
(taking a hasty leave)
After 100 meters of strenuous hiking we were invited to visit a really beautiful garden and to take pictures of it. I gladly complied. We even got some strawberries from the little field by the house, which, predictably Max refused to eat (more embarrassment). A little higher up we run into the tea pickers. Tea seems to be picked exclusively by women who wear heavy rubber aprons, big knives to cut off the light green new leaves and big baskets to collect them. Men seem to come only in the incarnation of “supervisor” who’s purpose in life seems to be to walk around and not to do much of anything. We went through the whole “picture with baby” - “baby” was throwing another screaming fit - thing before settling on just picture, picture with friend, picture with me (elevated to status of “sister”), picture while working, etc. Pretty quickly word must have gotten around the tea hill and in no time we were surrounded by women eager to have their picture taken – alone, with friend, in groups of three, four, ….. I seem to have become Munnar’s new pro bono photographer over night. I can already see a picture book entitled “People of Munnar” or alike in my future – and not selling a single copy of it other than to friends and family who feel sorry.
By all accounts tea leave picking must be one hard, mind-numbing way of scraping together a living. The work must be physically challenging with all the hauling around of baskets on steep slopes it involves as well as lacking any kind of distraction and diversion. I used to think that cashier at a supermarket is the most mind-numbing job there is (I used to do that during my university years) but as of today I have officially changed my mind to tea picker. No wonder a couple of Westerners with a blond “baby” deliberately walking up the hill attracted some attention and provided some entertainment value. So I took another 250 pictures and the address of the supervisor with the promise to send him everybodies’ pictures. I have every intention to make good on this promise but I’ll probably have to set two days aside for picture processing. Getting them printed shouldn’t be hard, even Munnar has a couple of “Digital Photography” places. After the pictures we were asked for “sweets” and complied by raiding our hiking supplies – which didn’t go very far with the six or seven people standing around us.
We finally made it up to the top, complete with cross, and had what remained of the trail mix. It was nice and peaceful up there, warm but not hot with a nice breeze and nobody else even close. I guess in the All-of-India-in-10-days-tours climbing some minor peak in the Western Ghats doesn’t feature prominently, the Indian tourists prefer to have their driver stop the car by a view point, take two steps in between the tea plants, take the pic and be done with the whole thing, and the locals have had enough of running around the hills once they are done picking tea.
Tomorrow we are leaving for Kochi. Our “permanent” apartment is becoming available and so we’ll give the big city another try. Knowing what I know now, after even one week of traveling in India, I would have planned the trip differently and would have stayed away from the big cities instead of making one the “hub”. The pace out here in the boonies is saner, the air cleaner and cooler, the roads not quite as dangerous (a real concern when you travel with a 3.5 year old who thinks it a good way to assert his independence by pulling free from your hand and leaping onto the road at the most inopportune times) and people seem to be thrilled to have us around and show us a piece of their lives. We are planning a trip to the beach and Uli is already consulting the Kerala guide for another possible mountain get-away once he gets fed up with the heat in Kochi – which will happen about 3 minutes after we get there.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Religious Experiences
Last night we went into Munnar and did the tree hill tour of the places of worship – or almost. We didn’t quite make it all the way up to the mosque as Max was distracted by a family with a yard full of goats some of them baby goats who were doing crazy jumps high up in the air. Max looked at the goats and the family looked at Max so everybody had something to talk about later. Afterwards we went to the temple, took our shoes off and climbed the steep stairs up – it reminded Max a lot of climbing Mayan pyramids with the added advantage that there was an “iglesia” of sorts on the top. After looking at a few shrines and paying our respect to Shiva we went down and for good measure climbed up the third hill to visit the catholic church. Up there was a bearded, long-haired sort of yoga guru looking guy with lots of bead bracelets whom I secretly snapped a quick picture of. We walked around the church once and when we got back to the front there was my presumed yoga guru snapping away with his digital camera. Such is modern day India!
Today by mere chance we happened upon on Hindu religious ceremony. We were on our way – with a rickshaw that said “Jesus never fails” - to the elephants in Madupetty, a hamlet about 12 km from Munnar, hitting on all the usual tourist spots on the way (Indian tourists, that is, there are many of them here, mainly from Chennai) when we noticed a small gathering of people obviously wearing their Sunday best. We drove by but after about 1 mile decided that we better check it out now or we might miss a great opportunity to experience true rural India. So we asked our rickshaw driver whether he could take us back. We approached very tentatively, trying not to offend anything or anybody but were welcomed very warmly. We were asked to take our shoes off and proceeded a few meters up a grassy slope to a small temple . Everybody was busy making preparations, small holes were dug, stones were arranged, pots and food were gathered, fires light , and a guy in loin cloth and undershirt was busy washing off whatever god was inside the shrine. We all, but especially Max, got our usual share of curious looks and were quickly surrounded. As seems to be the case wherever one goes, it’s always the kids who approach first, ask questions, shake hands and want to show you things. Next comes the village crazy guy with all the other grown-ups standing around watching.
I was very reluctant at first to take out my camera but eventually did and pointing at it asked – sort of – whether it would be okay to take pictures. I got a sure-why-not kind of shrug and started taking pictures of the kids. A little group of cheeky ones was first I snapped and then showed them the picture on the display. It took but 5 minutes for me to be mobbed by the little ones “Tina picture” , “Tina, this one”, “Tina, me!” “One more”, they brought their brothers and sisters, friends, neighbors, classmates for me to be photographed, alone, in pairs, triplets, and groups. I tried to take a few pictures of the preparations for the festival but more often than not some little face popped up in front of my lens at the last second. Meanwhile more fires were light and the grown-ups started to cook rice with sugar, which was meant, as we found out, as food for both the people and the gods. Smoke was rising as the women put more wood on the fires and banana leaves with bananas, coconuts and incents were set out as sacrifices. Eventually the kids started bringing the mothers and grandmothers to be photographed, alone, with them, with each other …..
As Uli eventually found out we had stumbled on a once a year celebration of some Hindu God. Max, who first had wanted to leave right away and was hiding behind Uli had found a group of youngsters to entertain him, was patting goats and pretended to stir a big pot of water – which was set on a fire in preparation for the later cooking of the goats. About 500 pictures and probably two hours later (who‘d keep track of time) we took our leave. We were invited to stay and eat some of the sweet rice but Max was already getting tired and somehow it was clear that we wouldn’t get away anymore once we sat down and started eating. The kids hardly wanted to let me go. They found some more of their buddies whom I hadn’t taken pictures of but eventually we made it into the rickshaw with the crowd of the most excited ones standing by the road waving Good-bye. It was great fun and very interesting and I think everybody got something out of it. I got an interesting experience, the pictures and something to write about, Max could play with fire, Uli talk to the one guy who spoke decent English, the kids had their pictures taken and might also have a thing or two to report tomorrow in school. Hopefully, if I can swing it, I can get a bunch of the pictures printed somewhere in Kochin and send them to the rickshaw driver (a neighbor of one of the participants) for distribution to the kids. As always we found people extremely warm, friendly and welcoming. Just imagine a bunch of foreigners who do not share or even understand the religion and don’t speak a word of the local language crash a religious ceremony in Germany, or the US for that matter – probably wouldn’t be invited to stay and have lunch ….
A word or two about the local language, Mayalam. I had the best of intentions to learn to say simple things like hello, thanks, please ,sorry and “How much does this cost?” in Mayalam but it turns out that most of these words far exceed the length of what my somewhat dyslexic mind can possibly remember ”namaskaram” for hello would still be okay, but “ennodu kshamikkoo” for “sorry” is a bit much, let alone “suprabhaatham”for Good morning. I have given up on Mayalam before I ever started. Fortunately most people speak a bit of English, especially the kids, it seems and so getting around has not been a problem so far.
The rest it told quickly, we went to Madupetty crossed the famous dam with bunch of Indian tourists, bought homemade chocolate like everybody else, rode an elephant, and visited “Echo Point” just like every Indian tourist is supposed to do. We were the only non-Indian tourist in this area which is obviously used to and set up for tourist, just not Westerners and so the sight of the three of us on elephant back resulted in many cheers, waves, and whistling along the way.
I am getting more and more fond of this type of travel, sure we are missing the big sights, the Taj Mahal and the impressive buildings of Rajasthan, the Red Fort, etc but we are seeing a different type of India, one that the “all of India in 10 days” tourist normally doesn’t get to experience. Instead of pictures of the Taj Mahal I’ll bring home pictures of delighted kids – and that’s just fine with me.
Today by mere chance we happened upon on Hindu religious ceremony. We were on our way – with a rickshaw that said “Jesus never fails” - to the elephants in Madupetty, a hamlet about 12 km from Munnar, hitting on all the usual tourist spots on the way (Indian tourists, that is, there are many of them here, mainly from Chennai) when we noticed a small gathering of people obviously wearing their Sunday best. We drove by but after about 1 mile decided that we better check it out now or we might miss a great opportunity to experience true rural India. So we asked our rickshaw driver whether he could take us back. We approached very tentatively, trying not to offend anything or anybody but were welcomed very warmly. We were asked to take our shoes off and proceeded a few meters up a grassy slope to a small temple . Everybody was busy making preparations, small holes were dug, stones were arranged, pots and food were gathered, fires light , and a guy in loin cloth and undershirt was busy washing off whatever god was inside the shrine. We all, but especially Max, got our usual share of curious looks and were quickly surrounded. As seems to be the case wherever one goes, it’s always the kids who approach first, ask questions, shake hands and want to show you things. Next comes the village crazy guy with all the other grown-ups standing around watching.
I was very reluctant at first to take out my camera but eventually did and pointing at it asked – sort of – whether it would be okay to take pictures. I got a sure-why-not kind of shrug and started taking pictures of the kids. A little group of cheeky ones was first I snapped and then showed them the picture on the display. It took but 5 minutes for me to be mobbed by the little ones “Tina picture” , “Tina, this one”, “Tina, me!” “One more”, they brought their brothers and sisters, friends, neighbors, classmates for me to be photographed, alone, in pairs, triplets, and groups. I tried to take a few pictures of the preparations for the festival but more often than not some little face popped up in front of my lens at the last second. Meanwhile more fires were light and the grown-ups started to cook rice with sugar, which was meant, as we found out, as food for both the people and the gods. Smoke was rising as the women put more wood on the fires and banana leaves with bananas, coconuts and incents were set out as sacrifices. Eventually the kids started bringing the mothers and grandmothers to be photographed, alone, with them, with each other …..
