The end of the road

After a whirlwind of a trip, I have spent the last few days saying goodbye to all the visitors and finally packing myself. My mom and Dot only had a day left after we arrived back in Bangalore, so we spent Friday doing some last minute shopping on Commercial street and having a nice dinner out. Kelly had been basking in the Indian experience and enjoying almost all Indian food the whole time, but by Friday he was glad to join us at a Western restaurant where he dug into a cheeseburger.

Despite it being a pretty low key day, we had to expect the unexpected. For one, our rickshaw rides turned out to be pretty interesting. My first driver of the day must have been completely new to the job as he had absolutely no idea where he was going, and what should have been a 2 minute drive turned into 15. Then on the way home from dinner, Rob, Dot and I had the pleasure of being driven by a man who horked up a lung every couple minutes and spit out the side (directly next to my feet, no splatter thankfully). Dot ended up being quite concerned about the guy, exclaiming "I think he has cancer!". It's not surprising though since even a couple months here has made me concerned about my lungs. A lot of the time when I blow my nose here (which is often since I think I'm allergic to the air) there are actually black bits that come out. Definitely not healthy!

Our day also included another sighting of the 3 monkeys that like to hang around outside my apartment. Apparently while we were away, they got inside of my dad's apartment and were trying to get in the fridge when Tej walked in. It took a little while for him to scare them off because they are such feisty things and were up for a fight.

Later Friday night I said my goodbyes to my mom and Dot who left at 5am to catch their flight home. Saturday was Kelly's day to do some last minute things so we did just that, while also spending a lot of time watching Man vs. Wild and fighting about how legit Bear Grylls is. The next day he packed up and left at 1am for his flight.

Now it is my turn and I can hardly believe it! I am leaving tonight and heading back to the cold weather in Canada! I have had an amazing time in India and it feels like I have been here forever and done so many things, but I am more than ready to come home. If you asked me 3 years ago, I would've told you that I could live in India and that I thought Canada was lame. My opinion has definitely changed! India is an amazing place and I would love to come back, but Canada is where my home is and I am excited to find a job and figure out my life there. I am also really excited to see my dog Bunkley! It has been torture being surrounded by dogs and not being able to treat them like pets. Like Carly, there are just so many things I had taken advantage of in Canada, but now I have found a whole new appreciation.

I am so glad I was able to share this journey with my parents, Rob, Dot, Carly and Kelly, and make lots of new friends. It has been a fantastic experience and I've learned a lot. But now it is time to hop on an incredibly long and boring flight home. So see you all soon :)

You just have to laugh

Life in India can be so ridiculous that you just cannot take it too seriously or else you will be miserable. The service at the resort in Kerala for example, was without a doubt the slowest, most inefficient service I have ever experienced. The resort itself was worth every penny because of its location right on the beach, but the only on-site restaurant was a joke. The food was pretty good although it got old after several meals there, but it was the fact that it took at least 3 hours to eat one meal. We would wait until someone came to take our order (interesting since we were the only guests there), then wait at least an hour before a couple meals would reach the table. The group of us (11 in total) always sat together but never ate at the same time. After requesting our bills we would wait about another 20 minutes before we were able to sign them and leave. After a couple of these situations we decided that we should order our meals way ahead of time so they would be ready when we wanted to eat. So at 3pm on Tuesday I wrote down everyone's order on a piece of paper and sent it over to the restaurant, instructing them we wanted the food on the table at 8pm. We expected this would allow us to eat around 8:30, but of course we arrived at that time and waited another hour before anything was brought to the table. It was unbelievable really, but ultimately just hilarious.

It should be no surprise that we sought to eat one dinner in town instead of at the resort, so on Wednesday night we packed into our cars and drove to a restaurant called Paragon which Dad had read great reviews of. Our first impression of the place when we pulled up was that we would be eating in a squishy little dingy place, but we were quickly shuffled through many different rooms, past lines of people waiting and up the stairs to a secluded A/C room where we received the most amazing service and food. I mean AMAZING! We didn't know what to order so the chef offered us a banquet through which we received individual servings of different types of delicious seafood and other Kerala specialties (apple salad, prawns,squid,curried chicken, fish, fruit platter and mousse). Not only was the service and food fantastic, but after what seemed like an endless amount of expensive cuisine, we each paid 400Rs (less than 10$ Cdn). It more than made up for our other food experiences in Kerala!

