We have moved north to Chaing Mai and it is noticeably cooler. It is still hot enough in the middle of the day if you are outside. This has been my brother's home town for quite a long time now. He knows lots of restaurants. We have continued to go to western restaurants for the kid's sake. Poor Alan was looking forward to Thai food. I find myself craving it a bit. Hopefully we will be able to sneak in a few good Thai meals soon.
We haven't really done much so far. We climbed up to Doi Sothep a few days ago. You take a local taxi up to the temple . The really devout walk up the hill for several kilometers but we took the easy route -- only 306 steps up after the car ride. http://thailandforvisitors.com/north/chiangmai/suthep/ . There are different kinds of taxis every where you go in Asia. In Chaing Mai, there are these red pickup trucks driving all over the place. They have two rows of seats in a covered section in the back of the truck. You stop them and see if the driver is willing to take you where you want to go. Sometimes they are going your way, sometimes they aren't. Most times the fair is 15 bt or 50 cents per person, but sometimes you have to pay more.
Today we went to the Royal Flora flower show in Chaing Mai www.royalfloraexpo.com/
We were there for about 5 hours and the kids liked the first 4 1/2... Amongst other things, there was a truly impressive pavillion devoted to orchids. The pavillion made it seem like growing orchids must be simple there were so many varieties and so many examples of each. Anyone who has read anything by Rex Stout knows this to be false...
Tomorrow we are going to learn how to make silver jewelry. On Wednesday we will be going on a tour that includes an elephant ride, an ox cart ride and a trip on a bamboo raft. Thursday it is off to Thai cooking school. On Friday we plan to tour a silk making factory. We will be in Chaing Mai for a couple of weeks and will be trying most things that are on offer for tourists while we are here. I will report on things if anything turns out to be worth noting.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
A soft landing in Bankok
Wow. After India, Thailand seems very modern and easy. There are no cows on the streets, or any of their droppings. There is no garbage anywhere. Most of the vehicles are modern cars and motorcycles with the odd Tuktuk (just like the autorickshaws of India) thrown in. They have a skytrain just like the one in Vancouver. You still have to bargain for stuff, but I am immune to that a bit after a month in India. I don't have time if they start at a really insultingly high price at first, but if they are reasonable, I will be too.
Heather is eating like a fiend. We are next door to a German restaurant and she has been having big feeds of ceasar salad and pork steak with french fries and gravy every night. The same restaurant serves an american breakfast (egg, toast, bacon, homefries, cornflakes, coffee and orange juice -- read tang). She has eaten the whole breakfast 3 mornings in a row and then had meat on a stick and fruit from the fruit vendors in between. When she was sick and didn't eat for 5 days in India she lost a lot of weight. The pair of pants that were snug are now almost falling off. I think her body has found something it will accept in spades. She is also VERY happy to see her grandmother. She has been in a really giddy mood for days. She says she loves Thailand but Alan suspects she actually loves Germany.
We have been doing a very easy pace for tourism. It is as hot as Hades here with the humidity. Mum is really feeling it, as we all are. Luckily we have her with us to set the pace. I am sure Alan would be happier marching a lot faster, but the kids and I are happy to stroll along and sit under any tree we pass.
Yesterday we took the skytrain to the river and bought a day pass. You go up river on a tour boat and they point out all of the sights, then you come back down and hop on and off as you wish. We stopped at the Royal Palace which is VERY impressive. Talk about fiddly bits. It is a quilters paradise with all kinds of repetitive patterns and floral motifs covering every inch of every building. You can really tell they don't have to worry about freezing. We just couldn't have anything like it outdoors in our climate.
Today we went to Wat Pho, with the temple of the reclining buddha. It is huge -- I think the guidebook said 45m long. It is one building of many in an enclave of 20 acres. There are also 1000 brass buddha statues, bigger than life size, saved from somewhere in Thailand by a previous monarch. These staues are nicely displayed in cases all around other temples within the complex.
Tomorrow we head for Chang Mai on a 14 hour bus ride. My vote of the overnight sleeper train was crushed.