As Uli eventually found out we had stumbled on a once a year celebration of some Hindu God. Max, who first had wanted to leave right away and was hiding behind Uli had found a group of youngsters to entertain him, was patting goats and pretended to stir a big pot of water – which was set on a fire in preparation for the later cooking of the goats. About 500 pictures and probably two hours later (who‘d keep track of time) we took our leave. We were invited to stay and eat some of the sweet rice but Max was already getting tired and somehow it was clear that we wouldn’t get away anymore once we sat down and started eating. The kids hardly wanted to let me go. They found some more of their buddies whom I hadn’t taken pictures of but eventually we made it into the rickshaw with the crowd of the most excited ones standing by the road waving Good-bye. It was great fun and very interesting and I think everybody got something out of it. I got an interesting experience, the pictures and something to write about, Max could play with fire, Uli talk to the one guy who spoke decent English, the kids had their pictures taken and might also have a thing or two to report tomorrow in school. Hopefully, if I can swing it, I can get a bunch of the pictures printed somewhere in Kochin and send them to the rickshaw driver (a neighbor of one of the participants) for distribution to the kids. As always we found people extremely warm, friendly and welcoming. Just imagine a bunch of foreigners who do not share or even understand the religion and don’t speak a word of the local language crash a religious ceremony in Germany, or the US for that matter – probably wouldn’t be invited to stay and have lunch ….
A word or two about the local language, Mayalam. I had the best of intentions to learn to say simple things like hello, thanks, please ,sorry and “How much does this cost?” in Mayalam but it turns out that most of these words far exceed the length of what my somewhat dyslexic mind can possibly remember ”namaskaram” for hello would still be okay, but “ennodu kshamikkoo” for “sorry” is a bit much, let alone “suprabhaatham”for Good morning. I have given up on Mayalam before I ever started. Fortunately most people speak a bit of English, especially the kids, it seems and so getting around has not been a problem so far.
The rest it told quickly, we went to Madupetty crossed the famous dam with bunch of Indian tourists, bought homemade chocolate like everybody else, rode an elephant, and visited “Echo Point” just like every Indian tourist is supposed to do. We were the only non-Indian tourist in this area which is obviously used to and set up for tourist, just not Westerners and so the sight of the three of us on elephant back resulted in many cheers, waves, and whistling along the way.
I am getting more and more fond of this type of travel, sure we are missing the big sights, the Taj Mahal and the impressive buildings of Rajasthan, the Red Fort, etc but we are seeing a different type of India, one that the “all of India in 10 days” tourist normally doesn’t get to experience. Instead of pictures of the Taj Mahal I’ll bring home pictures of delighted kids – and that’s just fine with me.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Perceptions and Reality
It is interesting to observe how Max perceives reality – or not – as opposed to us. Uli and I walk around country and town wondering about this, marveling at that, pointing out things we see and find interesting, curious or strange. We are looking for the familiar and unfamiliar and compare to other experiences we have had. Max walks through everything like he’s grown up between woman in bright sarees carrying heavy loads on their heads, men in shirt like outfits, rickshaws, food stalls, small poor houses, Bollywood-type music, and cows on the street. Maybe it is because he is still missing the reference point, something that defines “my normal circumstances of life” to him sufficiently to wonder too much. All the things he sees and remembers from Mexico (“are we going to Izamal later today?”) and Sunnyvale plus a few things from his favorite DVDs (look, a forest, just like the one Harry – a figure from the current favorite “lumberjacks” – is in) seem to get seamlessly incorporated into his view of the world and reality. Not once has he expressed bewilderment or confusion about the things he sees. He reacts with curiosity to the things that feature prominently in his little engineering-mind “what is the lever at the rickshaw for?” , “Mama, rickshaws can’t swim, they would need a propeller to do so”, “look, there is a gas tank and one has to be careful not to put a match to it” but he seems to glide through like a fish through the water. Food is the notable exception has he refuses to try anything that doesn’t look familiar in addition to not eating any fruit or veggies or anything that has more than a scent of salt on it. So we are stuck with plain rice and yogurt, fish fingers when we can get them, nan as it looks a bit like tortillas, eggs, pineapple juice as long as we don’t call it that (it’s duped “juguito” – little juice in Spanish which seems to make it palatable, even yummy), and a few other items.
One of the vain adult educational aspirations (you have to have those too, can’t just admit to everybody that you are taking a six month pleasure trip with your toddler) we had was to teach the kid about diversity and that living in a big house with pool in an affluent part of the world isn’t normalcy for everybody. Given the current experience that goal was either missed spectacularly (he doesn’t see it) or accomplished spectacularly (he has effortlessly incorporated everything he experiences into a coherent view of a multifaceted world which will serve him well later). For the time being I choose to believe the latter.
Last night we had our cheapest meal since embarking on this trip: we were the only Westerners at the food stalls in Munnar although there were quite a few other tourists in town but nobody else ventured there. Everybody waved at us to sit down and have something to eat so we eventually did when we found some place where they served fried eggs (for Max) as well. We had four small dishes between us for 50 Rupees or a whopping $1.25. We did splurge before, though, by spending about $25 on two bottles of Indian wines (needs some getting used to), three bottles of beer and a tiny bottle of rum to fortify the orange juice. I also couldn’t help myself in a fabric and saree shop and bought a stunning dark blue with bright orange silk saree - at night, when I can’t sleep I am trying to work out in my head how I will fit this into the interior design in Sunnyvale (or the vacation home in Merida I am dreaming about).
This morning we took a little hike in the tea plantation. It was very pleasant to be out there, see butterflies and tadpoles in the little creeks and feel the fresh breeze. The paths through the plantation are heavily switch-backed and therefore not steep at all – ideal for Max who basically likes to walk and needs the exercise but can’t be challenged too much or else we’ll have a breakdown cum tantrum. We then took a rickshaw to town, Max simply loves riding them, and they are fun. It seems most of the drivers carry their religious believes on their rickshaw front windows, we had one with Ganesh inscribed and another with Jesus which was also adorned by a large picture of the Virgin Mary. I have seen quite a few Jesus ones , some other Hindu Gods as well as Jehovah. Some sport pretty much meaningless combinations of English words – an ad for Coke or Vodaphone I haven’t seen yet but it might only be a matter of time until one shows up.
One of the vain adult educational aspirations (you have to have those too, can’t just admit to everybody that you are taking a six month pleasure trip with your toddler) we had was to teach the kid about diversity and that living in a big house with pool in an affluent part of the world isn’t normalcy for everybody. Given the current experience that goal was either missed spectacularly (he doesn’t see it) or accomplished spectacularly (he has effortlessly incorporated everything he experiences into a coherent view of a multifaceted world which will serve him well later). For the time being I choose to believe the latter.
Last night we had our cheapest meal since embarking on this trip: we were the only Westerners at the food stalls in Munnar although there were quite a few other tourists in town but nobody else ventured there. Everybody waved at us to sit down and have something to eat so we eventually did when we found some place where they served fried eggs (for Max) as well. We had four small dishes between us for 50 Rupees or a whopping $1.25. We did splurge before, though, by spending about $25 on two bottles of Indian wines (needs some getting used to), three bottles of beer and a tiny bottle of rum to fortify the orange juice. I also couldn’t help myself in a fabric and saree shop and bought a stunning dark blue with bright orange silk saree - at night, when I can’t sleep I am trying to work out in my head how I will fit this into the interior design in Sunnyvale (or the vacation home in Merida I am dreaming about).
This morning we took a little hike in the tea plantation. It was very pleasant to be out there, see butterflies and tadpoles in the little creeks and feel the fresh breeze. The paths through the plantation are heavily switch-backed and therefore not steep at all – ideal for Max who basically likes to walk and needs the exercise but can’t be challenged too much or else we’ll have a breakdown cum tantrum. We then took a rickshaw to town, Max simply loves riding them, and they are fun. It seems most of the drivers carry their religious believes on their rickshaw front windows, we had one with Ganesh inscribed and another with Jesus which was also adorned by a large picture of the Virgin Mary. I have seen quite a few Jesus ones , some other Hindu Gods as well as Jehovah. Some sport pretty much meaningless combinations of English words – an ad for Coke or Vodaphone I haven’t seen yet but it might only be a matter of time until one shows up.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Southern Indian Comfort
Can’t help but to forever compare every place we are to the US and Europe. What is different, what not, what surprises and astonishes us. Like the hotel we are staying in, the Copper Castle – what a name especially since I haven’t seen a shred of copper anywhere so far) - is a large building on the steep mountain side with several floors of rooms all looking out to the valley. We are paying US mid-range hotel prices for the night which, I assume, makes it pretty fancy and out of the reach of most regular Indians. The rooms (living room and bedroom) are very spacious, the beds comfy, there are two balconies overlooking the valley so one can watch the endless number of busses, taxis, rickshaws, cars and vans trying to squeeze by each other on their way to and from Munnar and beyond. The interesting thing is that the rooms are very – well, simple: dented furniture, three thin towels, a synthetic, red wall-to-wall carpet that has seen better days especially in the bedroom where on black triangle indicates an accident involving a hot iron, a few odd florals hanging randomly on the walls and floral pattern curtains that could well hang in a Motel 6 somewhere east of Albuquerque. However, the service is exceptional, everybody is super-friendly and always very concerned about getting everything right, doing everything we could possibly want, forever trying to play with Max (he graciously accepts woman trying to play with him but either makes faces at the men or hides behind me or Uli and puts his head between our legs), making suggestions as to where to go and trying their best to answer all our questions. I am simply not used to so much attention and am afraid that I might come across as rude at times when I help myself to the last piece of chicken on the serving platter instead of waiting for somebody to do it for me. In a fabcy resort in the US and Europe it would probably be just the opposite: super-posh rooms, three towels per person, fancy furniture (on the balconies as well) etc but the service would be nowhere near as good and cheap 9compared to the room prices). And I am afraid to say this would be especially true for Europe where service is to date a pretyy strange concept although it has gotten a little better over the last few years. I guess the service aspect is just more important to Indians than the fancy furniture aspect and I can't blame them.
