Little sickness and eating "non-veg"

For the past two-three weeks I have had some brown showers from my ass. So I don't even count that anymore as being sick, especially as the intervals are almost normal - it's just the quality. And I'm not the only one - all three of us Finnish guys at the office have pretty much the same thing.

But now I'm a bit more sick. This morning I was running in the bathroom a lot. And some mild fever. But getting better now, left office on Tuesday at lunch time and I am planning to return there on Friday. So, I guess this isn't malaria or the Black Death. So far. My local mom said today at dinner that having stomach problems is quite normal during monsoon. Well, gosh. Maybe eating with your hands all the time isn't the best option?

I have already complained about it. But still. Everything is so filthy. And it's all part of their everyday life and everything is as it should be. Sure, we have different standards, but look at your health.

This weekend we're going to Pushkar. I had no idea what the place is before Tani called an offered a place in the bus. Sure, seeing other places is nice. And the place seems nice (http://wikitravel.org/en/Pushkar). Just one problem: it's some sort of a holy city and they don't allow alcohol and meat. At all!

I've actually learned to survive pretty much without meat (maybe eat it once a week in some restaurant). But that brings one big problem: when I return to Finland, I might get sick by eating meat. I have about two days time to settle down in Finland and then we go for the weekend to a friend's summer cottage for a typical guys' weekend (fishing, chopping wood, playing cricket, painting the house surely). I'm so much looking forward to that but I need to start eating meat more at some point. They just don't sell cow meat anywhere here - you get 20 years in prison if you kill a cow.

Cows in general are strange creatures here. If I didn't know that they are holy animals, I would guess they are worthless in this culture. They mostly roam around freely on the 'highways' without care. So what happens when a car accidentally kills a cow? I would wanna know. And some people have the cows as lucrative home animals providing milk on their front road. So, anywhere you go here you may see a cow in front of a house. Or on a highway. I don't quite understand what makes them so 'special' if nobody cares of them. Does someone even own those cows that wander around freely?

Holy cow! Don't look so holy to me...

Oh and pig is mostly forbidden here aswell. But nobody seems to know why. I once tried asking Gaurav at work for the reason but he just didn't know. They had some bacon (delicious!) in Mumbai which was of pig, but here up north they surely don't have such luxuries. And by the way, nobody ever uses the word "meat" in this country. Everything is "veg" or "non-veg".

I will now focus on thinking of what to do tomorrow home. This day was for movies and some gaming. Maybe something equally challenging for tomorrow. But Pushkar on Saturday (or, don't really know which day actually...)!

Indian accent and language

As you have guessed, the Indian accent is...rich. And their whole concept of English is interesting.

And as I mentioned in an earlier post, at some point in history Indians were practically forced to learn English if they wanted a decent job. Of course their English was never accepted among the Brits - even if they could sometimes speak more grammatically correct English (due to studying from newspapers) than the Brits. Of course that wasn't "the right way" to speak.

Every traveler has problems understanding the Indian accent. Unfortunately at least in this part of India the accent is not the same as Apu's in The Simpsons so it's not that much fun. But still, not all Indians speak English - I think it's their second official language but they don't have to learn it. I guess. Nevertheless, if you are driving anywhere all the warning signs and many other roadsigns are in English. It was only at some point that I realized this and started wondering how small percentage actually can read the signs.

And whenever you are walking on a street, there's bound to be someone who comes asking you "which/what country you belong??". And they have a lot of weird expressions like that. They can't speak English too well but still they all use more complicated versions of many things. Like they couldn't just ask "where do you come from" or "what is your country".

They also have a strange interest in using (unneeded and unclear) abbreviations in their text messages all the time. One of the messages I got from a couchsurfing 'friend' I got in Mumbai: "@ Ra @ phnx mills @ lower parel 800 for 2 veg n 2 non-veg strtrs + unlmtd beer". The only thing I understood is the 'unlimited beer'. The other stuff made no sense.