Heather is eating like a fiend. We are next door to a German restaurant and she has been having big feeds of ceasar salad and pork steak with french fries and gravy every night. The same restaurant serves an american breakfast (egg, toast, bacon, homefries, cornflakes, coffee and orange juice -- read tang). She has eaten the whole breakfast 3 mornings in a row and then had meat on a stick and fruit from the fruit vendors in between. When she was sick and didn't eat for 5 days in India she lost a lot of weight. The pair of pants that were snug are now almost falling off. I think her body has found something it will accept in spades. She is also VERY happy to see her grandmother. She has been in a really giddy mood for days. She says she loves Thailand but Alan suspects she actually loves Germany.
We have been doing a very easy pace for tourism. It is as hot as Hades here with the humidity. Mum is really feeling it, as we all are. Luckily we have her with us to set the pace. I am sure Alan would be happier marching a lot faster, but the kids and I are happy to stroll along and sit under any tree we pass.
Yesterday we took the skytrain to the river and bought a day pass. You go up river on a tour boat and they point out all of the sights, then you come back down and hop on and off as you wish. We stopped at the Royal Palace which is VERY impressive. Talk about fiddly bits. It is a quilters paradise with all kinds of repetitive patterns and floral motifs covering every inch of every building. You can really tell they don't have to worry about freezing. We just couldn't have anything like it outdoors in our climate.
Today we went to Wat Pho, with the temple of the reclining buddha. It is huge -- I think the guidebook said 45m long. It is one building of many in an enclave of 20 acres. There are also 1000 brass buddha statues, bigger than life size, saved from somewhere in Thailand by a previous monarch. These staues are nicely displayed in cases all around other temples within the complex.
Tomorrow we head for Chang Mai on a 14 hour bus ride. My vote of the overnight sleeper train was crushed.
A picky eater votes for Thailand
We arrived in Bangkok on Monday and Heather has pronounced Thailand the best country in the world except for Canada. This is largely on the strength of The Old German Beerhouse, down the road from our hotel, and the availability of grilled chicken on sticks on practically every streetcorner. The Old German Beerhouse has provided bacon and eggs for breakfast every day so far plus suppers involving various things and french fries.
Besides eating, we have done some tourist things including a trip along the river, visits to the Grand Palace and Buddhas both emerald and reclining.
Tomorrow it's off to Chiang Mai.
Besides eating, we have done some tourist things including a trip along the river, visits to the Grand Palace and Buddhas both emerald and reclining.
Tomorrow it's off to Chiang Mai.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Rural India vs Upper Canada VIllage
A couple of weeks ago, we were visiting the village of Gundelbah where my sister Nicky met her husband Suja (Surya) about 11 years ago. Suja was working at the time for my Uncle Robert. He is actually from the city of Bhubaneswar about an hour or so away.
On our walk through the village, we stopped in at the school. It was one room about the same size as the schoolhouse at Upper Canada Village. The students ranged in age over what in Canada would be the primary grades (K-3). There was one teacher who looked to be about 18 and 40-50 students. There were no chairs, the desks were on the floor and only about a foot high. They did not seem to have a whole lot in the way of texbooks and virtually nothing in the way of teaching aids except pencils and paper.
Two days ago, I was commenting to Nicky about how similar the schooling situation in rural India was to that of Upper Canada a hundred and fifty years ago. She said it was funny I should mention that because on one of their trips to Gundelbah, they had taken a hard cover book about Upper Canada Village to show to the villagers. When they were shown a picure of the sawmill, they were in awe and remarked to Suja on how modern and advanced Canada was. He and Nicky didn't have the heart to tell them what Upper Canada Village really was....
On our walk through the village, we stopped in at the school. It was one room about the same size as the schoolhouse at Upper Canada Village. The students ranged in age over what in Canada would be the primary grades (K-3). There was one teacher who looked to be about 18 and 40-50 students. There were no chairs, the desks were on the floor and only about a foot high. They did not seem to have a whole lot in the way of texbooks and virtually nothing in the way of teaching aids except pencils and paper.
Two days ago, I was commenting to Nicky about how similar the schooling situation in rural India was to that of Upper Canada a hundred and fifty years ago. She said it was funny I should mention that because on one of their trips to Gundelbah, they had taken a hard cover book about Upper Canada Village to show to the villagers. When they were shown a picure of the sawmill, they were in awe and remarked to Suja on how modern and advanced Canada was. He and Nicky didn't have the heart to tell them what Upper Canada Village really was....