Anyway, the Copper castle: the food is excellent, too good in fact for our own damn good as the pattern with being driven everywhere continues. Today we managed to escape a rickshaw driver who seemed determined to drive us around the entire day by asking him to go up a hill that was too steep for his vehicle only for Max to throw a temper tantrum and screaming for a rickshaw after 500 meters of walking. Tomorrow we want to go hiking in the morning – we’ll see how this goes down with Max once he realizes that hiking does not involve rickshaws or any other type of motorized or father-pushed vehicle.
I just had the first Ayurveda massage of my life. Interesting experience: one stripes down and then gets fitted with a loin cloth that covers the bare necessities and lies down on a massage table (forget the soft padding and the pre-heated towels to cover you). Next thing you know you are being covered with warm oil from head to toe. I mean it; I have never been around so much oil. The oil gets massaged into your skin with quick mainly circular movements along the entire body. This goes on for about 45 minutes: front, back, face, and scalp. By now you bare so slippery if somebody tried to hold you tight you'd probably slip right out of their arms. Then I was asked to sit in a box with a hole in the top where I stuck out my head and the steam got turned on. For about 5 minutes I sweat off some of the excess oil and then got send to the shower to wash off the rest with cold water. I have to admit that I am probably the only person in the universe, other than my friend Jutta, who can have a warm oil massage and a steam bath in the tropics and come out shivering cold. So I cheated on the cold shower and turned on the hot as far as I could and scrubbed vigorously to remove the additional 2 liters of oil from skin and hair. Now I feel good, clean and soft, my feet are still cold, though. The whole thing came to about $20, including a pretty generous tip. If they could only find themselves some pre-heated towels I’d do this every day.
We’ll go into town after Uli is done with his ayurveda massage (I know he will be boiling hot and wanting to jump out of that steam box after 3 seconds) and buy some more nice things (souvenirs!) and try and find ourselves some booze. It is extremely hard to come by here, most restaurants or stores don’t carry it and apparently it (beer, mainly) is often served disguised as tea (and therefore not as cold as one would like it to be) as liquor licenses are extremely expensive. The guys at the reception had some suggestions as to where to procure it in Munnar. If that fails I’ll have another of those excellent orange juices they sell at the restaurant, I don’t know how they do it but it was fluffy, almost creamy with a bit of a froth – like nothing I have ever had before (would go superbly with a shot of tequila!)
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Munnar
We survived another night of mosquito attacks but this time did much better. There are a few tricks we learned from Meena, our very friendly neighbor - put the big water buckets on the drains in the bathroom because that’s where the mosquitoes creep in, buy some of the oil thingies that plug into the outlet and kill the bastards and – most importantly – she lent us a very handy tool a rechargeable, electric mosquito zapper that looks like a tennis racket. You touch a mosquito and it zaps – very handy as you can wave it around frantically and hear it go zap –zap- zap as the mosquitoes get blasted. Max didn’t want to let go of it but Uli was equally fascinated so there was a bit of father-son strife over who would get it first, for how long and how many mosquitoes got finished off in the process. Due to the jet-lag we got up at 2:30 am again – and then couldn’t go back to sleep anymore – sleep-wise so far this trip has been sort of like working in investment banking between my first and second year at b-school. There we wouldn’t get up at 2:30 am but work until then or later just to be back in the office by 8 am.
At 9 am our driver showed up, the luggage was put on the roof and off we were to Munnar Hill Station. Max was disappointed that it wasn’t a rickshaw like the one we had taken to the main road of Ernakulam the night before. He loved the ride in that funny motorcycle tricycle and couldn’t get enough of it. Kerala is densely populated, all along the road there are houses, in that sense it is similar to Silicon Valley – you really don’t know where one town ends and the next starts. Only when we got to the foothills did it get a bit less and it started to cool down a bit. A surprising fact was the number of catholic churches and convents along the way. There must have been yet another St. Mary’s convent and St. Joseph’s church every few minutes. I didn’t see anywhere enough people to fill all those churches. Plus the few mosques and – I assume the odd temple here or there. We were driving at a very moderate speed watching Kerala live move by from the comfort of our air-conditioned car – if you had told me 20 years ago that I would be traveling that way, rather than by local bus I would have laughed you out of the room.
We reached our destination – Copper Castle – after 4 hours or so, the last stretch we were winding our way up through tea plantations which I am eager to photograph. On the trip Max threw up all the peanuts and grape juice he had stuffed himself with - just to make live a little more interesting.
Munnar itself is a few kilometers away so we took another rickshaw into town much to Max’s delight. The first thing we saw was a baby-blue church on a little hill. Max saw it first and with his piercing voice yelled “Look, an iglesia. I want to go there.” Ever since I let him light candles in churches last year in Europe he has a thing for “iglesias” - can hardly pass them by. This one, unfortunately, was of the bring-your-own-candle type and so he lost interest immediately since his inconsiderate mother and father are not carrying stacks of candles around just in case we run into an BYOC iglesia. Right across the little valley was the mosque and no sooner did the church bells chime, or rather a recording of a chime was blasted by loudspeaker, did the muezzin – or likely a muezzin recording- start blasting on the other side. The whole thing felt surreal.
Munnar itself is a bustling little mountain town and obviously starting point for a few touristy endeavors such as visiting the waterfall or being driven up to the Top Station or taking a hike into the mountains. We got there just before nightfall and the whole town was a bee-hive of activity. Stalls with food of all descriptions, fruit and veggie stands, tea and spice shops, saree and other fabrics stores, stores where one buys pipes, or pots, or gold jewelry, or lottery tickets or packets of potato chips. I went into a bit of a shopping frenzy over pashimas -but they really make excellent gifts – or so the excuse goes. I could have bought a lot more but Max was at his worst behavior again he is still pretty badly jet-lagged and was very tired, but frankly so are we and this whole screaming and defiance business is rather annoying to two sleep deprived grown-ups. We’ll have to go back, or at least I will have to go back and give it another thorough look.
My 50 cent room order of tea arrived – it’s from Assam, not quite clear to me why they wouldn’t just use the local product but whatever. I’ll have a cup and then go up to the business center and see whether I can upload this somehow. Wish me luck.
At 9 am our driver showed up, the luggage was put on the roof and off we were to Munnar Hill Station. Max was disappointed that it wasn’t a rickshaw like the one we had taken to the main road of Ernakulam the night before. He loved the ride in that funny motorcycle tricycle and couldn’t get enough of it. Kerala is densely populated, all along the road there are houses, in that sense it is similar to Silicon Valley – you really don’t know where one town ends and the next starts. Only when we got to the foothills did it get a bit less and it started to cool down a bit. A surprising fact was the number of catholic churches and convents along the way. There must have been yet another St. Mary’s convent and St. Joseph’s church every few minutes. I didn’t see anywhere enough people to fill all those churches. Plus the few mosques and – I assume the odd temple here or there. We were driving at a very moderate speed watching Kerala live move by from the comfort of our air-conditioned car – if you had told me 20 years ago that I would be traveling that way, rather than by local bus I would have laughed you out of the room.
We reached our destination – Copper Castle – after 4 hours or so, the last stretch we were winding our way up through tea plantations which I am eager to photograph. On the trip Max threw up all the peanuts and grape juice he had stuffed himself with - just to make live a little more interesting.
Munnar itself is a few kilometers away so we took another rickshaw into town much to Max’s delight. The first thing we saw was a baby-blue church on a little hill. Max saw it first and with his piercing voice yelled “Look, an iglesia. I want to go there.” Ever since I let him light candles in churches last year in Europe he has a thing for “iglesias” - can hardly pass them by. This one, unfortunately, was of the bring-your-own-candle type and so he lost interest immediately since his inconsiderate mother and father are not carrying stacks of candles around just in case we run into an BYOC iglesia. Right across the little valley was the mosque and no sooner did the church bells chime, or rather a recording of a chime was blasted by loudspeaker, did the muezzin – or likely a muezzin recording- start blasting on the other side. The whole thing felt surreal.
Munnar itself is a bustling little mountain town and obviously starting point for a few touristy endeavors such as visiting the waterfall or being driven up to the Top Station or taking a hike into the mountains. We got there just before nightfall and the whole town was a bee-hive of activity. Stalls with food of all descriptions, fruit and veggie stands, tea and spice shops, saree and other fabrics stores, stores where one buys pipes, or pots, or gold jewelry, or lottery tickets or packets of potato chips. I went into a bit of a shopping frenzy over pashimas -but they really make excellent gifts – or so the excuse goes. I could have bought a lot more but Max was at his worst behavior again he is still pretty badly jet-lagged and was very tired, but frankly so are we and this whole screaming and defiance business is rather annoying to two sleep deprived grown-ups. We’ll have to go back, or at least I will have to go back and give it another thorough look.
My 50 cent room order of tea arrived – it’s from Assam, not quite clear to me why they wouldn’t just use the local product but whatever. I’ll have a cup and then go up to the business center and see whether I can upload this somehow. Wish me luck.
India!
We made it to Kochi, Kerala, sort of in one piece. Three days into our India-experience I am still struggling to summarize how I feel about. Maybe I am struggling because I simply don’t know yet how I feel or I am so overwhelmed that I am just overloaded. I don’t even know which of the two is true,or maybe both. I am certainly overwhelmed, so overwhelmed in fact that I haven’t even taken any pictures and that should tell you something. The 10.5 hours time difference from Merida would make this challenging on the best of days even for grown-ups but having that 3 ½ year old standing bright-eyed next to your bed at 1:27 am – after you just managed to fall asleep – asking “Mama, shall we go out a bit” and then have him bounce off the walls for the next three hours only to sleep-walk around for the rest of a day after an unsatisfactory nap between like 5 and 9 am – adds, well more than a little challenge.
If Merida was all about walking everywhere Kochi is certainly all about avoiding to walk anywhere. Walking just doesn’t seem to be an option. When we ask people how to get from here to there the answer will invariably be “take a tricycle taxi”. When we ask “How far is it and could we walk there” we generally get that truly puzzled look that indicates that the person either thinks that they misunderstood us and are still trying to figure out in their head what we might have said because “could we walk there” doesn’t compute or they are thinking about calling the police and report that three mad Westerns have broken loose from a maximum security loony-bin.
