16.1.2010

Week 2

This week Indian food turned Toni’s stomach upside down. The symptoms were not that bad: he was capable of working but needed to visit the rest room more often than usually, even with the help of diarrhea medicine that we brought from Finland. But as there was no ending visible for the flowing output, he went to see a doctor in a nearby hospital, just in case. They put him lying on a bed in the casualty department, while they made some measurements of his blood pressure, body temperature, sugar levels etc. Nothing serious was found, but antibiotics, lactic acid bacillus and some diarrhea medicine was prescribed. Do you think that we should make reclamation of the expenses: the doctor’s fee was 2,5 € and the medicines about 3 €? lol As an experience, supposedly the staff knew what to do and did the right thing, but the hospital facilities were not that tempting; Toni would rather spend time somewhere else…

After being here for almost two weeks, we are getting used to the food here. But every now and then we miss the “normal” food we were used to eat back in Finland. The food is sometimes just spicy, sometimes reeeeally spicy (like crying our eyes and nose off while eating), but usually it can be softened with running curd. We have noticed that the locals use much curd with rice and curry, so even they don’t always want to have their food that spicy. We had thought that yoghurt is very common here, but we haven’t found it from supermarkets; maybe curd is more commonly used, but it still isn’t the thick yoghurt we’re used to eat back home. I miss yoghurt and hapankorppu… sigh.

Usually it is difficult to know what to order and eat at the restaurant (besides veg vs. non-veg). But luckily the food is really cheap, so if you buy something you don’t like, it’s not a big deal not to eat it. Fortunately the hotel breakfast is quite international and we can have lots of fruits, toasts, omelettes and corn flakes if we want to. We have heard that there are also many international restaurants in the city, but we haven’t familiarized ourselves with many of them. Usually there is time to go outside eating only on weekends, because the sun sets everyday at 6:00 PM and we don’t like to go outside by night.

One interesting observation we have made, is that almost all the workmen are really men. In the hotel we have not seen any woman working; even the cleaners are men. So, women are here quite usually housewives (That’s why I haven’t found dancing classes yet, because they’re all for kids; women are at home.). Also the separation between males and females is more visible here; women dress usually in feminine clothing and also the queues for metal detectors at the airport and EVERYwhere (shopping centers, cinemas, etc…) are separate for men and women.

However, at Toni’s office there are quite many women working, actually maybe more than in Finland in the software engineering branch. One day the local newspaper told that there is some kind of boom going on among multi-national companies, that women are wanted more and more for higher positions. This is not applied yet with local companies, but maybe the local trend will follow the global trend in the future.

Thursday 14.1 was a local holiday call
A little fashion show, this is one of my new clothes, and cheap it was... :O)

ed Makar Sankranti. It is some kind of a harvest festival, but it is celebrated mainly in local people’s homes and rural areas. So there were no big celebrations in the city, and for us it was basically an extra day off. We thought of going to the cinema that day, but we found out that we were not the only ones. We queued for half an hour, until we realized that the show was sold out. But as the shops in the mall were open, the day turned out to be a shopping day, nice! :O)

On the weekend we tried again to go to the cinema, but this time we tried to reserve the tickets from the Internet. But we were late again. It seems that on weekends or other holidays the tickets for the cinema should be reserved many days beforehand, if we want to have tickets for two adjacent seats, not to mention acquiring tickets for the best seats. So, maybe next time… But we are so eager to see Avatar in 3D!!

On Friday we spent half of the day queuing to the immigration office (FRRO) for the registration of our migration in India. Before this almost all the people we have seen have been Indians, but for some reason at this time all the queuers were foreigners…;O) The queue was QUITE long, it snaked between the office and parked cars. We needed to queue there for about two hours, before we got inside and through all the counters. The local officers were handling this quite nicely and smoothly (actually we are surprised how they can work such calmly in such a mess and noise), but we were about to be driven crazy with other foreigners trying to rush in the queue. Furthermore, we were supposed to be fetched at Toni’s workplace at a certain time, but here the concept of time is relational: I had to wait about an hour after the scheduled time before the man helping us arrived (Toni was working meanwhile). However, he was a great help with handling all the needed documents and explaining the procedure…:O) We got finished with our registration 5 min before the office closed its doors. On the coming Wednesday, we need to go there again, for hearing the results etc. I just can’t wait…

