Chennai Weekend (Part Two)

After the music festival we decided to go out for coffee with some people that we had met at the festival. We stayed out so long that when we were ready to go back to our hostel it was almost time for the sun to come up. Especially because we were at the ocean, we couldn’t just skip the sunrise when it was so near. So we went back to the beach and watched it rise. At first it was only us, the fishermen, and a few other early-risers. As time went on more and more people showed up, many of them doing yoga or playing frisbee or cricket on the beach. Many stray dogs came out, playing and looking for breakfast.

We also decided it was time for breakfast. One of the guys that we were with, Rohit, had a cousin (Nela, Nula, Neha?… I’m not sure of her name) who lived nearby and said we could come over for breakfast. I was excited because I had not yet been to an Indian home or had home-cooked Indian food. The cousin had a cute little apartment that was full of all sorts of colors- there were green and purple walls, and the bathroom wall tiles were Mickey Mouse. She had two bathrooms- one western style and one Indian style (hole in the floor). For breakfast we had tea (no meal is complete without tea) and parratas. Parratas are some sort of cooked dough/bread that you use to eat a sort of curry or lentil type meal with. It seems that most Indian breakfasts are pretty small and include some sort of dough and a small vegetable/lentil dish. While eating breakfast we sat around the TV and watched MTV and Mr. Bean. After breakfast the cousin wanted to make us lemonade. She made it fresh, of course, and with salt instead of sugar. Nina liked it… I thought it tasted like lemon juice, eggs, and salt. Yum.

During the day Sunday Nina and I had been planning on doing normal touristy stuff- vistiting temples, forts, and museums. But after talking with some of the locals we had so many other options so we decided to travel about an hour south to a little town called Mahabalipuram with a coupld of our new Indian friends, Rohit and Kunal. So we packed our bags, caught a bus, and headed south. We arrived to a very tourist-filled town. I was so surprised to see so many white people (most from Europe it seemed), but it was a nice change because we just blended right in. The first thing we did was find a place to stay. We settled on a Rs. 300 (about $6) room with two tiny beds, a Indian toilet/shower, and some lizard-looking creatures. I could try and describe it more but I don’t think I could ever get the picture out to you. Just imagine the crappiest place you’ve ever seen that you would never even consider walking into in the US- then times that by at least 10 and you get our room. It was all just part of the experience.

Mahabalipuram is known for its temples and beaches. Since we were so tired from not sleeping the night before, all we did Sunday evening was have delicious South Indian dinner (masala dosas, paratas, and other things I don’t know the names of- it was so helpful having natives with us to order!), take a beach walk, and walk around all the tourist shops. After that we called it an early night so that we could wake up early Monday morning to go to the temples and other tourist sights.

Monday morning- by 8am we were at the Shore Temple. We went up to the ticket counter and were appalled to find out that tickets for Indian citizens cost Rs. 10 (20 cents) and tickets for foreigners cost Rs. 250 ($5). I tried to imagine what it would be like in the US if we charged foreigners more money than we charged locals for anything. We got over it, bought our tickets, and went to the temple. It was right on the shore (hence its name). I’m pretty sure it was all carved out of one giant piece of stone also, so that’s pretty cool. After the temple we did the rest of the touristy stuff in town- climbed many stairs, got a nice view of the town, saw a lighthouse, saw some monkeys and cuuute baby pigs, and visited a couple more temple type places.

We had a train to catch back to Hyderabad Monday afternoon, so we were back on the bus to Chennai by noon. The train ride is a story in itself, so once again- Chennai Weekend blog, to be continued…

Chennai Weekend (Part One)

This weekend we had yet another holiday. Monday the 26th of January was India's Republic (Independence) Day- therefore no class. Nina and I decided it was about time to get out of Hyderabad and doing some Indian exploring. It's starting to turn out that nothing in India never works as planned, which this time made for the best weekend so far.