Measurements – people here to have a fairly loose relationship with them. Despite repeated questions about the size of Kochi we only managed to narrow it down to the following “Kochi is smaller than Mumbai”. Distances seem to forever be ½ hour by car and if we insist that we want to know distance in like kilometers it is always “2 kilometers”. Even the oldest tricycle taxi will cover 15 kilometers in ½ hour so I sort of concluded that we are asking a question that is utterly irrelevant to people and therefore can’t get a “real” answer, the practical answer is: “take a tricycle taxi”.
One of the first things that struck me is the availability of a sheer unlimited number of staff, help, people to do things for you. I first noticed in the hotel in Mumbai when I was poking my head out of my room to see whether Uli was coming over from the computer room and every time I did as much as showed my forehead three people would appear from nowhere and asked how they could help me. When we loaded the luggage in the car (admittedly a fair number of pieces) we had no less than 7 people standing around trying to be helpful. The fact that we are used to do everything ourselves (an American taxi cab driver usually doesn’t offer to put your child seat into your car, let alone the Europeans, they will not only not offer, they will refused when asked) and so fiddled around there as well didn’t make matters any better. Today we had four waiters serve our food, can’t remember when I last had somebody put food on my plate from the little saucers on the table. I went to a clothing store today because the tight black Mexican ¾ pants are oddly out of place here. It was an upscale one, 5 floors of sarees, fabric, scarves, and other beautiful stuff and there must have been 300 sales girls in there. I am not joking, this isn’t hyperbole, there must have like 300 sales girls. I myself must have spoken to a good two dozen in the course of a rather brief visit. Max got so much attention he was hiding behind everything he could hide behind and then started acting up, running through the store screaming, climbing on couches and turning sharply away any time anybody as much as looked at him. I am trying to teach him manners but it’s hard and I understand him in a way – it must be difficult for him to have strangers come up all the time, not just one but three, four, five people at a time and touch him and talk to him in his least preferred language, English. Had he grown up here I am sure he would take to it more kindly but he simply isn’t used to that much close-up attention. A bought two of the pant/long shirt outfits that are so practical and a beautiful piece of night-sky blue silk with silver embroideries. No idea what I’ll do with it but I had to have it. Might have to redecorate the whole house to go with it ;-)
The heat and the smell along with the mosquitoes got the better of us last night at around 3:30 am when nobody had slept more than an hour and so we decided to take a break and go up to the Western Ghats, the mountains just east of Kochi, where the temperatures are lower (however, we couldn’t find out how much), people are fewer and there are mountains, lots of green leaves, and trails to hike. I am looking forward to it. As much as I love the heat it will be a nice break to wake up to 20 degrees not 30 and do as much as get out of a chair without breaking a sweat. I hope to be able to take some truly ground-breaking, creative photographs of tea leaves ;-)
After that we’ll return to Kochi and move into our temporary apartment. It is supposed to be a nice, spacious modern apartment in the high rise next to where we are staying now and it is supposed to have Internet access.
Got to go take the third shower of the day and then try and find some sleep, now that it is about 1 pm Merida time and therefore time for a nap.
If Merida was all about walking everywhere Kochi is certainly all about avoiding to walk anywhere. Walking just doesn’t seem to be an option. When we ask people how to get from here to there the answer will invariably be “take a tricycle taxi”. When we ask “How far is it and could we walk there” we generally get that truly puzzled look that indicates that the person either thinks that they misunderstood us and are still trying to figure out in their head what we might have said because “could we walk there” doesn’t compute or they are thinking about calling the police and report that three mad Westerns have broken loose from a maximum security loony-bin.
Measurements – people here to have a fairly loose relationship with them. Despite repeated questions about the size of Kochi we only managed to narrow it down to the following “Kochi is smaller than Mumbai”. Distances seem to forever be ½ hour by car and if we insist that we want to know distance in like kilometers it is always “2 kilometers”. Even the oldest tricycle taxi will cover 15 kilometers in ½ hour so I sort of concluded that we are asking a question that is utterly irrelevant to people and therefore can’t get a “real” answer, the practical answer is: “take a tricycle taxi”.
One of the first things that struck me is the availability of a sheer unlimited number of staff, help, people to do things for you. I first noticed in the hotel in Mumbai when I was poking my head out of my room to see whether Uli was coming over from the computer room and every time I did as much as showed my forehead three people would appear from nowhere and asked how they could help me. When we loaded the luggage in the car (admittedly a fair number of pieces) we had no less than 7 people standing around trying to be helpful. The fact that we are used to do everything ourselves (an American taxi cab driver usually doesn’t offer to put your child seat into your car, let alone the Europeans, they will not only not offer, they will refused when asked) and so fiddled around there as well didn’t make matters any better. Today we had four waiters serve our food, can’t remember when I last had somebody put food on my plate from the little saucers on the table. I went to a clothing store today because the tight black Mexican ¾ pants are oddly out of place here. It was an upscale one, 5 floors of sarees, fabric, scarves, and other beautiful stuff and there must have been 300 sales girls in there. I am not joking, this isn’t hyperbole, there must have like 300 sales girls. I myself must have spoken to a good two dozen in the course of a rather brief visit. Max got so much attention he was hiding behind everything he could hide behind and then started acting up, running through the store screaming, climbing on couches and turning sharply away any time anybody as much as looked at him. I am trying to teach him manners but it’s hard and I understand him in a way – it must be difficult for him to have strangers come up all the time, not just one but three, four, five people at a time and touch him and talk to him in his least preferred language, English. Had he grown up here I am sure he would take to it more kindly but he simply isn’t used to that much close-up attention. A bought two of the pant/long shirt outfits that are so practical and a beautiful piece of night-sky blue silk with silver embroideries. No idea what I’ll do with it but I had to have it. Might have to redecorate the whole house to go with it ;-)
The heat and the smell along with the mosquitoes got the better of us last night at around 3:30 am when nobody had slept more than an hour and so we decided to take a break and go up to the Western Ghats, the mountains just east of Kochi, where the temperatures are lower (however, we couldn’t find out how much), people are fewer and there are mountains, lots of green leaves, and trails to hike. I am looking forward to it. As much as I love the heat it will be a nice break to wake up to 20 degrees not 30 and do as much as get out of a chair without breaking a sweat. I hope to be able to take some truly ground-breaking, creative photographs of tea leaves ;-)
After that we’ll return to Kochi and move into our temporary apartment. It is supposed to be a nice, spacious modern apartment in the high rise next to where we are staying now and it is supposed to have Internet access.
Got to go take the third shower of the day and then try and find some sleep, now that it is about 1 pm Merida time and therefore time for a nap.
Monday, February 18, 2008
And then there are those dark hours ….
… literally - when you sit up at 2:00 am, bleary-eyed with your wide-awake, jet-lagged 3 year old playing some stupid game or another when you wonder “why exactly am I doing this to him, could somebody please remind me! Couldn’t we have just gone to Disney Land or Florida?” and of course the answer is “no, we couldn’t have – that just wouldn’t be us” – but a bit of doubt remains.
We left Merida at 6:00 am on Saturday and now its 2 am or so in Mumbai Tuesday morning. Since we have had a stop-over in Mexico City and JFK and well as less than 24 hours in Vienna which we spent at the place of friends and then another flight to Mumbai where we arrived a few hours ago. Merida feels so distant it’s almost unreal - but for Max who keeps ordering Horchata, the quintessential Mexican drink, only to learn to his great disappointment that neither Italian restaurants in Vienna, nor Hotel restaurants in Mumbai serve anything even remotely resembling an Horchata.
Max was a real trooper. I don’t think there are very many kids who would take a 1 ½ hour flight followed by a 4 hour flight followed by a almost 9 hour flight followed by an almost 90 Degrees Fahrenheit drop in temperature followed by a wide-awake night and another 7 hour flight followed by a roughly 80 degrees increase in temperature so well. Mind you, we had our melt-downs and fights but nothing like I expected and now there is only one more flight of about 2 hours tomorrow and then this trip from hell is over – by far the worst stretch of our vacation. Our little guy is becoming quite the traveler.- that and the extra battery for the portable DVD player extending quality time spent watching “Road Construction Ahead” and “Lumberjacks” to more than 4 hours at a time.
We had a little 1 am snack at the hotel restaurant and I have to say, the obvious lack of Horchata aside, the food was excellent. I had a mixed grilled veggie platter which was about the tastiest veggie platter I have ever had in my life.
By now its 8:40 am in Mumbai ; Uli and I are sitting in “Max’s room” a rather bleak little room of 2 by 5 square meters watching Indian television while Mr. Max sleeps spread-out over the “large bed” in the other room. From outside I hear the cars honking and the city bustling but that’s the good thing about slow travel – I’ll hear many more cars honk and will walk around Indian cities plenty of times so I can relax now, watch TV and let the trooper get his beauty sleep (the attention thing continued in full force yesterday – I lost count pretty soon of all the people stroking his head or patting his tummy – we’ll have to watch out that this won’t go to his head ).
Watching Indian TV (without sound) is something else altogether. The programming seems to exclusively consist of dance shows where guys in cool shades and some with richly decorated turbans dance with attractive women in tight fitting sari-like outfits and flowing hair and all with very light skin. Occasionally the whole thing gets interrupted for yet another ad for a mosquito killer or a skin cr̬me. I did not see it but Uli insists that earlier, on the sports channel they had a program on meditation Рbasically a guru sitting in the middle flanked by to disciples all three meditating hard. How is that for action?
These are the random observations from India so far. Certainly nowhere near as profound as I had hoped they would be. I wanted to visit India for 10 years at least and now I am finally here and all I have to share right now is insights about the TV programming, the menu and the size of the hotel room. I promise more and more profound observations once we settled in – or at least reached our final destination.
We left Merida at 6:00 am on Saturday and now its 2 am or so in Mumbai Tuesday morning. Since we have had a stop-over in Mexico City and JFK and well as less than 24 hours in Vienna which we spent at the place of friends and then another flight to Mumbai where we arrived a few hours ago. Merida feels so distant it’s almost unreal - but for Max who keeps ordering Horchata, the quintessential Mexican drink, only to learn to his great disappointment that neither Italian restaurants in Vienna, nor Hotel restaurants in Mumbai serve anything even remotely resembling an Horchata.