On Friday also an annular solar eclipse passed by. Before midday, the roads and also Toni’s workplace were quite silent because of this. Many people are superstitious on this kind of issues (they stayed at home) and others just curious and interested to see the eclipse. We had heard of the coming eclipse the day before, but had already forgotten this while queuing to the FRRO. I was already heading back home, when Toni noticed that in front of the workplace there were many people staring at the sky with funny-looking goggles. Toni took the possibility to loan the goggles and he got to see the almost ending eclipse, but unfortunately I missed it.


This was the eclipse that Toni got to see, and I did not. It looked like a crescent. I tried to take a look at it without glasses, and let me just say that it was BRIGHT. May be in a million years, I'll get to see one too..?

It’s funny how you see the different religions here. Back home no one speaks about it, but here you can really see it. Hindus have that spot in the middle of their forehead (not all but many). Muslims have their halal-meat served and sold everywhere and the women have covered their faces with scarves. You can see cows walking in the streets but no beef in the stores because it’s a holy animal here. So the non-veg people eat chicken or mutton when they eat meat. Christians are not so seen; maybe they are the quiet ones… We managed to found our local church, which made us happy.


This is the church we intend to attend here in Bangalore. The welcome was warm and the church was full. Chairs were added along the ceremony, so people could sit. That never happens in Finland. :oO

We are still trying to get used to the traffic here. Fortunately we don’t have to drive the car, but we have to sit in it. Our (and the Indians’) luck is that there is almost only one way streets here. That helps a lot for example when we try to cross the road by feet! Believe me! To the other differences we are still trying to get used to, too. For example there are many electricity cuts every day; luckily we have a generator here. But during a Skype discussion it’s not so nice, because the Internet needs power to work. And how come everything is so loud in here? Everywhere you go, you hear music or something else that is so loud that your ears almost drop out! Even the TV at home needs to be put on a minimum level to listen to it. One thing to mention as well is that in the shopping center our surprise was big when Heli and I noticed that there’s a man sitting in the elevator and pressing the buttons for us. That came in handy, because when we finished our shopping, we didn’t remember on what floor Anantha (their chauffeur) was waiting…


Heli had her birthday this week, and we were invited, NJAM!! :OP


Cubbon park, there were families, solitaires, couples, etc. sitting, playing, sleeping, reading... In the morning (reeeeally early!!!) there's no entrance fee, so it's open for joggers to come.


Cubbon park...


Toni has fallen in love with those little squirrels that are everywhere, even in Cubbon park, where we went for a walk. It was this walk, which got me sick again...


The local library is located in the center of Cubbon park. Cute.


Dogs are everywhere.


I don't know why they all laughed at me with this T-shirt on, specially kids. I haven't seen adults with this kind of T-shirts here, may be that's the reason. Awwww, my favorite one! This makes me feel even more like a tourist here, and I don't like it!! grr. In the background you can see how I should be dressed...


Toni liked this one, äyyr, it looked so sad... :(

9.1.2010

Sightseeing

Today our new chauffeur Nanda took us for sightseeing in Bangalore. First he took us to the Lal Bagh botanical garden. Since I was still feeling ill, we took a little ride all over the garden with an electric car (see the cables in the picture), so we didn’t have to walk there, it was handy! There were very old trees there, some were even 300 years old and there were more than 5000 different species! There were also lots of funny little squirrels running back and forth.


Hinduism in the parc too...


Little funny squirrels running everywhere in the parc...


Fantastic colours...


Was this the one over 300 years old?


Roses...


Those palm trees were high!


Well, if you have to spit...


The national game of India, cricket.


Sculptured bushes...:)


Early in the morning and late in the evening the entrance is free for joggers to come.

After the garden Nanda took us to the biggest temple in southern India. We thought it was just a visit to the temple, but we got to attend to the ceremony. We had to leave our shoes in the car, so we had to walk without shoes a little bit outside too. Cameras and phones weren’t allowed either, so unfortunately we couldn’t get pictures from inside. The temple was really big and to enter to the main temple we needed to go through two smaller “temples”, rooms with gods to worship. The experience was quite different than we are used to. Worshipping the idols was the main idea, and doing stuff to them.