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Back in New Delhi
We arrived back in New Delhi this morning after twenty-five and a half hours on the Rajdhani Express from Bhubaneswar. A very pleasant journey, I thought, although I'm not sure everyone else would agree. Gillian was feeling poorly and spent much of the journey in the upper bunk of the sleeper. Heather also spent much of the time in the upper bunk, although in her case I think it was mainly because of the attraction of clambering about like a monkey.
Getting the train tickets was actually as much a hurdle as the trip itself. We went to the station a couple of weeks ago and after one false start (there are two booking offices) we found the correct line, i.e. the one for: "ladies (self), VIPs, journalists (self), foreign tourists, handicapped" and a couple of other categories I've forgotten. After a lengthy wait in line we were third from the wicket when the clerk put up the "closed" sign and everything stopped for lunch. The unfortunate fellow who was mid-way through his ticket purchase had to wait half and hour to conclude the transaction. After the lunch break we did manage to buy a ticket but due to some miscommunication it was not on the Rajdhani Express but on a different train that took rather longer (thirty hours). It was also considerably cheaper, Rs 400 per person versus the Rajdhani's Rs 2200, which suggested it was considerably less comfortable. Further inspection of the ticket at home revealed that the four seats weren't together. A friend of Surya's went back to the station a few days later and exchanged the ticket for one on the desired train. On Thursday, however, after talking to someone about the train, Surya looked at the ticket again and ooncluded that the seats still weren't together. Once again a friend was dispatched to have the ticket changed.
After all the ticket worries our actual departure went off without a hitch, mainly because Surya came along and put us in the right place. We had four seats in a set of six. It actually looked as though the previous tickets would have been ok, as I think they would have been two adjacent facing pairs of seats. Anyway, the seating arrangements seemed fairly fluid. Our seatmates in were and older couple from New Delhi who had been travelling through Calcutta, Puri, Bhubaneswar and other spots and were now returning to Delhi. They were part of a larger party so with two seats free because of Gillian and Heather's ascent to the bunks we had a revolving set of visitors. Everyone was very friendly and pleasant although communication was fairly basic as they spoke virtually no English and we speak no Hindi at all (in spite of our purchase of "Teach Yourself Hindi".) They kept giving Jacob and Heather guava juice, which was very kind. Unfortunately, Jacob and Heather don't like guava juice and my capacity to consume it is limited so we finished the journey with enough guava juice to last us until our departure from India.
No sooner had we settled ourselves in our seats than things started to arrive. First a litre bottle of mineral water for each of us. Then pillows, followed by blankets and then by a packet of sheets and a towel, done up in a paper packet, whose label assured us that they had been laundered in a mechanized facility. Then came a request for our breakfast order, followed by breakfast itself. Some guava juice. Thermos of hot water, teabags, packets of instant coffee, dairy creamer and sugar. Request for lunch order (veg or non-veg.) There was a bit of a break til lunch actually arrived. Lunch was very good, consisting of rice, dal, veg curry or chicken curry, parathas, sweets, and more tea. [A dissenting view: Jacob feels that the chickent curry wasn't very good.] At four o'clock we had tea, consisting of a veg sandwich, a deep-fried stuffed disc-shaped pastry and a sweet. More guava juice was distributed at intervals. Dinner was much like lunch (although with a mattar paneer for the veg) but with ice cream for dessert. There were also packets of biscuits, although I've lost track of when they arrived. Between 9:30 and 10 pm set up the lower and middle bunks and turned. Jacob and I were on the middle bunks, which I found a bit of a squeeze, as there wasn't enough space to sit up without suffering a blow to the head from nobbly metal fixtures.
We arrived about 10:45 this morning, unfortunately on the platform furtherest from the main station exit. There is an exit from the rear of the station to tempt the unwary and we set off in the wrong direction. We were soon set right and climbed up the pedestrian overpass thing that crosses all the tracks. I'd forgotten how enormous the New Delhi station is. It seemed to take forever to walk to the other side. It's a fairly short walk to the hotel (we are once again in the Hotel Chanchal Deluxe) but the traffic was so thick it was difficult to make progress.
Anyway, tomorrow it's off to Singapore (for a few hours) then off to Thailand.