Max was a real trooper. I don’t think there are very many kids who would take a 1 ½ hour flight followed by a 4 hour flight followed by a almost 9 hour flight followed by an almost 90 Degrees Fahrenheit drop in temperature followed by a wide-awake night and another 7 hour flight followed by a roughly 80 degrees increase in temperature so well. Mind you, we had our melt-downs and fights but nothing like I expected and now there is only one more flight of about 2 hours tomorrow and then this trip from hell is over – by far the worst stretch of our vacation. Our little guy is becoming quite the traveler.- that and the extra battery for the portable DVD player extending quality time spent watching “Road Construction Ahead” and “Lumberjacks” to more than 4 hours at a time.
We had a little 1 am snack at the hotel restaurant and I have to say, the obvious lack of Horchata aside, the food was excellent. I had a mixed grilled veggie platter which was about the tastiest veggie platter I have ever had in my life.
By now its 8:40 am in Mumbai ; Uli and I are sitting in “Max’s room” a rather bleak little room of 2 by 5 square meters watching Indian television while Mr. Max sleeps spread-out over the “large bed” in the other room. From outside I hear the cars honking and the city bustling but that’s the good thing about slow travel – I’ll hear many more cars honk and will walk around Indian cities plenty of times so I can relax now, watch TV and let the trooper get his beauty sleep (the attention thing continued in full force yesterday – I lost count pretty soon of all the people stroking his head or patting his tummy – we’ll have to watch out that this won’t go to his head ).
Watching Indian TV (without sound) is something else altogether. The programming seems to exclusively consist of dance shows where guys in cool shades and some with richly decorated turbans dance with attractive women in tight fitting sari-like outfits and flowing hair and all with very light skin. Occasionally the whole thing gets interrupted for yet another ad for a mosquito killer or a skin cr̬me. I did not see it but Uli insists that earlier, on the sports channel they had a program on meditation Рbasically a guru sitting in the middle flanked by to disciples all three meditating hard. How is that for action?
These are the random observations from India so far. Certainly nowhere near as profound as I had hoped they would be. I wanted to visit India for 10 years at least and now I am finally here and all I have to share right now is insights about the TV programming, the menu and the size of the hotel room. I promise more and more profound observations once we settled in – or at least reached our final destination.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
This is going to be short ...
...Montezuma's revenge (Wiki: Montezuma's Revenge is the colloquial term for any cases of traveler's diarrhea or other sicknesses contracted by tourists visiting Mexico) has finally caught up with me. Interestingly on a day where I didn't eat any outside food, toast and ham for breakfast, toast and ham for lunch (too busy souvenir shopping to eat real food). Everybody else ate everything I ate as well but they are doing fine (thankfully). I spend the morning hanging around the house and bed and everybody who knows me knows that that this kind of behaviour on a nice sunny - and the penultimate - day here is Merida is highly unusual for me. Everything being fine I would have pretty much died of boredom by 10:00 am unless we left the house and did "something". Anyway, I'll spare you the details.
For those of you who have followed my somewhat mocking posts about big Jesus in Rio being named one of the 7 New Wonders of the world: here is a picture my friend Pamela found and sent me with the following comment: Here's what Mother Nature thinks of making Rio Jesus one of the 7 Wonders of the World... The picture is not super-clear as I was lazy and just copied it out of her email - in any event, it shows a lightning bolt hitting big Jesus. Nothing happend to the New Wonder - divine intervention or dumb luck?
I realized today that Valentine's Day is a quintessential Mexican holidays. Romance was in the air all day in the form of large and extra-large red and pink heart-shaped ballons that said typical Mexican things such as "You are Special", "Sweetheart", "My love". Even the kids had a fiesta at school, little presents were given and Max received a very nice, crisp white traditional Yucatecan shirt which I was eager to have him try on right away. He, however, categoriacally declared that he will not wear it, neither today nor on any other day because "I just don't want to". Gone are the days where I could dress him in basically anything as long as it was reasonably comfortable and he'd be off - now we are having ourselves a dress code - really great timing in starting to nitpick wardrobe when living out of a suitcase (or two) and going through two outfits a day anyway.
Zocalo (we made it there with me always keeping an eye out for the next "bano publico" sign) was full of couples strolling, vendors selling heart-shaped ballons saying typically Mexican things and people patting Max's head saying things like "que gaupo" and "ayyy, curioso". I am afraid he is getting a bit too used to all the attention, he kind of walks around Zocalo as if he owned the place, summons other kids to come play with him with a hearty "Ven aca!" (come here!) and gets away with murder or at least a lot of nonsense like thowing his ballon-ball at people then making big round eyes and smiling and everybody thinks it's just so cute (other than his parents who hate to see their rebellious toddler be rewarded for misbehaving). I started reading my Kerala travel guide today and from what I read there the people in Kerala absolutely adore kids and they generally get a lot of attention especially if they are "fair-haired". Oh boy!
We have a few challenging days ahead of us. Tomorrow is our last day here and I need to make the usual preparations for long distance travel: toys, fully-charged DVD player, books, maps, food, drink and a change of clothing for Max (oh, and the Benadryl), a tiny paperback and a little toothbrush for me (well, okay, the camera bag), pack three suitcases and a duffle and go the bed to get up bright and early at 4:30 am the next day to catch the 6:30 am to Mexico City and then a flight to JFK and then a flight to Vienna where we will arrive Sunday some time. We stay for the night at a friend's house and then fly to Mumbai on Monday, arrive there late in the day, stay overnight and fly to Kochin on Tuesday where we will arrive in the afternoon. Given that schedule I might take a blogging break for a bit but will definitely be back once I checked out the Internet Cafe situation in Kochin (no access for the first few days until we move into our "real" apartment).
Thanks to everyone who reads and/or posts comments - I read them all and am happy to get feedback - just haven't figured out how to reply yet.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Numbers, Birds and Food
Merida must have been planned by an MIT grad. It's streets all have numbers: the odd ones run East West the even ones South North. There is the occassional Paseo or Avenida behaving a bit oddly but by and large it is all very logical - and confuses me no end. My brain just doesn't work this way, I can't remember that the store selling wrapping paper is on Calle 57 between 64 and 66, I can remember that it is close to that yellow bar that sells three kinds of beer and that nice house with the lavender color - but that won't do me any good because I can't remember how to get to these locations either. The whole system really reminds me of Sloan where we went from class 15.230 in room 525 to class 15.650 in room 350, Building 3 with a pipi break in between in bathroom 455. Surprisingly we actually ate pepperoni pizza, not nutritional item 165. But that was then, maybe they streamlined the food court as well.
But back to Merida. I am slowly getting the hang of it. After a few surprises - we turn a corner and I go "so, that's where we are" - I have enough landmarks in my head to get around reasonably well - makes sense, we are leaving Saturday and so this is perfect timing.
We keep ging back to the main plaza, the Zocalo, in the evenings. It's a nice big plaza with important looking buildings (governmental palace, e.g.) and at least one "iglesia" (Max seem to have forgotten the German word) whos bell rings like 30 times in a row in odd intervals and stores and restaurants. A busy street runs around it but in the very middle is a little park: a platform where every evening the Mexican flag gets lowered with lots of pomp and circumstances, street vendors sell stuff, families stroll, Max's favorite pigeons are being fed and huge old trees provide some shade. As soon as it gets dark the trees come alive. They are teeming with birds, tausends of them, who start screaming - there really is no other word for the sound they make - when it gets dark. Is really funny and deafening, it's hard to have a conversation there because of all the screaming that's going on. The place has it'sown vibe and one that Max is particularly sensitive to. He gets really crazy and wild every time we go even close to Zocalo. Maybe it's the memory of his great dance adventure the first day we were here or of all the energy the place exudes. Every time we go there we hope to be able to sit on a bench and have a bit of a conversation, watch people, etc. but every time Max jumps up and down like crazy, runs in circles, screams, runs off and sits with total strangers talking in German to them, doesn't want to leave, wants to start dancing and chases pigeons
with abandon (they, however, leave when the screaming birds start doing their thing, must be too noisy for them). His favorite restaurant is there too, they serve rice and platanos - which has saved us many an evening with our super-picky eater (no piece of fruit other than banana has crossed my son's lips since he stopped eating mashed up food out of little jars).
I thought I would get tired of Yucatecan food pretty quickly and I sort of have but not in a "I can't see it anymore and if I have to have another bite I'll scream" sort of way. I'd kill for a bit of Sushi or some Dim Sum,mind you,but I get by on panuchos and sopa de lima just fine (I guess we fall squarely into the group of Sushi-eating, New York Times-reading, gay-loving West Coast liberals that is so reviled in what is called the "heartland" - don't get me started this will be political and ugly in a sec if I go down that path). After more than 10 years in the US I am used to gargantum portions sizes - freuqently Uli and I will share an appetizer, a main course and a desert coming away feeling that we overindulged again - and can't help but look at the portions they serve here and think that people in the US would be offended by them, at best. Don't get me wrong, I love it. I am our typical kids-are-starving-in-Africa-so-better-finish-up-your-dinner guilt eater and if you put a truck load full of rice in front of me I'll do my best to eat it, even if I hate myself for it later. If you put a couple of teaspoons full of rice in front of me I'll eat it too but not much harm is done. There are two things served in abundance, limes, as I mentioned in an earlier post and tortillas which are served with just about everything with the possible exception of ice-cream but I am sure you'd get a bunch if you'd ask politely. Looking around Yucatan and the obvious problem they have with obesity I think that the darn tortillas must be single-handedly responsible for all that extra weight. The limes surely play no part in it.
I am getting started on packing the suitcases - that's the part I hate most. Yucatan has been/still is a really great experience and it is great so see how easily Max settled into a new surroundings and rhythm. He is old enough not to have forgotten about home and so we frequently talk about the house in Sunnyvale, Nelly and the kids, our friends and doing what we are doing there. He seems to find this all quite normal and unremarkable and fortunately the change is not upsetting at all to him. I think taking the time we are taking, not trying to do too much, seeevery last sight, stay in an endless number of hotels in different places really helps. So I am really glad we are doing this the slow way and we will all be sad to leave despite the fact that we just spend more time in Merida then I have ever spend in any city with the exceptions of those I lived in.
But back to Merida. I am slowly getting the hang of it. After a few surprises - we turn a corner and I go "so, that's where we are" - I have enough landmarks in my head to get around reasonably well - makes sense, we are leaving Saturday and so this is perfect timing.