This was the temple where we attended the ceremony, not so glamorous from the outside, but big though.

There were glass boxes everywhere full of money, but we didn’t put money there. We had already paid 200 rs to enter, so I think that was enough. The majority didn’t pay this “VIP entrance fee”, but they had to queue and they couldn’t get as close to the god statues as we did. The “VIP ticket” entitled us to follow / participate to the worship ritual very closely (and allowed us to have sweeties and a free book); it was an interesting experience, but a bit awkward though. They would also have wanted us to pay some scholarships for children and they tried to make us come back to worship their gods and to pray with prayer beads. We said to them that we do pray, but without the beads. Anyway, they were very eager and sure of their religion. That’s something to be learned.

The way out was long and full of stuff to buy: books, food, souvenirs; it didn’t feel like a place to worship God in peace and in silence. In our way out we made the man distributing food angry: He was serving food to everyone, and we didn’t want to, so we said no thanks. The man replied with an offended thanks and threw the food back into the pot and made sure that we heard all that he was doing there. Well, we were already different in the temple (we didn’t shout, chant, pray the statues, or put stuff on our face like everyone else), so why not be different on our way back too…? We just walked through while all the rest of them stayed to eat the food we didn’t take.

But now back home, some food and some REST. The illness is back, I thought I was going sightseeing just sitting in the car, but it was "a little bit" more... :O)

8.1.2010

Our new room

Today I was stuck at home again… Last night was terrible: my fever went so high that Toni got scared. In the morning it just continued. By the time it was time to get up and Toni borrowed the thermometer from V-P, I had started sweating like a little animal. Finally! That meant that the fever was going down. And when I got to measure my temperature it was only 37.3 anymore. I felt so relieved. Still I’m feeling sore and the head-, eye- and earaches etc. have not gone away, but I’m feeling much better. I even see colors more clearly! I would not have been so scared in Finland, but because this is a new country, I got a little scared. But now, let’s move on to other stuff.

Today we changed rooms. We came one floor up, because here we have a washing machine. I was not comfortable with giving my clothes for someone else to wash; here I draw the line, hih. I like the colors much more in this apartment, this one has more light too and now we have two balconies. :OD The living room is smaller, but the bedroom seems to be bigger. It’s originally a two bedroom apartment but we don’t have access to the other one, because we don’t need it. V-P’s family has a similar apartment, with access to both rooms, because they have two children. If we get visitors, we could ask if it would be possible to use the other room for them... ;o) This episode reminded me of the culture of Africa. We were told on Monday that on Tuesday we’ll have the washing machine and we’ll switch rooms. On Thursday we were told that Friday. And today from 10:00 to 15:00 I was waiting and waiting with everything packed. I was afraid of doing anything else, because every minute I thought they are coming to get me. But on the other hand I had nothing else to do, but to lie and to try to recover. But I couldn’t do it properly, because I waited for someone, for anyone to come and say: NOW MADAM, NOW you can shift to the third floor MADAM… :O) Toni has experienced the same at work, poor him: all has been a lot of waiting and frustration with not being able to work, because of the robbery and stuff.

7.1.2010

Getting acquainted with the police station...

Today all the parties went to the police station again. Both chauffeurs as well. All this is really sad and time taking. Toni and V-P had to go back and forth between home, the office and the police station. In the morning they went to the office waiting for a call from the security guys from work. They were supposed to inform them when it would be a good time to head together to the police station. After a few hours they all were at the station filling some official papers etc. Things don’t happen here as smoothly as we are used to and as all this took quite much time, they all went to have lunch together. Toni and V-P were taken to a fine Indian restaurant, where the food was served in banana leaves and was eaten with fingers. They learned that this is the traditional way to serve food, but nowadays it isn’t used so often in urban areas, except in some festivals etc. The food was spicy but delicious, but they think it might take a while to get used to eating with fingers…

After lunch they went back to the police station, but as the things were not yet ready for the official incident report, Toni & V-P were driven back to the office. Without computers there was not much to do in the office either, so after waiting for a while they decided to get back home. Finally at 21 o’clock Toni got a call that it would be a good time to go back to the police station for the official report. It still took about two hours after everything was completed. Almost… V-P and Heli still need to fly to Delhi (with the kids) to apply for new passports as the old ones were stolen. I’m just afraid what might happen to Ali. We don’t know if he was guilty for this or not, but at least he should apparently have been more careful with the things Toni and V-P trusted on him. Either way, he is not our chauffeur anymore… Our new chauffeur is Nanda.