Getting the train tickets was actually as much a hurdle as the trip itself. We went to the station a couple of weeks ago and after one false start (there are two booking offices) we found the correct line, i.e. the one for: "ladies (self), VIPs, journalists (self), foreign tourists, handicapped" and a couple of other categories I've forgotten. After a lengthy wait in line we were third from the wicket when the clerk put up the "closed" sign and everything stopped for lunch. The unfortunate fellow who was mid-way through his ticket purchase had to wait half and hour to conclude the transaction. After the lunch break we did manage to buy a ticket but due to some miscommunication it was not on the Rajdhani Express but on a different train that took rather longer (thirty hours). It was also considerably cheaper, Rs 400 per person versus the Rajdhani's Rs 2200, which suggested it was considerably less comfortable. Further inspection of the ticket at home revealed that the four seats weren't together. A friend of Surya's went back to the station a few days later and exchanged the ticket for one on the desired train. On Thursday, however, after talking to someone about the train, Surya looked at the ticket again and ooncluded that the seats still weren't together. Once again a friend was dispatched to have the ticket changed.
After all the ticket worries our actual departure went off without a hitch, mainly because Surya came along and put us in the right place. We had four seats in a set of six. It actually looked as though the previous tickets would have been ok, as I think they would have been two adjacent facing pairs of seats. Anyway, the seating arrangements seemed fairly fluid. Our seatmates in were and older couple from New Delhi who had been travelling through Calcutta, Puri, Bhubaneswar and other spots and were now returning to Delhi. They were part of a larger party so with two seats free because of Gillian and Heather's ascent to the bunks we had a revolving set of visitors. Everyone was very friendly and pleasant although communication was fairly basic as they spoke virtually no English and we speak no Hindi at all (in spite of our purchase of "Teach Yourself Hindi".) They kept giving Jacob and Heather guava juice, which was very kind. Unfortunately, Jacob and Heather don't like guava juice and my capacity to consume it is limited so we finished the journey with enough guava juice to last us until our departure from India.
No sooner had we settled ourselves in our seats than things started to arrive. First a litre bottle of mineral water for each of us. Then pillows, followed by blankets and then by a packet of sheets and a towel, done up in a paper packet, whose label assured us that they had been laundered in a mechanized facility. Then came a request for our breakfast order, followed by breakfast itself. Some guava juice. Thermos of hot water, teabags, packets of instant coffee, dairy creamer and sugar. Request for lunch order (veg or non-veg.) There was a bit of a break til lunch actually arrived. Lunch was very good, consisting of rice, dal, veg curry or chicken curry, parathas, sweets, and more tea. [A dissenting view: Jacob feels that the chickent curry wasn't very good.] At four o'clock we had tea, consisting of a veg sandwich, a deep-fried stuffed disc-shaped pastry and a sweet. More guava juice was distributed at intervals. Dinner was much like lunch (although with a mattar paneer for the veg) but with ice cream for dessert. There were also packets of biscuits, although I've lost track of when they arrived. Between 9:30 and 10 pm set up the lower and middle bunks and turned. Jacob and I were on the middle bunks, which I found a bit of a squeeze, as there wasn't enough space to sit up without suffering a blow to the head from nobbly metal fixtures.
We arrived about 10:45 this morning, unfortunately on the platform furtherest from the main station exit. There is an exit from the rear of the station to tempt the unwary and we set off in the wrong direction. We were soon set right and climbed up the pedestrian overpass thing that crosses all the tracks. I'd forgotten how enormous the New Delhi station is. It seemed to take forever to walk to the other side. It's a fairly short walk to the hotel (we are once again in the Hotel Chanchal Deluxe) but the traffic was so thick it was difficult to make progress.
Anyway, tomorrow it's off to Singapore (for a few hours) then off to Thailand.
Dangers of reading, part 1
Jacob is, to put it mildly, a voracious reader. He reads constantly and very quickly, which results in a continual need for new books. One of his main worries about travelling was how we would get enough books, especially as he is generally reading two or three books at once. "Explain again how we're going to get books when we're away." was a request repeated numerous times before we left. One of my main worries, on the other hand, was how we would carry all the books. India in general, and New Delhi in particular is well-supplied with bookshops carrying English-language titles, but even so we have run out of things to read on occasion. Even if you have books there are times when you don't have a books with you and must fall back on whatever reading material can be found in your vicinity.