We keep ging back to the main plaza, the Zocalo, in the evenings. It's a nice big plaza with important looking buildings (governmental palace, e.g.) and at least one "iglesia" (Max seem to have forgotten the German word) whos bell rings like 30 times in a row in odd intervals and stores and restaurants. A busy street runs around it but in the very middle is a little park: a platform where every evening the Mexican flag gets lowered with lots of pomp and circumstances, street vendors sell stuff, families stroll, Max's favorite pigeons are being fed and huge old trees provide some shade. As soon as it gets dark the trees come alive. They are teeming with birds, tausends of them, who start screaming - there really is no other word for the sound they make - when it gets dark. Is really funny and deafening, it's hard to have a conversation there because of all the screaming that's going on. The place has it'sown vibe and one that Max is particularly sensitive to. He gets really crazy and wild every time we go even close to Zocalo. Maybe it's the memory of his great dance adventure the first day we were here or of all the energy the place exudes. Every time we go there we hope to be able to sit on a bench and have a bit of a conversation, watch people, etc. but every time Max jumps up and down like crazy, runs in circles, screams, runs off and sits with total strangers talking in German to them, doesn't want to leave, wants to start dancing and chases pigeons
with abandon (they, however, leave when the screaming birds start doing their thing, must be too noisy for them). His favorite restaurant is there too, they serve rice and platanos - which has saved us many an evening with our super-picky eater (no piece of fruit other than banana has crossed my son's lips since he stopped eating mashed up food out of little jars). I thought I would get tired of Yucatecan food pretty quickly and I sort of have but not in a "I can't see it anymore and if I have to have another bite I'll scream" sort of way. I'd kill for a bit of Sushi or some Dim Sum,mind you,but I get by on panuchos and sopa de lima just fine (I guess we fall squarely into the group of Sushi-eating, New York Times-reading, gay-loving West Coast liberals that is so reviled in what is called the "heartland" - don't get me started this will be political and ugly in a sec if I go down that path). After more than 10 years in the US I am used to gargantum portions sizes - freuqently Uli and I will share an appetizer, a main course and a desert coming away feeling that we overindulged again - and can't help but look at the portions they serve here and think that people in the US would be offended by them, at best. Don't get me wrong, I love it. I am our typical kids-are-starving-in-Africa-so-better-finish-up-your-dinner guilt eater and if you put a truck load full of rice in front of me I'll do my best to eat it, even if I hate myself for it later. If you put a couple of teaspoons full of rice in front of me I'll eat it too but not much harm is done. There are two things served in abundance, limes, as I mentioned in an earlier post and tortillas which are served with just about everything with the possible exception of ice-cream but I am sure you'd get a bunch if you'd ask politely. Looking around Yucatan and the obvious problem they have with obesity I think that the darn tortillas must be single-handedly responsible for all that extra weight. The limes surely play no part in it.
I am getting started on packing the suitcases - that's the part I hate most. Yucatan has been/still is a really great experience and it is great so see how easily Max settled into a new surroundings and rhythm. He is old enough not to have forgotten about home and so we frequently talk about the house in Sunnyvale, Nelly and the kids, our friends and doing what we are doing there. He seems to find this all quite normal and unremarkable and fortunately the change is not upsetting at all to him. I think taking the time we are taking, not trying to do too much, seeevery last sight, stay in an endless number of hotels in different places really helps. So I am really glad we are doing this the slow way and we will all be sad to leave despite the fact that we just spend more time in Merida then I have ever spend in any city with the exceptions of those I lived in.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Souvenirs
I had almost 4 weeks to buy myself and others some souvenirs. But alas, I didn't. I didn't feel like a souvenir buying tourist. We had 4 weeks here, our son goes to school here, we basically live here. What would I be buying souvenirs for? That's for tourists and we aren't tourists, we are sort of kind of locals, ok, expats maybe but most definitely not tourists. Well, guess what, with three days left we are all of a sudden tourists and I need souvenirs. Now I could kick myself for being so uninterested in all the pottery, carved pyramids and little conch earrings. But I really don't know anybody who wants a carved stone pyramide anyway - with the exception of Max and he got one. Hammocks are a great gift if you live in Yucatan where every room comes equipped with several sturdy hooks that are mounted to the wall to hang them on. Not quite sure how one would hang one in a German living room, though. And I am equally uncertain whether either my mom or dad could get in and out without major damage to some vital organ or limb. That leaves traditional Yucatecan blouses and shirts - sure to turn everybody's head in the streets of Silicon Valley or anywhere else outside Yucatan for that matter. Panama hats - but I honestly do not know a single person who still wears hat, the generation of gentlemen who used to wear elegant hats and take them off politely when greeting a woman seem to have gone the way of the Dodo bird (excinct, that is). Colorful pottery is always a crowd pleaser - not - because it a) looks so much better under the glaring sun of the tropics than at home in the cabinet next to the coffee mugs with company logos and b) is never quite as pretty when glued together after it broke in 1000 pieces - as Max would say - due to the delicate handling of the luggage by the airport employees.
I would really love to buy something from the little vendor girls that roam the streets of Merida. I feel for them, dressed in their heavy dark traditional clothing, hauling loads of stuff around but unfortunately they don't offer anything, not a single thing that I or anybody I know or will ever know would acctually want to own: belts woven from shiny bright and 100% unnatural fibers, little purses made from the same material and traditional blouses and shirts. It's probably best I slip one particulalry tired looking one 10 pesos outright.
So the plan is that tomorrow, once Max is at school, I will go to town and start behaving like a real tourist. How is that for a resolution?
Talking tourists, I really think that I was born to be an expat. I love being an expat, I love meeting expats, they often make very interesting friends or at least conversations and I actually love my home - both in Sunnyvale and in Konstanz, which still is and always will remain the true "Heimat" for me - better from afar. I even married an expat (and dated a succession of expats before) - that's proof enough. I don't know why that is but there is something about starting over somewhere else, emersing oneself in a different place, different culture, make new friends, eat different food, adjust to different way of doing things which is appealing and challenging in a good way. There is a certain freedom for me in being a expat as not all of our eggs are in one basket. I decided to leave Germany essentially for two reasons, it bored the hell out of me and the weather is bad (seriously, only somebody suffering from seasonal depression as I do will appreciate this). If the Supreme Court throws out Roe vs.Wade tomorrow (my litmus test) we can pack up our suitcases and leave the US. I mean, there is some serious administrative stuff to take care off but there is no fundamental problem, no truly existential issue. Been there, done it. Why am I blabbering on about being an expat? Kind of on my mind a lot lately and also we snuck a peak into that really nice, partially removated house on Calle 57 that is for sale and I am sure will cost the equivalent of a posh dog house in California ..... Okay, that's crazy talk, I know.
The last few days - still can't believe it. We'll take it easy. I'd like for Max to go to school the rest of the days, have a little Valentines party with the kids on Thursday and farewell cake on Friday (preschool in Merida is no exception, there is at least one fiesta every week - they train them early on). Oh, that reminds me that Max needs a Valentines Day gift for Michelle, age five, his little gift trading buddy girl at school. I should probably get Maestra Rosio who's been so great to him a little something as well. It certainly looks like the last three days will be taken up entirely with gift shopping.
In India I'll start earlier - definitely!
I would really love to buy something from the little vendor girls that roam the streets of Merida. I feel for them, dressed in their heavy dark traditional clothing, hauling loads of stuff around but unfortunately they don't offer anything, not a single thing that I or anybody I know or will ever know would acctually want to own: belts woven from shiny bright and 100% unnatural fibers, little purses made from the same material and traditional blouses and shirts. It's probably best I slip one particulalry tired looking one 10 pesos outright.
So the plan is that tomorrow, once Max is at school, I will go to town and start behaving like a real tourist. How is that for a resolution?
Talking tourists, I really think that I was born to be an expat. I love being an expat, I love meeting expats, they often make very interesting friends or at least conversations and I actually love my home - both in Sunnyvale and in Konstanz, which still is and always will remain the true "Heimat" for me - better from afar. I even married an expat (and dated a succession of expats before) - that's proof enough. I don't know why that is but there is something about starting over somewhere else, emersing oneself in a different place, different culture, make new friends, eat different food, adjust to different way of doing things which is appealing and challenging in a good way. There is a certain freedom for me in being a expat as not all of our eggs are in one basket. I decided to leave Germany essentially for two reasons, it bored the hell out of me and the weather is bad (seriously, only somebody suffering from seasonal depression as I do will appreciate this). If the Supreme Court throws out Roe vs.Wade tomorrow (my litmus test) we can pack up our suitcases and leave the US. I mean, there is some serious administrative stuff to take care off but there is no fundamental problem, no truly existential issue. Been there, done it. Why am I blabbering on about being an expat? Kind of on my mind a lot lately and also we snuck a peak into that really nice, partially removated house on Calle 57 that is for sale and I am sure will cost the equivalent of a posh dog house in California ..... Okay, that's crazy talk, I know.
The last few days - still can't believe it. We'll take it easy. I'd like for Max to go to school the rest of the days, have a little Valentines party with the kids on Thursday and farewell cake on Friday (preschool in Merida is no exception, there is at least one fiesta every week - they train them early on). Oh, that reminds me that Max needs a Valentines Day gift for Michelle, age five, his little gift trading buddy girl at school. I should probably get Maestra Rosio who's been so great to him a little something as well. It certainly looks like the last three days will be taken up entirely with gift shopping.
In India I'll start earlier - definitely!
Monday, February 11, 2008
Detours, Deluges and the French
Yesterday morning we set out on our trip to Chichen Itza. World famous Mayan pyramids and temples and one of the 7 new Wonders of the World. The trip is just over 100 km - nothing by the standards of Californias, we drive further than that to have dinner with friends. When we left Merida we had about 1/8 of a tank of gas left, according to Uli more than enough to get to Chichen and halfway back again. So I was surprised to hear him mention, about 50 km out, that we really needed a gas station, like now or within the next few kilometers. Unlike the Californian outback which are scattered with gas stations, chain food restaurants and Bad, Bath & Beyond stores the Yucatecan outbacks are just that: outbacks, like in there is nothing there, not even a taco stand, let alone a Pemex (Mexican gas station). It has taken me the better part of 30 years to acknowledge to myself that I am just not an explorer and adventurer. I don't like the idea of crossing either Antarctica or the Sahara dessert by foot, don't need to dive into caves or old ships - in short (and here comes the third Startrek reference) I just rather not go boldly where no man has gone before - and that includes being stranded without gas and food but with whining toddler in the Yucatecan outbacks.