But having to speak with them on the phone is even worse. I personally don't like much speaking on the phone and less when the conversation is in English. And even less when I need to speak English with an Indian... It's just painful. Usually the calls end without me having no idea what the other one wanted. Text messages are easier then, even if they are truly cryptic.

One of the things Indians love to do is different headshakes. Or, actually not that many different ones. The one they always do is from side to side vertically so your ears go closer to shoulders at time. And its functionality is even better: it means yes, maybe, ok or no idea. That really makes things interesting, like asking "is place X in that direction?" and they answer with headshake. Basically my opinion is that the headshakes just need to be ignored - there's no information in them.

I'll try to cope with the accent. As mentioned, it's more boring than I imagined.

Yoga

This is India. So what to do here? Yoga.

I asked my local parents earlier where I could do some yoga. There happened to be a place nearby (well I guess everyone has a yoga place nearby, this is India) and one evening I went there to ask if they have some classes. Turned out they have class every morning and every evening at 6. The only problem was that the evening class was only for women.

So, this morning I put my alarm at 5:40. Of course the previous evening I promised myself to go to the yoga (Yes, I will do it! I will go! I am strong enough...). I ended up spending the time between 5:40 and 5:50 looking out from my room and trying to come up with excuses why not to go. I had actually thought it was raining heavily and I just went outside to confirm that and go back to sleep. As it wasn't raining I ran out of excuses. So I had to go.

I'm not sure how many different types of yoga there are. But I think they all have a few things in common: focus on breathing and nothing should hurt. I had never done yoga so this was an interesting experience: all sort of movements and streches and static muscles. It all felt good.

Advertisement in front of the yoga place. Clearly it's every morning from 6 to 7 for everyone.

There were about 15 of us, everyone else local of course. And instructor was speaking Hindi of course. So I think I missed most of the breathing stuff and so on as I didn't understand any of the explanations. A few times the instructor sat in front of me and showed me some moves but otherwise I just followed others as well as I could.

I was talking with Pyry about these yoga people. He's also attending here some yoga classes but with an almost private teacher who speaks English. So he knows a bit more of the stuff. Interestingly, there seems to be some people somewhere up in Himalayas, each living in their own caves meditating and doing yoga. Every 6 years they each come down to a village for bathing in some sacred fountain or something (not together, they all live totally separately). And then nobody sees that person again for 6 years. They are said to live in caves and nobody seems to know how/what they eat or drink. Some say they live by the energy they produce by meditating. Who knows, but many people respect them a lot around there.

I decided that I should do this yoga thing at least three times a week. As today is Wednesday, it seems natural to do it on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. According to the log book the yoga place has, everyone else does it every morning. Don't know, maybe I'll try to do it also.

But in the end, I'm most proud of getting up at 5:40! Sure, I slept a little after the yoga, but still. You all know how much I love sleeping.

Despair

I have decided that I don't like this place.

I'm getting tired of this stuff. This week will be the turning point in my India excursion - less days ahead than behind. And I'm getting glad about it.

I was reading a book by a local author. The book is written quite boringly but it has some interesting facts and stories about India and especially the times when the British were ruling here. As you probably know, India was a colony of the Brits for 200-300 years (depending how you count) until 1947. And it seems like the Brits weren't too fond of India, its culture and of its people.

It would've been interesting to see how things were a hundred years ago. Somewhere around year 1900 English became the official language for teaching and administrative work as Brits had gradually forced Indians to learn English by offering working positions only for those who spoke English. So the language of the 'elite' was forced on everyone.

But anyway, I was talking about the feelings the colonialists had towards India. Most of them seemed to simply hate the country, its culture, its people, its climate and everything in it. Indians were treated like rats because things were so different here and they were considered very inferior.