Not long after our arrival in New Delhi, we (in this case Surya, Nicky, Sam, Jay, Sakhti, Muni, Heather, Jacob and Charles Massey (one of the two Charleses) paid a visit to the National Gallery of Modern Art. I was lagging behind as we moved through the gallery, with Jacob with some of the others up ahead. Every now and then I asked one of the others where Jacob and Heather were and each time was told they were with another group (by this time we'd fragmented into several groups.) By the time I'd reached the end of the exhibits most of the others were outside but there was no sign of Jacob. People remembered seeing him a few minutes previously but he seemed to have disappeared. I went back and walked through the exhibits again. Fortunately, it's not a very big museum. No sign of him. Next Surya and I walked through the place again, this time with rather more urgency. I checked all the washrooms, in the hope he was there, to no avail. By now I was feeling a bit panicky. The prospect of Jacob disappearing mysteriously in a huge, strange city where we didn't speak the language was very unsettling. Surya went to explain things to the gallery front desk staff, who also seemed worried by this turn of events, and our auto-rickshaw drivers were pressed into service to do another pass through the gallery. I went off to check the washrooms once more, hoping that perhaps he'd been taken ill and was stuck there. Leaving one of the washrooms after another fruitless check I noticed a door marked "Library." I peeked through the part of the door not obscured by signs about opening hours and restrictions on access and what items could not be brought into the library and who should I see? Jacob was leaning over one of the reading room tables studying what turned out to be a book on Indian art, oblivious to our nightmare. Of course, I should have started by looking for a library.
[Museum note: the exhibition on Benodebehari Mukherjee is very interesting. Mukherjee produced some fine landscape paintings, as well as murals, textile designs, etchings and woodcuts.]
Not long after our arrival in New Delhi, we (in this case Surya, Nicky, Sam, Jay, Sakhti, Muni, Heather, Jacob and Charles Massey (one of the two Charleses) paid a visit to the National Gallery of Modern Art. I was lagging behind as we moved through the gallery, with Jacob with some of the others up ahead. Every now and then I asked one of the others where Jacob and Heather were and each time was told they were with another group (by this time we'd fragmented into several groups.) By the time I'd reached the end of the exhibits most of the others were outside but there was no sign of Jacob. People remembered seeing him a few minutes previously but he seemed to have disappeared. I went back and walked through the exhibits again. Fortunately, it's not a very big museum. No sign of him. Next Surya and I walked through the place again, this time with rather more urgency. I checked all the washrooms, in the hope he was there, to no avail. By now I was feeling a bit panicky. The prospect of Jacob disappearing mysteriously in a huge, strange city where we didn't speak the language was very unsettling. Surya went to explain things to the gallery front desk staff, who also seemed worried by this turn of events, and our auto-rickshaw drivers were pressed into service to do another pass through the gallery. I went off to check the washrooms once more, hoping that perhaps he'd been taken ill and was stuck there. Leaving one of the washrooms after another fruitless check I noticed a door marked "Library." I peeked through the part of the door not obscured by signs about opening hours and restrictions on access and what items could not be brought into the library and who should I see? Jacob was leaning over one of the reading room tables studying what turned out to be a book on Indian art, oblivious to our nightmare. Of course, I should have started by looking for a library.
[Museum note: the exhibition on Benodebehari Mukherjee is very interesting. Mukherjee produced some fine landscape paintings, as well as murals, textile designs, etchings and woodcuts.]
Band on bicycles
I have to add a little more about the band in the groom's procession mentioned in the last post. The band wasn't actually in cars but in a parade of bicycle rickshaws (of the flatbed, load-carrying type rather than the people-carrying type.) All but the first of the rickshaws had canopies of fancy appliqué-work built up on them. The first, undecorated, rickshaw carried a big monster of a generator. The second had a mixing board, the sound man and a couple of speakers. The third rickshaw carried the percussion session and some more speakers, while the fourth, and last, carried the guitarist, a cool-looking dude with little spectacles, and the singer. The whole parade of cycle rickshaws was strung together with a bundle of power and audio cables.
There was actually a second band inside the marriage venue. When we first arrived, to find no guests and people still setting the place up (the sound system and lights were arriving on yet another of the useful cycle rickshaws) there were four guys fast asleep, wrapped in blankets, in an alcove by the main entrance. Later, after the guests arrived and things got going, music started up and it turned out that the four sleepers were in fact the house band. Perhaps they'd been sleeping off the previous wedding. This was a more traditional ensemble, with three types of drum and a short, reed horn with a flared bell. Later still, the groom's band reappeared on a stage outside the hall.