We began our journey on Thursday afternoon. To make sure we caught our 7pm train in Secunderabad we left campus extra early with lots of time to spare. So we thought. But then the Indian obstacles jump in... like sickness, missing the first connecting train, and then getting on the slowest rickshaw in town to make sure to get to the Secunderabad station on time. Moments before we finally got to the station our train departed, without us, of course. I was not surprised. I was already learning to never count on Indian transportation. Since it was a holiday weekend and we had booked our tickets way ahead of time we knew that there would be no tickets available for any later trains to Chennai that day, so we thought maybe we could try to just get a ticket anywhere. So we got in the ladies ticket line thinking it would be easy. That was an experience of its own. It's a madhouse sort of line. Everyone is yelling and pushing and crazy! Long story short- we got no new ticket and returned to campus for the night.

The next morning we headed back to Secunderabad to see what we could do about getting a ticket. After talking to some special official people (who were excited to talk about Obama when they found out we were from the US) we got hooked up with some tickets and were finally on our way Chennai. We found our seats in the sleeper class and got settled. The Indian boys surrounded us and took turns sitting next to and staring at us throughout the ride. Tourists (white folk) are just not common in the Hyderabad area. After a long, cold, 13 hour ride we made it! We got off the train and were bombarded by rickshaw drivers trying to give us a ride. So we stepped into a little breakfast place and had delicious masala dosas. After breakfast we dropped out bags off at our hostel and went exploring.

The first place we went was a part of town called Mylapore. In Mylapore we visited the very elaborate and beautiful Kapaleashwarar Temple, pictured below:


The rest of the day was spent somewhat lazily, as we were so tired from the train ride. We spent part of the day napping and most of the rest of it on Marina Beach (on the Bay of Bengal), the 2nd longest city beach in the world. It's so different to be on a beach on a very hot day and see hardly anyone swimming. For the few swimmers their swimwear included tighty-whities for the guys and saris/skirts for the ladies.


We happened to be in Chennai during a big arts and music festival that was going on at one of the universities. There was a DJ from London (DJ Rekha) who Nina had been wanting to see for a while that was playing the festival that evening- for free! So we went to the festival and got in the intense search line. They tried to confiscate Nina's malaria pills. And water was not allowed inside- and there was none for sale inside. We had to lie about having cameras because they would've taken them too. We walked into to some crazy Indian metal band playing. They finished and it was time for DJ Rekha. Her music is sort of a mix of hip hop and Bhangra music, and lots of fun! Almost only males were dancing, but we decided that we would ignore the stares and dance anyway. And it was so much fun! Some of the Indian boys tried to teach us some dances, but that didn't work too well. I got a little video clip of some Indian fellas dancing. Since cameras weren't allowed I hid it, so it's not quality, and definitely did not capture the awesome dancing we saw, but gives you an idea. Enjoy.



Since it was such an eventful weekend and I have so much more to say, I'm breaking this story into parts. So this is the end of part one. Chennai Weekend blog, to be continued...

Ramoji Film City

Yesterday (17 January) was a long but eventful day. My friends Nina, Darlisa, and I decided to take a day trip to the Ramoji Film City, a largely Telugu movie producing studio. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, RFC is the largest film studio complex in the world. It's just outside of Hyderabad, the city that I live in.

We started the morning with delicious banana pancakes at our dorm and were on the road (which means heading from our dorm to the main campus gate) by 8:15am. The night before I had left my bike at the (20 minute ride away) main gate, so I rode Nina's bike and had her hop on the back, like all the Indians do. We got to a hill that I couldn't pull both of us up so we started walking and all of the sudden our house man, Mr. Das, pulled up on his scooter- so I got my first Indian scooter ride, ha. Took the bus from campus to Medhipatnam (a popular bus stop), and then went on a search for our next bus. We saw it far away so got to run through the crowd of Indians, who were of course laughing at us, only to miss it. So we caught a bus to a place called Koti, where we waited about an hour for a bus to take us to Ramoji, and then decided to take a rickshaw as the bus never came. I prefer a rickshaw anyway though- the buses are often ridiculously crowded and always smell strongly of body odor and other not-pleasant smalls that I haven't figured out yet. Although our rickshaw broke down about every five minutes on the way to the film city, the trip only took about three hours altogether (to get right outside of the city, ha).