I am telling this because because the almost empty gas tank forced us to take a detour to the next larger town Izamal (only Pemex in a 50km radius or so). We rolled into town with what surely must have been the last shot glass full of gasoline and it was marvellous. Just the neatest little town, the houses all painted in orange with white trim, a nice main plaza with food stands and people selling things like peeled mangos on sticks and model pyramids carved out of stone (yeah, we got one for Max), a huge church and a "piramide" inside the town (imagine that). On closer inspection it turns out that the "piramide" was missing big
chunks and looking more closely at the church it became quite clear where all the stones had ended up. We strolled around together with the rest of the people there who were enjoying a leisurely midday on this sunny Sunday, climbed the pyramid, walked around the church, and ended up in a little restaurant on the edge of the main plaza were Max again was the center of the attention of the ladies and again didn't give a hoot. We were sitting eating our pollo y papas fritas and salbutes when it started raining and three seconds later it started pouring and another three seconds later - I am not sure there is a word for it. Everybody was scrambling for shelter (we were under a roof but outside) and then it felt like somebody just pushed the "pause" button - vendors stopped selling, shoppers stopped shopping, people stopped strolling, the bicylce taxis disappeared, even the stray dogs stopped sniffing (the girls didn't stop giggling, in case you wondered). It went on for 45 minutes or so, the temperature must have dropped by 20 degress and even my always hot little boy came crawling on my lap to get warm. And then it stopped. I am no great fan of rain but for a photographer this is really 
pretty much as cool as it gets: cute little colorful town with flooded (and flodded they were, we are talking ankle deep or higher) streets. Just think of the reflections and the bright wet look of all the colors. So I waded around the water in the middle of the street accompanied by a few curious looks from the locals and Max's screams warning me not to walk in the street but to come to the safety of the side walk (after all that's what we always tell him). Eventually we left, we had to go to Chichen and there are only so many pictures even I can take without lying flat in the dirt water in the middle of the street (I am a dedicated photographer, really, but there are limits). So we drove to Chichen and stayed at the same hotel we stayed at in Uxmal and by "same" I mean identical building layout (slightly different color scheme and a large map of Chichen instead of Uxmal mounted in the lobby) and we stayed in the very same room we stayed in in Uxmal and they looked completely identical. This confused Max no end, he just didn't understand the concept that we were in the same room in two different places and so he keep thinking we were in Uxmal and somebody had snuck down into the lobby and exchanged the maps.
We rose early and walked over to Chichen Itza which is right next to the hotel. What a difference to Uxmal. Uxmal had mainly Mexican families as visitors but in Chichen we found ourselves surrounded by Germans, French and Scandinavians by the busload right from the start. Chichen is huge and truly amazing, not just Kukulkan, the main pyramid but the whole
area and very well taken care of and protected which meant to Max's great disappointment: no climbing on pyramids. We had to explain it about thirty times and it still didn't make sense to him. If you want to know about Chichen, its architecture, history, art, and people I recommed a travel guide or the Internet, not me. Temperamentwise I am not particularly well-suited for reading longish explanations of buildings and to memorizing the random factoids they normally put on the placards. I much rather just stand there, look at it, take a few pictures, stare at the other tourists, make some snide remarks about them and move on. I am going to share some of my observations here. If you are very politically correct - please stop reading now. One of my pet-peeves is organized travel, especially by bus, with pre-arragend everything from breakfast menu to the timing of your pipi breaks and the minutes allowed at each sight. I have always felt that it requires a specific kind of masochism to enjoy these trips (my parents used to take trips like that and always came back complaining about this or that person who annoyed the hell out of everybody but by being bossy, boorish, obnoxious and greedy just to book another one half a year down the road). So, anyway, that place was crawling with organized bus tour tourists. Europeans, pretty much all of them. Germans, of course, Austrians, Swiss, lots of French, Brits, Dutch and Scandinavians of every description. They toiled around in largish groups with their travel guides who were pouring their hearts and souls into their talks to make them interesting. So sentences like "this building was build in such and such a year in honor of king what's-his-face and consists of umpteen colums on a seriously long stretch of ground" got acted out with waving arms and crescendos. It still was rather boring if you ask me. Walking by the Germans I could therefore make out serious gossiping along the lines of "and then my sister said to her husband ..... but he really is a bastard and so ..... finally they ended up having a nasty divorce....."
The sheer number of French surprised me. I have never encountered them in droves and I never realized that they aren't immune to the effects of fast food either. The stereotyp requires the French to drink red wine all day long, nibble on cheese, be stuck up and more than anything else be slim, svelte and fit. Not these guys and gals today, no way. We had some serious weight huffing up the few stairs one is allow to access and a lot of the huffing was done in French.
Another surprising fact was the underrepresentation of the Americans. From Houston it takes about 2 hours to get to Merida and another 2 hours to get to Chichen Itza - one of the truly great sights in the world and so one should think that the occassional American would make their way there. And some do, don't get me wrong, but the overwhelming majority seems to think their time is better spend adding an extra hour to their flights, go straight to Cancun and hit the beaches and bars there. Now this might be a sampling bias, it was some random Monday during Valentines week when all Americans need to celebrate love and don't even get an official holiday to do so but one little thing tipped me off that it might be more permanent than that: many of the vendors on the ground seem to speak French - nothing one would assume the average Yucateco/a street vendor learns purely out of intellectual curiosity.
And then the Germans, what can I say about them that I haven't said before. I'll be kind for once and just point out that nobody shows up with more guides and books and brochures. A bunch of them could surely have taught the guides a thing or two. Not sure that makes them the all time favorites with everybody.
The rest is quickly told, we drove home, it rained and then it poured, we got home to find the kitchen halfways flooded and now it just stopped pourig for a little bit nut it really feels like the quite before the next rain storm hits.
I am getting ready for India!
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Progreso
Max is finally getting the hang of what it means to behave like a proper tourist boy on the beach. We took the bus to Pogreso today for our second visit to this small and very modest beach town which is the closest beach to Merida. We have gotten pretty good at hanging out at some random corner of Calle 64 and waving buses down as we go and who can argue with a combined fare of $2.8 for the roughly hourlong trip. Other than the beach and a few restaurants that serve pescado and mariscos (which are strangly missing on many Meridien menues and if there is fish it's often fried) there isn't much to Progreso: a hotel in the grassiest green I have ever seen, a little veggie and fruit market and a few streets with hole in the wall stores all selling exclusively what looks like cheap plastic crap imported from 
China. Pretty much in front of every store, though, sits a little old lady in the typical white embroidered traditional Yucatean dress, drinking Coke Zero from the bottle and sells a few bunches of radishes, some sweets, tangerines, limes, of course, or herbs. We got there fairly early and the vendors of hand-woven belts, shirts, blouses, necklaces and - a new one - pretty cool kites outnumbered the visitors by 2 to 1.
China. Pretty much in front of every store, though, sits a little old lady in the typical white embroidered traditional Yucatean dress, drinking Coke Zero from the bottle and sells a few bunches of radishes, some sweets, tangerines, limes, of course, or herbs. We got there fairly early and the vendors of hand-woven belts, shirts, blouses, necklaces and - a new one - pretty cool kites outnumbered the visitors by 2 to 1.
We had barely arrived when Max ripped his shoes off. At Nelly's he has learned to take his shoes off before going into the sandbox and I swear the child can't go in the sand wearing shoes. He absolutely has to take them off, be it the warm sandy beach of Progreso, the sandy playground at Santiago park or, I suspect the freezing sandy beach of the North Sea in December. I have told him on occassion that it would be okay to leave his shoes on but he can't do it he has to be barefeet. Period. Next thing I saw was a little blue flash tearing towards the water and running in. Is this the same kid who a week ago freaked when the water hit his knees? He went in with Uli and then with me and then with Uli again, to his waist, even a bit higher and couldn't get enough until his lips had a scarry eggplant color and his whole little skinny body was shivering. Then he wanted to go again .... I have hope again that by the end of this sabbatical we'll have him ready to try and start with a few swim moves. We had lunch in one of the seafood restaurants and came closer to obnoxious behavior than we ever have so far in Yucatan: 5 guys, late teens, early twenties at the next table, had obviously a few to many beers and where sort of loud and arrogant. Typical behaviour, wouldn't even notice it either in the States or Europe but here it stood out. Something else struck me again today: street vendors of very sort are an accepted part of life here, they 
often come into restaurants with trays full of sweets selling them to the customers (the picture, they always carry their stuff on their head with amazing ease), the waiters will even go get them for you if you ask. Guitarists play on busses, collect money, have a little chat with the driver and then head out to catch the next bus back. Little old ladies selling veggies or young man selling random stuff like shoe laces, black maket DVDs or sponges in front of a strore is the rule, not the exception. Nobody shoes them away, or forbids them to come in (with a few exceptions, mainly restaurants that think of them selves as high end and cater mainly to non-Mexican tourists - in short, the ones we avoid like the plague). Their products are not targeted at tourist but address everyday needs of people living here. Since I am such a sucker I need to avoid them, especially the little old ladies who look frail and tired else I'd probably end up with a years supply of nut-crunch candy or cleaning rags.
often come into restaurants with trays full of sweets selling them to the customers (the picture, they always carry their stuff on their head with amazing ease), the waiters will even go get them for you if you ask. Guitarists play on busses, collect money, have a little chat with the driver and then head out to catch the next bus back. Little old ladies selling veggies or young man selling random stuff like shoe laces, black maket DVDs or sponges in front of a strore is the rule, not the exception. Nobody shoes them away, or forbids them to come in (with a few exceptions, mainly restaurants that think of them selves as high end and cater mainly to non-Mexican tourists - in short, the ones we avoid like the plague). Their products are not targeted at tourist but address everyday needs of people living here. Since I am such a sucker I need to avoid them, especially the little old ladies who look frail and tired else I'd probably end up with a years supply of nut-crunch candy or cleaning rags.The task in the evning was to find a download cable for Uli's camera which we achieved. Now I can post a few of Max's pics as well.