I'm personally starting to have some similar feelings really. The place is too strange and few things seem to work. I'm getting tired of:
- the filth: this morning my spoon had some old food stuck to it, like the spoon had carvings. And my bed clothes smell awful due to sweating and being old no matter how much they are washed. And small sand is always everywhere.
- brown showers from my ass. I will never get used to this filthiness and strange food. Well, nothing too bad so far (except in Mumbai due to the spicy food) but it's just not normal.
- warmth and humidity - monsoon has started, so now it's always either very humid or if there's no rain, really warm. Sweating a lot is a constant thing and I'm not getting used to it.
- beer culture. Almost nonexistent. A few locals drink beer here and there but Mumbai was the closest thing so far to a beer culture of any sort.
- nothing works. People don't keep their promises, things don't get done, infrastructure sucks... And I was told that this is all very normal here.

What I realized maybe a week ago was that these people actually live here with all this stuff all the time. It kinda struck me as..hmm..amazing. And they are all used to it. I asked a guy in Mumbai who had been traveling a bit around Europe which place he prefers and he said India. "Everything works here perfectly even if the rules are never obeyed". Well, allow me to disagree on that. A lot.

P.S. For a long time after their independence, the top castes of India had no language of their own. Often the only language they spoke (and often not so fluently) was English. If exaggerated a bit, one billion people without an own language. Whoah.

Manly joy

We have had some strange encounters with local people. Especially here in Jaipur. Tani has had more of these encounters than I have and he usually shares the experiences with some disgust.

Usually the encounters happen in a bar or cafe. No matter how many people there are of us sitting around a table, quite often an Indian guy comes and asks if he can sit down with us. Quite invariably we refuse. And quite invariably they don't care and try to sit down anyway.

Strange situations have been when one of us is visiting the bathroom and a local guy tries to take his place. Or when we have our bag on a chair and someone removes the bag and tries to sit. Or when we just simply don't care of having local company (which is quite often, if not always.)

Once when I was in the nearby bar with Tani and Pyry and a local tried to sit with us, there suddenly appeared 5 more of his friends behind him. "Is there a problem here? What are you doing?!" after we told the guy that he can't sit there. The situation was quite strange - most of the locals are quite small and bony and especially Tani is often just laughing at their efforts to try to pick up a fight. Are they willing to pick a fight just because we don't want their friend to sit in our table? It really seemed so.

It is not so rare that we have to shout at the guys that no, they may not sit down. They always ask first but never care about the reply.

Another funny thing with many of these local guys is their.... closeness with each other. Surely this is related to the I-want-to-sit-in-your-table thing. Sometimes it seems that 50% of guys here are gays. They hold each others' hands, they often wrap their hand around each the other's shoulders while sitting, they dance with each other (how morally wrong it would be to dance with a woman? dunno) and of course usually groups are just of one sex. Some of the most hilarious moments are when two guys are crossing a street, running hand in hand between the cars leading each other.

Happy guys!

Gay sex was illegal until 2009 in India although nobody had been sentenced for it for the past 20 years. Now it's not illegal anymore officially, but the attitudes are still far from liberal. At least in the north. Few years ago a royal prince (Manvendra Singh Gohil) in the north-west state Rajpipla came out of the closet. And the result? His family tried to disinherit him.

Nowadays the south of India is more tolerant (and civilized) and especially Mumbai is a gay haven. But while in Mumbai we noticed that the people are totally different there - they act like civilized people in cafes and bars (well, when they're not drunk anyway). The difference between the north and the south seems to be a huge one. Unfortunately Jaipur is in the north.

P.S. Oh and about the wedding I was in on Wednesday. Basically that day of the wedding included only a parade which we participated in by dancing (not like we had much of a choice) and after that an area for eating and some photographs at the stage with the groom. The bride was nowhere to be seen for the whole evening. I'll attach a few pictures.