I have had no other choice than to stay home, because I’m still sick… I thought I was getting better, but it was the painkillers that mislead me. I had to take a lot of them, because the pain was awful, it was like my skin was on fire. I hope to get better just by resting. It cannot be something serious; before leaving we took all the vaccinations available. I’m hoping it’s just that I didn’t sleep much during or after the trip and there’s also air conditioning everywhere, which may have had an influence too.

6.1.2010

The third day gives another lesson

Epiphany was not a good day for us. I got sick and stayed home all day. All of me was hurting, my skin, my bones, my eyes, my head; I was cold, huoh, not nice. Loppiainen is not a national holiday in India, so Toni was working again. In the evening Toni sent me a message that both his and V-P’s laptops and also V-P’s and Heli’s passports were stolen!! They went to buy food on their way from the office home with our chauffeur and had left their laptop bags in the car with our chauffeur. When they came back, the surprise was big when the chauffeur told them that he had been misguided: somebody had come knocking on the window and said that the chauffeur had lost some money on the road and when the chauffeur had got out of the car to collect the money, someone had opened the other door and taken both laptops.. All the people here are sure and certain that our chauffeur is guilty. We really don’t know, he was so nice, and so was the other one (VP’s family has their own chauffeur, but we use them often together, because VP and Toni go to work with one car and me, Heli and the kids use the other one). The interrogation was not nice to see Toni said, there was a lot of yelling. The police station looked like a rugged Mexican / Cuban station we’ve seen in the movies; not such an attractive place. Everybody’s saying that the chauffeur should have known the tricks and that this kind of behavior is very common here. Even at the office Toni and V-P have to lock their computers or take them home with them, and the latest should have been safer... unfortunately not this time.. :( One way or the other, more caution should have been paid with all the parties. We had been confident that the hotel, the chauffeurs and the workplace were trustworthy, but this makes you think more carefully who you can trust in this world… especially in this country! The people in the workplace are very helpful though: it was already quite late in the evening, but one person came to the police station and another one called home very late to ask more details and to help.

5.1.2010

Our second day

Today Toni and V-P went for their first day at the office. Toni was a little nervous; he's so cute, hihi. When we opened the door of our room, there was the newspaper waiting for us... :) We went to eat breakfast (included) and it was still like yesterday at the restaurant: we didn't know what we were eating. At the restaurant I think we made fools out of ourselves; we asked more information about everything! There was a menu but we didn't know any of the dishes in it. Okay, curry and naan we did know, but all the rest was mystery. The waiter smiled and then I laughed and apologized and said that excuse us, it's our first time in India!! He laughed and said that it’s okay. When we got our plates, wow it was spicy. They did not ask if we wanted to have our food as mild, medium or hot, the meals were just hot. May be they do have it only super hot here, hmm...

We went food shopping with Heli and the kids. Ali, our chauffeur, tried to find a supermarket where he could park, but no chance. So he left us next to a supermarket and we called him to pick us up when we were ready. Ali said that the only problem in Bangalore is the traffic and the lack of parking places. We bought some food and some other household stuff. Food shopping lesson nro one: all that is imported from Europe is expensive. When I looked at the bill, the items from abroad were over one Euro, even five Euros (!!) and the rest were under one Euro. I didn't know that, so I just took and took and took more and more items and the surprise was big when the shopping cost all together a little bit over 2000 rs!! Kääk! It's like 35 Euros!! We’re ruined! hihi. We bought some fruit as well. For example fresh mangos which were like in Senegal, YUM. I almost fainted when I saw them and had to ask if they really were mangos. Really. Even during breakfast we had fresh cut fruits and juice, paradise.