At some point, when I get a chance to download and organize some photos, I'll post some pictures of cycle rickshaws and other forms of cycle transport, either here or at the bicycle-oriented (but currently moribund) Rhinos and Lilos I seem to have taken more pictures of various aspects of Indian road traffic (bicycles, motorcycles, trucks, ox-carts) than of anything else.
There was actually a second band inside the marriage venue. When we first arrived, to find no guests and people still setting the place up (the sound system and lights were arriving on yet another of the useful cycle rickshaws) there were four guys fast asleep, wrapped in blankets, in an alcove by the main entrance. Later, after the guests arrived and things got going, music started up and it turned out that the four sleepers were in fact the house band. Perhaps they'd been sleeping off the previous wedding. This was a more traditional ensemble, with three types of drum and a short, reed horn with a flared bell. Later still, the groom's band reappeared on a stage outside the hall.
At some point, when I get a chance to download and organize some photos, I'll post some pictures of cycle rickshaws and other forms of cycle transport, either here or at the bicycle-oriented (but currently moribund) Rhinos and Lilos I seem to have taken more pictures of various aspects of Indian road traffic (bicycles, motorcycles, trucks, ox-carts) than of anything else.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Facilities and Weddings
Jacob had a bit of an adventure before the wedding. We decided that it would be nice if he and his father got haircuts before the wedding. They went to a barbershop and Jacob had to go to the washroom. India does NOT have public toilets (or even private ones for that matter) readily availablein a lot of places. When he asked for the toilet, a person from the barbershop was assigned to escort him. He was taken to the schoolyard next door and told to pee against the wall. He was obviously shy so the guy reached up and closed the shutters on the classroom that had a class in session at the time. Needless to say, even with the shutters closed, he could not bring himself to use the "facilities".
Actually on the way to Chilika Lake the other day, Alan said he noticed a billboard advertising the village we were going through as winning an award for being an "open defacation free village". Most, it seems, are not. When we went to Puri last week, we stayed at a hotel with a fabulous view of the ocean. I was watching the birds on the sand and noticed a lot of people just squatting there. I wondered what they were doing fishing maybe? Searching for crabs? I trained the binoculars and quickly looked away again. It was a line of people using the open air facilities. I was horrified to remember that the kids had been playing on the beach at sunset the night before......
On a more pleasant note.... We went to the wedding yesterday. It was an all day affair that started in the afternoon and continued well into the night. The bride comes to the wedding facility with her ontourage first and sets herself up in a room of to the side of the main hall. In the open room, a priest has set up an altar which he goes through some rituals to set up before the wedding. The groom arrives after being paraded through town accompanied by a band. The band was in three open cars pulled together like a little train. You could hear them coming for blocks. The groom's friends and family follow on foot with the groom riding in a car decorated with lots of flowers bringing up the rear of the procession. The groom is greeted by the priest who gives him the first of seven different hats he will wear over the course of the wedding ceremony. A member of the bride's family then carries him from the car to the altar. Luckily Suja has a nephew who is about 22 with a good strong back and the groom was not heavy. The wedding ceremony takes place over the next several hours. At any point in time there are 100-300 people in the room where the ceremony takes place, but not many of them seem to be paying much attention to it.
The whole time the ceremony is taking place, there is a eating hall set up just off the main hall. It has tables to seat about 40 guests at a time. As you enter, there is a hand washing station. You sit down and they roll out paper to cover the table in front of you. One guy comes along and gives you a banana leaf plate (the Indian answer to the paper plate-- a good one, I think). He is followed by several other people who carry buckets of food and hand out rice, dal, 3 different curries and pieces of fish. At the end of the meal, they roll up the whole thing and start again. The eating hall runs constantly for hours to feed about 1800 people.
In Orissa, this state of India, there are NO implements of any kind. This was my second meal that I ate with my hands only. The first was a few days ago at the temple run by my brother in law Suja's family. I was half way through that meal before Charles Massey told me the trick-- you put your thumb behind the food you are holding in your scooped fingers and use it to kind of shovel the food into your mouth. I felt a lot better about eating yesterday with the other guests staring having already had a dry run at the temple in front of friends and family. I was quite proud of the kids who, after the initial shock of being told there weren't even any implements probably in the building, tucked in and ate.