The groom

Food at the wedding

Mumbai

Hello

Returned. And the strangest thing is that I feel like I returned home. So traveling to Mumbai was a holiday and now I returned home and it feels much safer and easier here. And this is Jaipur, I never thought it would could feel like home. Returning to Finland must feel like returning to.. don't even know.

In any case, Mumbai felt like heaven on ear... on India. It's from another universe. At times we felt like we weren't in India!

There's two quite Western bars (cafe Leopold and Mondegar) in the 'tourist' area Colaba which serve even bacon (pig!) and some lamb steaks. It was really relieving to just sit there, see some other Westerners, eat some Western food and have a few beers. And the Colaba area was quite interesting in general also, lots of different stuff.

Our couchsurfing hosts and Tani. Really nice guys.

First night we spent at one couchsurfing guy's place (www.couchsurfing.org for those who don't know the concept) but that was almost an hour's drive off from Colaba. So on Saturday we took a taxi to Colaba and found a nice little crappy guesthouse for the rest of the nights (3). 600 rupees per night in total so not too bad.

Guesthouse's bathroom. Not for the touchy ones.

Anyway, I'm not quite sure what to tell about Mumbai. It's a lot more civilized place than Jaipur and of course they have the Bollywood studios there. We even went to see one Bollywood movie there called Red Alert but unfortunately(?) it sucked (partially because we didn't understand anything, but doubt it was any good anyway). The night life in the city was totally different than in Jaipur, meaning that it.. existed. Bars had to close at 1am there also but some bars had bribed the police so they could show the football finals.


Beautiful beaches of Mumbai.

On Saturday I ate some really spicy food in a restaurant. I didn't really like it, but it costed 250 rupees so I didn't want to just throw it away and I forced it down my throat. The following night I paid the price: bathroom became a familiar place. Whole Sunday was partially ruined for me due to this, but on Monday I was again feeling quite ok. So, this trip's first stomach problem! Hurray!

Slum area of Mumbai called Dharavi. You should read about the area, either google or try http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/05/dharavi-mumbai-slum/jacobson-text . I found a book which told about the life in there but someone just bought it in front of my nose so had to buy something else :/

One interesting thing in Mumbai is the train system. Our couchsurfing host told us quite directly not to use it. Usually tourists just go to the platform, take a few pictures and not dare to try it. And we shouldn't either. In the end we ended up using it three times and it was an interesting experience :) I will attach some pictures with explanations.

In a local train. A lot more people came in before it was 'full'

Now the train is starting to be full. Note that the train is actually moving already. And, no, the trains' doors were never closed.

In Mumbai I bought the first books about India. I became really interested in all the social and economical situation here and hopefully I have some time to read. I think in future blog entries I will be covering some areas of the Indian culture and problems after reading a few books about the subjects. Let's see what happens.

P.S. I just found out that I'm going to an Indian wedding today. Someone from the office downstairs has a wedding in his family.

Feminine stuff and escape to Mumbai

Yesterday I was again supposed to go shopping. And then there came some problems. So what did I do? Oh. We went for beer.

BUT.

Before that, I went shopping! I'm not really sure why the female readers are interested in hearing about shopping here. It's not so wonderful. There are basically two options how to do shopping (for clothes especially) here. One: bazaars. Two: 'normal' shops.

If you go to bazaars or any street stall, expect a lot of haggling and bargaining. And if you are in some touristic place like the pink city (haven't actually even visited there yet, that's the 'old town') the sellers are quite aggressive and there's lots of yelling and screaming and what all. So, for some curious reason, I prefer these regular shops.

The price in these regular shops is surely higher and there's no bargaining really. But the regular shops have also a lot better quality. Usually they sell branded stuff, and I think that stuff is actually genuine. At least it seems quite good and feels even better. So, I went for some shoe shopping as my last shoes have a big hole at the bottom and they might not be the best option for Mumbai's floods. The two shoe stores I visited were right next to the closest bar, so while I went shopping Pyry and Tani were having a beer. Fair deal?