P.S. By the way, we got stuck in the elevator today! Me, the other chauffeur and Iina! The electricity went off, but it was not scary, only for a couple of minutes. =)

4.1.2010

Our first day

Our journey has begun. Yes indeed, it has begun. From Tampere to Bangalore we had three flights; all of them were delayed. The first one in Tampere 30 min, the second one in Helsinki 60 min and the last one in Delhi 90 min. But we arrived safely! Our chauffeurs had been waiting for us since 12:30 and we met them outside the airport at 15:45... That reminds me, since we arrived here I have been called Madam everywhere. I told the chauffeur that my name is Marie and he said okay and then again it was Madam. This happens everywhere. We may have to get used to it, even though I don't like it at all.

The weather is lovely and the surroundings are green! They call Bangalore (Bengaluru in Kannada, which is the local language. Bangalore is the English name for the city) the garden city of India if I recall right. And still about the weather, in Bangalore the weather is always pleasant! Not too hot, not too cold. For example today was around 30 C, but not too hot at all. There's a nice wind and the sun is not burning. Nice I would say.

The traffic was not as bad as I expected! But maybe that's because I've lived in Senegal... ;o) To resume the trip from the airport to our local home, which lasted one hour: cars just drove and the one who was going somewhere first got his space to go first, with looooads of honking to say that "Hey, I was here first!". Both ours and Toni's co-worker's cars were loaded with our luggage. We even needed to stop in the middle of the motorway because our chauffeur couldn't get the second gear on because of the luggage beside him. Before the stopping he tried to arrange the bags while driving and let's just say that it caused a few close to heartache -situations! :) But we arrived at home (the hotel) safe; Ali was a good driver, very kind and helpful.

Everybody else has also been very kind, so much more than in Finland; here we can't do anything ourselves, not even use the tap water or take the hand paper by ourselves in the toilets! Oh boy, I hope we don't get used to it. ALL is done for us. Also unknown people are very friendly: our chauffeurs didn't know where our hotel was, and when they asked for help, everybody helped us so kindly with smiles.

Let's then talk about the prices, after the first experiences in India. It's cheap, really cheap in here. We ate at Delhi's airport two meals at Mc Donald's and they cost about two Euros each. TWO EUROS EACH! Can you imagine?? At the restaurant from where we just arrived, we ate very well, we drank lemonade and very good lassi and we again paid about TWO EUROS EACH! Well, I just say it again: it's cheap in here.
I also think this is the first country ever where veggie is "normal" and non veggie is odd, hehheh. No, okay, not odd, but comparing to other countries, I would say in a minimum. Even in the airplane there were always veggie plates to choose. Wau.

Someone said to us, that in Bangalore nobody walks and I got really scared! Luckily that was not so true. People do walk here after all, because mainly there are middle class people. It's a little bit more difficult than in Finland, as the traffic is what it is and you have to watch out of the 2-, 3- and 4-wheelers coming from everywhere, but it's doable! When we went to eat me, Toni and the other Finnish family (V-P, Heli, Iina 7 months and Enna 3,5 years) which are here for a secondment too, we managed to walk without bigger (none actually) accidents.. :O)


Here are all of us who are going to Bangalore. Toni's mum Irja (on the left) is on the picture too, but she's just accompanying us, like Toni's sister Anne-Marketta and her husband Terho who are behind the camera, thank you!! =) From the left to the right Irja, Toni, me, Enna, V-P, Heli and Iina.


Leaving Finnish reindeers behind.


The smallest airplane I've ever travelled in. It looked like a miniature one. The flight was also the shortest ever, about 25 min.


Delhi's sunrise from the airplane, it was so beautiful.


Indira Ghandi International Airport it says. We had to wait a while before we could cross the road.


As you can see, the airport was full. We had trouble finding places to sit, but finally we found three and we took turns to sit.


This was the first and only compensation we got for our flight to be delayed. That was in Delhi.


Here we are, we told you that in India there are abscesses, here you get one every second. (paise in Finnish is abscess, if you don't recall)


Bangalore airport, it was beautiful, green and so much different, bigger and newer than Delhi's one.


Enna and Iina arrived happily too :O)


Here are our cars.


Our first dinner in Bangalore. We almost cried while eating, it was a hot dinner.


In India when you eat ice cream, your tongue becomes blue!! :OD