The groom seemed nice, if a bit shy, so I think it will all work out. My sister Nicky and I wore a saris to the reception. Heather, Jacob Jay and Sam all had cute Indian suits to wear. I didn't have a mirror so I have no idea how it looked. Nicky weighs half of what I do, and she looked great, as did all the kids.
Actually on the way to Chilika Lake the other day, Alan said he noticed a billboard advertising the village we were going through as winning an award for being an "open defacation free village". Most, it seems, are not. When we went to Puri last week, we stayed at a hotel with a fabulous view of the ocean. I was watching the birds on the sand and noticed a lot of people just squatting there. I wondered what they were doing fishing maybe? Searching for crabs? I trained the binoculars and quickly looked away again. It was a line of people using the open air facilities. I was horrified to remember that the kids had been playing on the beach at sunset the night before......
On a more pleasant note.... We went to the wedding yesterday. It was an all day affair that started in the afternoon and continued well into the night. The bride comes to the wedding facility with her ontourage first and sets herself up in a room of to the side of the main hall. In the open room, a priest has set up an altar which he goes through some rituals to set up before the wedding. The groom arrives after being paraded through town accompanied by a band. The band was in three open cars pulled together like a little train. You could hear them coming for blocks. The groom's friends and family follow on foot with the groom riding in a car decorated with lots of flowers bringing up the rear of the procession. The groom is greeted by the priest who gives him the first of seven different hats he will wear over the course of the wedding ceremony. A member of the bride's family then carries him from the car to the altar. Luckily Suja has a nephew who is about 22 with a good strong back and the groom was not heavy. The wedding ceremony takes place over the next several hours. At any point in time there are 100-300 people in the room where the ceremony takes place, but not many of them seem to be paying much attention to it.
The whole time the ceremony is taking place, there is a eating hall set up just off the main hall. It has tables to seat about 40 guests at a time. As you enter, there is a hand washing station. You sit down and they roll out paper to cover the table in front of you. One guy comes along and gives you a banana leaf plate (the Indian answer to the paper plate-- a good one, I think). He is followed by several other people who carry buckets of food and hand out rice, dal, 3 different curries and pieces of fish. At the end of the meal, they roll up the whole thing and start again. The eating hall runs constantly for hours to feed about 1800 people.
In Orissa, this state of India, there are NO implements of any kind. This was my second meal that I ate with my hands only. The first was a few days ago at the temple run by my brother in law Suja's family. I was half way through that meal before Charles Massey told me the trick-- you put your thumb behind the food you are holding in your scooped fingers and use it to kind of shovel the food into your mouth. I felt a lot better about eating yesterday with the other guests staring having already had a dry run at the temple in front of friends and family. I was quite proud of the kids who, after the initial shock of being told there weren't even any implements probably in the building, tucked in and ate.
The groom seemed nice, if a bit shy, so I think it will all work out. My sister Nicky and I wore a saris to the reception. Heather, Jacob Jay and Sam all had cute Indian suits to wear. I didn't have a mirror so I have no idea how it looked. Nicky weighs half of what I do, and she looked great, as did all the kids.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
India --- still, but not for long....
Today is the day of Suja's sister's wedding. She will meet her husband today. Hopefully the family has a pretty good idea of her tastes so she will be happy. The groom arrives at 1 pm. The marriage ceremony will last most of the day and evening. We are going back dressed in full regalia (Nicky and I in saris, the boys, Heather and Alan in Indian suits). Hopefully we will figure out how to post photos to the blog soon.... There is a dinner for 1500 invited (1800 with gatecrashers) guests tonight... and we thought the Italians had big weddings!
Yesterday we went back to Chilika Lake because Heather, Nicky, Jay and Sam had all been sick the first time. We needed something to keep the kids busy and Suja was occupied with wedding planning. It was really nice to be on the lake again but this time we had a brush with disaster. We were in the same pointy prowed long boat and another very pointy prowed sailboat was on a collision course with us. Our driver was not too swift and he turned right in front of the sailboat which was going at a real clip. The sailboat ran right over the prow just where Jacob was sitting with his back to the whole thing. Luckily Suja's frient Bhutu was there and pulled him to safety. Sam was also in the path so I snatched him up. Jacob got a bit of a clunk on the head but it only hurt for about half an hour. I have a large bruise on my arm but that, thank goodness, is the only injury amongst us. This travel thing is a risky business for our son it seems. He would not have been bitten by monkeys or hit in the head with rustic boats in Canada. Don't even get me started about the seatbelt (a real lack thereof) situation here!