On the drive home from Paragon I was desperate to pee. I like to avoid public restrooms in general but in India I am far more hesitant to use one, so I figured I could hold it for 15 minutes. Well those 15 minutes were long extended by not only a major festival that backed up traffic for a mile, but also a train which resulted in the train tracks being blocked off for another 10 minutes. I was dying!!! It was a big joke for everyone around because of all of these random delays, but this was a time where my sense of humour in India was severely tested. I was able to laugh about it after we made it back to the resort where I booked it to my room.

Another thing you can't take too seriously in India is the attention Western people tend to receive from all sorts of people. Seeing white people in Bangalore in pretty common due to all the business men who work here, but in Kerala the group of us were quite the site. This was especially true when we were on the beach wearing far less clothing than everyone else and swimming unlike everyone else! Our afternoon swims drew many spectators - none of whom hid their interest in us. For the most part we all found it pretty funny, although I was a little uncomfortable getting out of the water each time, and there was one point where Kelly and I were approached by about 30 young men who wanted to take pictures with us - they were far too grabby and I was quick to make my escape.

There are just so many things in India that might make you uncomfortable and would merit some harsh words in Canada, but you have to laugh and that's something I definitely do. 

Some Recent Photos

Monkey right next to our balcony (at the apartment)

Aftermath of the bees

Elephant only 20ft away!

Goats at Jungle Retreat (massive!)

Working elephant on the side of the road

 

Dot loving the locals in Kerala (they adored her too!)

Dot in the Indian Ocean 

Not a Kerala in the World

Another Canadian has joined me for the last leg of my journey in India. Many of you were in on all of the lies that kept his visit a secret, so you may already know that Kelly showed up on Wednesday morning! I had begun the day with my routine of going to the gym, and returned extremely sweaty to my apartment where I opened the door to see Kelly sipping a coffee on the balcony. The only words I could muster were “Shut-up!”. It was quite the surprise and it took me a good 20 minutes to be sure I wasn’t going crazy or dreaming. The timing is perfect for him to be here since otherwise I would have been a major fifth wheel on the trip to the jungle and beach, where we both are currently having a blast!

Right now we are relaxing at a resort right on the beach in Calicut, Kerala. The group of us arrived here yesterday after a long drive from the jungle. We spent 3 days chilling with the animals in India’s 12,000 acre forest in the foothills of the Nilgiris (“blue mountains”).  My parent’s friends Norwyn & Sandra and Hugh & Vivian live in a compound right in the jungle where they and Rob & Dot stayed. Meaghan, her kids, and Kelly joined me down the road at Jungle Retreat. This place is such a part of the jungle that we had to be escorted on our walks from the restaurant to our room at night just in case we ran into one of the local leopards, elephants, bears or snakes. Luckily we didn’t have any unexpected interactions with these animals, but we did get to sit on a veranda in the jungle as we watched bison drink from a pond and were greeted by a wild elephant that came within 20 feet of where we sat. An early morning hike had also been planned for one of the days where we could have come across anything from a flying squirrel to a tiger, but a down pour of rain cancelled those plans. That didn’t matter much after a couple drives in the area were enough to bring us across 6 other elephants and loads of menacing monkeys and spotted deer.

We also made the terrifying trek up one of the mountains to Ooty where my parents both went to boarding school. I say it’s terrifying because to reach the school we had to drive around 36 hair pin bends up to 5,000 feet above sea level. There is not much to keep a car from falling off the side of the mountain other than a few randomly dispersed barriers (which we later discovered are only put up after an accident has already happened there – very comforting). There is even a record of deaths displayed on signs as you drive up. But I have to say it is the most amazing and entertaining drive ever. Kelly would have paid a million dollars to be able to drive a rickshaw or motorcycle up the road. Needless to say, we all made it up and spent the day visiting my parent’s school, eating fantastic dosa at a hole in the wall and shopping at the market. The drive down was just as insane, but we survived that as well.

So after our 6 hour drive from Bangalore to the jungle, we had another 5 hour trek to Calicut where have all fallen in love with the ocean. I am incredibly sun burned from a quick tanning session at Jungle Retreat (apparently the sun is much stronger when you are on a mountain), so tanning is not a priority for me.

The internet is sparse here so I will post some pictures when I get a chance and tell you more about how much fun my mom, Dot and Kelly are having as they experience the chaos that is India. They all love the traffic, the food, the shopping and of course the cows. Hard to believe we will all be back in the Canadian winter in less than a week!

  

An update on the bees:

For those of you interested, we dealt with bees the night after Tej’s attempt failed. Sadly but successfully the bees have all become victims of a chemical that made them drop dead on the spot! I’ll post a picture when I get a chance.