We walked up to the entrance of Ramoji and there were lots and lots of excited children running around (we were 3 of them). We got tickets for 300 rupees (appx. $6-7), and were on our way. We then got on another bus, and after about 15 minutes or so riding through the hills and palm trees, we arrived! The first thing we did was ride the free rides in Fundustan. Some pictures showing our excitement:


After the rides we explored the Fundustan area, which is basically the play area. We toured through a ridiculous "magic" house. A sign recommended that pregnant women should not go into this magic house, but once completed I thought that was a very silly recommendation, as all it was was a semi-dark walking path with silly mirrors and fake snakes. Maybe my American mind is just used to more complex and exciting things. We watched a little bit of a show where some people were dancing, ate lunch, and visited the Indian version of the "wild west."
After Fundustan we hopped on a little red tour bus and drove around the film city. We saw lots of film sets and statues and other interesting things. One part that I laughed about was a replica of Arizona- all it had was cacti.

After the bus tour all three of us were exhausted and ready to head home. We trekked to the bus stop outside of the film city and got on a bus to Secunderabad. While on the bus a cute little old lady laid her head on my shoulder and took a nap. And I joined her. From Secunderabad we waited over an hour for a train that never came. By 6:15pm I decided that I was getting home by rickshaw (dinner is at 7 and I did not want to miss that). So we started our long rickshaw ride home. Along the ride I noticed that this one motorcycle with two guys on it kept riding past/alongside us and the fellas kept looking at us- we're used to this, but this time it seemed to be lasting longer than normal. All of the sudden I felt something hit me in the leg. I looked around and found a little wad of paper on the floor of the rickshaw. I opened it and read "Plees Call" and it had a number. After that the boys drove extremely closely alongside us and having a conversation with us for about 15 minutes. One told me that I could come to his house for dinner and meet his mom and dad, haha. So after a long day of travel and some semi-traveling-frustration, the end of the travels made me laugh and had me in a good mood for the rest of the evening.

Happy Sankranthi!

Happy Sankranthi everyone! Today marks the beginning of the harvest season in India. According to Wikipedia, Sankranthi is the celebration of the sun transitioning into Capricorn on its celestial path. Also, no school today! So we had the day to explore town and find the Sankranthi festivities!

My day began with lunch served on a banana leaf with traditional South Indian food. No utensils- I'm learning how to eat rice and such with my fingers and it is quite fabulous. I'm going to try and bring that back to the U.S. It's like getting to play with your food at every meal. Awesome.

After lunch a group of fellow students and I hopped into a rickshaw to begin our Sankranthi festivities. Actually, we fit 11 people into a 3 person limit vehicle. That was cozy. A quick photo shoot occurred:



After the quick, but crazy rickshaw ride we arrived at Shilparamam, a market in town which often is the grounds of festivals and shows it seems. A group of us went in (for Rs. 20 each. Appx. 40 cents) and split up to wander around. They have all Indian souvenirs one would ever really need. My friend Nina and I shopped around for a bit, pausing for the random crazy things going on. There were painted people singing and dancing and walking through the market, some crazy happening with a man walking around with his neck in a cow's mouth (yes, in a cow's mouth), little girls singing on a stage, and awesome kite flying everywhere. Also, here I know what celebrities feel like in the U.S. I have had my picture taken by soooooo many random Indian folks, I think that if I charged them I would already be rich. It's weird, but I take their pictures in return.