Yesterday we went back to Chilika Lake because Heather, Nicky, Jay and Sam had all been sick the first time. We needed something to keep the kids busy and Suja was occupied with wedding planning. It was really nice to be on the lake again but this time we had a brush with disaster. We were in the same pointy prowed long boat and another very pointy prowed sailboat was on a collision course with us. Our driver was not too swift and he turned right in front of the sailboat which was going at a real clip. The sailboat ran right over the prow just where Jacob was sitting with his back to the whole thing. Luckily Suja's frient Bhutu was there and pulled him to safety. Sam was also in the path so I snatched him up. Jacob got a bit of a clunk on the head but it only hurt for about half an hour. I have a large bruise on my arm but that, thank goodness, is the only injury amongst us. This travel thing is a risky business for our son it seems. He would not have been bitten by monkeys or hit in the head with rustic boats in Canada. Don't even get me started about the seatbelt (a real lack thereof) situation here!
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Gillian's first post
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Thursday, January 11, 2007
A quick, and incomplete, update
Thanks for the comments and sorry for the long delay in posting anything. I hope to get back here to post some real descriptions but I have to run off in a second so here are some quick answers to questions:
Jaipur - yes. We rented a Tempo (a 12 seat van + driver) and went to Jaipur and Agra. Jaipur was great although our late arrival on New Year's Eve landed us in a rather grubby hotel which, in the morning, turned out to have a spectacular view from the roof. Camel rides were also had by various people except Heather because the camel started to refuse to kneel to allow people off. Gillian had to resort to a spectacular flying dismount (to cheers from bystanders) in order to escape.
Curry - on the whole great (at least for some of us.) Indian restaurants are full of surprises.
Food for Heather - naan, the odd banana, fresh lime soda (except when it comes with salt), Limca, sometimes chicken ("fried chicken half" in the words of the Hotel Chanchal room service menu.) We went to McDonalds in New Delhi, which was popular with Heather. The McAlloo Tikka is superior to anything in a North American McDonalds but still nothing to shout about. Heather has actually been sick for the last few days, although she seems to be better today after a course of antibiotics.
Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bakhshan - they remain elusive. Apparently Dalton McGinty is in New Delhi, according to a newspaper we saw in the open air reading room of the Puri library (from the roof of which, after an appropriate donation, one can look down into the Jagganath temple.)
Shredding - thank you very much
Dominio and Shadow - good and good. Domino is fonder of children than of adults (at least fonder of our children than of us.) Shadow may be become more sociable but she is sociable at a distance. Eventually she may come up and look at you.
[Update to previous entry - I've corrected the dates for our stay in New Zealand - March not May. Who's a bad proofreader?]
Jaipur - yes. We rented a Tempo (a 12 seat van + driver) and went to Jaipur and Agra. Jaipur was great although our late arrival on New Year's Eve landed us in a rather grubby hotel which, in the morning, turned out to have a spectacular view from the roof. Camel rides were also had by various people except Heather because the camel started to refuse to kneel to allow people off. Gillian had to resort to a spectacular flying dismount (to cheers from bystanders) in order to escape.
Curry - on the whole great (at least for some of us.) Indian restaurants are full of surprises.
Food for Heather - naan, the odd banana, fresh lime soda (except when it comes with salt), Limca, sometimes chicken ("fried chicken half" in the words of the Hotel Chanchal room service menu.) We went to McDonalds in New Delhi, which was popular with Heather. The McAlloo Tikka is superior to anything in a North American McDonalds but still nothing to shout about. Heather has actually been sick for the last few days, although she seems to be better today after a course of antibiotics.
Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bakhshan - they remain elusive. Apparently Dalton McGinty is in New Delhi, according to a newspaper we saw in the open air reading room of the Puri library (from the roof of which, after an appropriate donation, one can look down into the Jagganath temple.)
Shredding - thank you very much
Dominio and Shadow - good and good. Domino is fonder of children than of adults (at least fonder of our children than of us.) Shadow may be become more sociable but she is sociable at a distance. Eventually she may come up and look at you.
[Update to previous entry - I've corrected the dates for our stay in New Zealand - March not May. Who's a bad proofreader?]
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