Tomorrow we are off to see the Chichen Itza. We'll stay for the night so there will be a report on Monday evening our time of our adventures climbing (or not) the "big, very old and very very dangerous PYRAMID of CHICHEN ITZA". (in Max's world the word "pyramid" just like "Mount St.Helens" has to be screamed, these things are way too important and dangerous to merely speak their names)
Friday, February 8, 2008
Liverpool
Today we went to the Northpole. At least I think that's what it was: it was cold, white and had ice but confusingly went by the name "Liverpool". We took a public bus there so there has to be a wormhole somewhere (okay, I guess I now really outed myself as a trekkie as this is the second reference to Startrek already) which got us in one felt swope from the hot and humid capital of Yucatan to the Northpole. They had lots so fancy things there as well, they weren't exactly for free but - with considerable financial means - one could acquire them.
To make a long stroy short, we took the "Tapeste" public bus through the centro, by the Hyatt and deep into the "suburbs". We passed the usual assortment of marquesits stands, roadside restaurants serving panuchos, salbutes and pooc chuc, and a few tiny car dealerships as well as the famous Mexican chain stores called Home Depot, Sam's Club, and Boston Market. And then: the first Starbuck. I had hoped naively that their quest for world domination had been brought to a stop in Yucatan. But no such luck. When we finally got out we saw across the street a huge white building called "Liverpool" with a US-sized parking lot - almost completely empty. We entered and I felt immediately smug that I had brought my sweater (outside: int he mid-90 and according to "wunderground" 100% humidity; inside: I'd say somewhere in the low 60s - if that). We entered an all white palace of fine and refined spending. Many of the brands found in US department stores plus a few more obscure ones and at prices at least on Macy level, if not higher. No wonder the parking lot was empty (as well as the store). I think we were pretty much their only source of income today because Uli - when he packed his stuff for this vacation - was obviously under the impression that he was going on a weekend hiking trip with his buddy. So far we had to buy underwear and socks andtoday it was shorts. Couple nice pairs, could have gotten like 4 for the same money in the US, more at Ross. But I was grateful he as much as admitted that he has a little supply issue and agreed that the best remedy might be to buy some (pretty straight forward for any woman, however, guys ....'nough said).
After that accomplished Uli moaned something like "shopping shields 95% down" and so we walked past the splendid parfume section into the rest of the mall. A huge white, modern, squeeky-clean building with a couple of cafes, a bunch of TelCel stores (got to get your cell phones somewhere) and in the middle a sizable ice-sakting rink. I am not making this up. I couldn't if I tried. Real ice, real people on skates, floor to ceiling white, super-spacious - Northpole for sure. It all felt a tad unreal, sort of like we just walked out of reality and landed in some movie (oh, yes, they had a Cine Hollywood there too).
Embolded by my shopping success the day before I decided to give Northpole, also known as Liverpool, another chance and did the worst thing any woman over 40 can do: trying on skimpy bikinis on sale. There is nothing quite like an ill-fitting bikini in bright orange (looked kind of cute on the hanger) in the fluorescent light of an all white changing room to crush your ego: here, there, on the Northpole - anywhere. After that trauma I went to the sweets department and bought my little blue-eyed monster some gummi-snakes. He is skinny, he might as well enjoy it.
Reality had us back when we left Liverpool to catch the bus: high-90s and 100% humidity. After 10 minutes of that, even I took my sweater off.
To make a long stroy short, we took the "Tapeste" public bus through the centro, by the Hyatt and deep into the "suburbs". We passed the usual assortment of marquesits stands, roadside restaurants serving panuchos, salbutes and pooc chuc, and a few tiny car dealerships as well as the famous Mexican chain stores called Home Depot, Sam's Club, and Boston Market. And then: the first Starbuck. I had hoped naively that their quest for world domination had been brought to a stop in Yucatan. But no such luck. When we finally got out we saw across the street a huge white building called "Liverpool" with a US-sized parking lot - almost completely empty. We entered and I felt immediately smug that I had brought my sweater (outside: int he mid-90 and according to "wunderground" 100% humidity; inside: I'd say somewhere in the low 60s - if that). We entered an all white palace of fine and refined spending. Many of the brands found in US department stores plus a few more obscure ones and at prices at least on Macy level, if not higher. No wonder the parking lot was empty (as well as the store). I think we were pretty much their only source of income today because Uli - when he packed his stuff for this vacation - was obviously under the impression that he was going on a weekend hiking trip with his buddy. So far we had to buy underwear and socks andtoday it was shorts. Couple nice pairs, could have gotten like 4 for the same money in the US, more at Ross. But I was grateful he as much as admitted that he has a little supply issue and agreed that the best remedy might be to buy some (pretty straight forward for any woman, however, guys ....'nough said).
After that accomplished Uli moaned something like "shopping shields 95% down" and so we walked past the splendid parfume section into the rest of the mall. A huge white, modern, squeeky-clean building with a couple of cafes, a bunch of TelCel stores (got to get your cell phones somewhere) and in the middle a sizable ice-sakting rink. I am not making this up. I couldn't if I tried. Real ice, real people on skates, floor to ceiling white, super-spacious - Northpole for sure. It all felt a tad unreal, sort of like we just walked out of reality and landed in some movie (oh, yes, they had a Cine Hollywood there too).
Embolded by my shopping success the day before I decided to give Northpole, also known as Liverpool, another chance and did the worst thing any woman over 40 can do: trying on skimpy bikinis on sale. There is nothing quite like an ill-fitting bikini in bright orange (looked kind of cute on the hanger) in the fluorescent light of an all white changing room to crush your ego: here, there, on the Northpole - anywhere. After that trauma I went to the sweets department and bought my little blue-eyed monster some gummi-snakes. He is skinny, he might as well enjoy it.
Reality had us back when we left Liverpool to catch the bus: high-90s and 100% humidity. After 10 minutes of that, even I took my sweater off.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
It's raining (water, not men)
We had a good old-fashioned thunderstorm today: torrential rain, lightning flashes, thunder and more rain. It was actually quite cool - haven't been in one in many years and as much as I hate rain, in 30 degrees Celsius even getting soaking wet is not half bad. Max was brave. When the first big thunder hit he looked at me waiting for my reaction. I laughed and said something like "this is fun" - then he, too, laughed. Uli explained about the electricity in the air and how it creates a big flash and the sound of the thunder but the lesson was somewhat over his head - unsurprisingly - and so he now thinks of it as electricity sort of banging together in the the clouds. Good enough for a three year old. Everything is soggy now and the inner yard is slippery as hell (the house is a bit funny: there is a entrance "hall" which pretty much a useless room - unless you are planning on selling custom caps, tamales, or tools there - where we normally kick of our shoes, a "living room" which is now called "play room" as Max's toys are littered about and then a kitchen, all in a row. The you need to cross the yard and enter into the bedroom which makes for extremely dirty feet all the time. I am getting used to it, though, really) but - to our surprise - no room has so far been floaded. I am really hoping for good light tomorrow morning to show off the freshly washed city : a photographer's dream - if the photographer can drag her butt out of bed in time, that is.
Today - with Max at school - we went shopping and I am now closer to looking like a Meridian muchacha then I have ever been before. I acquired two pairs of tight pants cut of below the knee (would probably be almost full length for most Yucateacas ;-) - now I just need to replace those ugly old Tevas with something a little more golden/silvery/pink or bead encrusted. Seriously, I just needed more stuff and at $12 a pop this doesn't exactly qualify as splurging.
I can't believe that it's only a good week until we leave. It doesn't seem like we have been here almost three weeks but we have. The usual "end of vacation is in sight" panic starts to set in: we need to go back to Progreso so Max can play in the sand, but we absolutely have to go to Chichen Itza and it would really be cool to go to Campeche - sounds lovely - and whatever happend to the plan to take a trip to Cancun, oh well, that won't happen this time, we need to come again and see Cancun ..... It's funny (actually not really funny, rather annoying) how time seems to accelerate during the later part of a several week trip. The first week seems slow - one has the impression that one has all the time in the world, one basks in time, the remaining days one long luxurious stretch. Then time accelerates, the end is still nowhere in sight but somehow one seems to loose a day here or there: wasn't it Wednesday yesterday?, why is it Friday today? What happend to Thursday? And then, all of a sudden, the end is in sight, one has - so to speak - reached the summit and is on the way down on the other side. Loosing days seems to happen more often or one looses two at a time and then the end-of-trip panic sets in as mentioned and one starts to wonder whether everything will fit into the suitcases - where are they anyway? - where the passports are and how one will get to the airport. Normally this is when the end-of-trip-is-in-sight depression sets in but fortunately I can shelf that for a bit longer: there are five more months to look forward to.
And now I better going and charge my camera battery in case the light is good tomorrow because one thing I really wanted to do while I am here is to take early morning pictures of the city.
Today - with Max at school - we went shopping and I am now closer to looking like a Meridian muchacha then I have ever been before. I acquired two pairs of tight pants cut of below the knee (would probably be almost full length for most Yucateacas ;-) - now I just need to replace those ugly old Tevas with something a little more golden/silvery/pink or bead encrusted. Seriously, I just needed more stuff and at $12 a pop this doesn't exactly qualify as splurging.
I can't believe that it's only a good week until we leave. It doesn't seem like we have been here almost three weeks but we have. The usual "end of vacation is in sight" panic starts to set in: we need to go back to Progreso so Max can play in the sand, but we absolutely have to go to Chichen Itza and it would really be cool to go to Campeche - sounds lovely - and whatever happend to the plan to take a trip to Cancun, oh well, that won't happen this time, we need to come again and see Cancun ..... It's funny (actually not really funny, rather annoying) how time seems to accelerate during the later part of a several week trip. The first week seems slow - one has the impression that one has all the time in the world, one basks in time, the remaining days one long luxurious stretch. Then time accelerates, the end is still nowhere in sight but somehow one seems to loose a day here or there: wasn't it Wednesday yesterday?, why is it Friday today? What happend to Thursday? And then, all of a sudden, the end is in sight, one has - so to speak - reached the summit and is on the way down on the other side. Loosing days seems to happen more often or one looses two at a time and then the end-of-trip panic sets in as mentioned and one starts to wonder whether everything will fit into the suitcases - where are they anyway? - where the passports are and how one will get to the airport. Normally this is when the end-of-trip-is-in-sight depression sets in but fortunately I can shelf that for a bit longer: there are five more months to look forward to.
And now I better going and charge my camera battery in case the light is good tomorrow because one thing I really wanted to do while I am here is to take early morning pictures of the city.
This is just a somewhat random picture of Merida. I like the fact that the wash salon is called "Faith". Faith in what? That they don't make the colors run or shrink the sweaters? Very typical Merida business ;-)
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