After Shilparamam, the group went on a journey to the lake. Took a rickshaw to the train station, this time only with 9 people, so not quite as crammed. Waited not too long, got on a train, realized it was the wrong train, and had to jump off... while trying to find 2 of ours friends who got into a different car, who we found as the train was pulling off. Oh and then we realized it actually was the right train so felt a little stupid. We finally made it on a train, not the right one, but it got us somewhat close to where we were going. After a long train and rickshaw trip we finally made it to the lake. It was dark by then, and most of the festivities had died down. So we had an amazing dinner and then strolled around the lake area for a while before returning to the train station (where we made at least 1o new Indian friends while waiting for the train). We rode the train to Lingampally, a neighborhood nearby my campus. Then we caught a bus from Lingampally to campus. And I had to ran and jump on it while it was still moving, apparently a common occurrence. Got to campus, rode my bike (with my friend/roomie Ashleigh on the back- another common Indian occurrence) the nice 15-20 minute ride to my dorm, and now am off to bed, after a nice long day full of Sankranthi celebrations and Hyderabad traveling education.

I have an address

And it is:

Hope Smallwood
Study in India Program
Tagore International House
South Campus, University of Hyderabad
Gachibowli, Hyderabad - 500046
India

When I have more time and energy I will write more. So for now this will be a picture blog.

Bus Ride


Free Toilet!!

Riding Elephant

Palace of Winds (Hawa Mahal) in Jaipur

Airplanes and Taj Mahal

I have a little time, so I'm going to backtrack a little about my journey here.
After the night of being stuck in New York, things still did not quite go as planned. I was supposed to get on a flight the next day at 4pm, but was told that it was booked and couldn't. 5 minutes before it took off I found out there were 2 open seats, but they wouldn't let me on because they were leaving soon. So I caught a flight to London around 9pm. Through security at JFK, I also got randomly selected to be super-searched. So I got to be patted down, bags intensely searched and swiped for drugs, lots of fun. The flight to London was pretty painless. After a small layover in London I was on a plane, on my way to Delhi, finally. I was watching my little map on the TV screen on the back of the seat in front of me. I watched the plane pass Delhi so I figured we were just circling around to get a better landing position or something. But we just kept flying farther and farther away. I soon found out that we couldn't land in Delhi because there was too much fog and that we were on our way to Mumbai (Bombay) instead. Great. Arrived at the Mumbai airport and waited in line after line after line. The airport was packed with angry and confused people, and smelled of Nag Champa incense. We were put up in a hotel for a day to spend sitting and waiting. Finally around 6pm or so we got transported back to the Mumbai airport, waited hours in line and then finally flew to Delhi. Finally. And that time I actually made it to my destination.

So a little recap on flights: I was supposed to fly St. Louis-JFK-Delhi. Instead I flew St. Louis-Richmond, VA-Raleigh, NC-JFK-London-Mumbai-Delhi.

I was picked up in Delhi around 1am, and then rode for 4 and 1/2 hours to Agra to meet up with the other students studying abroad in my group. I went to bed around 6am and had to wake up at 7am to see the Taj Mahal. The group had gone the day before so I had to go really early tha morning in order to see it before we got on the road again. The Taj Mahal is indescribable. It is just so incredibly beautiful. If you ever just have one day to travel to just one place, go to the Taj Mahal. To get to and from the TM, i rode in a little autorickshaw. We passed by stray dogs, monkeys, camels, and cows, among many other things. What I was surprised most about is where the Taj is located. From all of the pictures I have always seen I would never have imagined the Taj Mahal to be located in one of the poorest, slummiest little villages I have ever seen. You're driving down the dirt road, trash surrounding you, stray animals running around, extremely impoverished people living on the streets and begging for money, and then you turn the corner, go through a few gates, and see one of the prettiest structures in the world. I was just in awe.

Still no WiFi so it's hard for me to use my computer. Will post pictures and continue my story soon. Hope all is well with everyone back home!!

Quick Update

Hello! Am safely in my new home at the University of Hyderabad. Have limited internet access so not much time to spend on this, but there will be a much better update as soon as I get some sort of better connection. I have been having an incredible time. Things are unbelievable- in the best and worst ways. I start classes tomorrow and have no idea what to expect. Will write more soon. Happy New Year to everyone!! Here are a few pictures of my trip so far... Up above is me petting the elephant I rode on.
This is a Water Palace on the drive from Jaipur to Delhi.
Flower stand in Jaipur.
Happy New Year!!
Taj Mahal!!