The shops weren't too special really. Wheneven I wanted to try on a shoe there came a guy running with the right size, put it to my foot and tied the laces. That's the sort of service that makes a small Finnish guy nervous - I don't wanna have many Indians around me doing everything for me. Just not used to it. But anyway, found some ok shoes and bought them, 1080 rupees. Seemed like they might last for more than the usual one year.

What more could the shops offer besides helping staff and good prices? Well, this is India. What is precious here, especially in this state? Water. So, in all the fancier shops someone offers you a glass of water or water from a bottle. I usually just refuse it but this evening after dinner when I went shopping AGAIN they offered me some juice which I took. Was really great, by the way.

Street vendors selling all sort of stuff. Sorry, it was dark.

Yes, I went shopping AGAIN after dinner. There's one nice place which seems to have -90% all the time. And of course it's always the last day. For the past two weeks at least. Went in, seller showed me a few pairs of pants, tried them on and bought two of them. Took about 10 minutes. And earlier buying the shoes took about 15 minutes. I hate shopping so this is the best I can do. And as I am this fat Western, the pants are always too long for me. Now at the office Amit called some tailor who is coming here in an hour to cut my new pants for 20 rupees. Nice service!

More street vendors. That soda shop had some excellent juices for sale - 10 different varieties and 5 rupees per glass. mmmMMM.

Now I'm just waiting for the day to drag on so I can leave for Mumbai. Flight departs at 17:30 so need to leave from work around.. umm.. maybe 15? We'll see. I maybe won't be able to update the blog while in Mumbai, so maybe the next post is on next Wednesday. Take care until that and don't cry, I will return!

P.S. Helena, no, I'm not going to write an entry about hair conditionings here. Pffft.

Anti-shopping and work culture

Female readers have been asking for some stories about shopping. And I partially promised to go shopping on Monday and/or on Tuesday. But... I didn't. Let me explain!

On Monday I had actually taken a bit more money with me. But then. It rained all day. And it was a bit miserable, all streets were flooded and had to jump over puddles here and there. So did I feel like shopping? No I didn't. (So when would I feel like shopping? Umh...) Went for a beer with Pyry.

On Tuesday (yesterday) I was also supposed to go shopping. But there came a new group of volunteers from Delhi on Tuesday (about 30 people) and four of them are staying for three nights in the same building as I am. So, I was kindly asked to escort them there after work. So no shopping then either! And they were still in some lessons upstairs when I got off from work. So went for a beer with Pyry and Tani. And managed to miss the new people and somehow they got a ride from someone else.

Today... Well, no idea. Maybe.

Found a tailor to cut my pants! Professional and very specialized.

I read from somewhere that Rajasthani (this state) people never apologize for anything. Before I hadn't paid much attention to this but now I it seems like it's actually true. Yesterday I spent 2,5 hours in an office with my boss Ninad and a representative from a company who's making one website for Idex. The website really hasn't been a success story - it's now late for a few weeks and it's still full of bugs/errors. And it's my job to take care of the case. It really seems that the company who is making the website doesn't care for their reputation and they give us total bullshit results.

Well, so we grilled the guy a bit. Found several requirements that he had already marked as 'done' but they turned out not to be done. And I had earlier made a long list of bugs that I had found and they had told me that those are now fixed but.. no, they weren't. In Finland, if you come to your client's office and they ask you why you promise things that you haven't done and why many stuff doesn't work, you would apologize and mention that you will try harder. This guy didn't even seem to be sorry.

So I guess it's something the locals do. Never apologize. Everything is just normal and nothing special going on. This is starting to piss me off a bit. And the funniest thing is that Ninad tells me that that specific company is a good one around here - he had been dealing with 2 other companies earlier and they were much much worse. I would love to see some of those companies if this one is a good one. And can't help thinking what it would be like to establish your own company here and do (or try to do) things in 'Western' way. That is, thorough and complete.

I just have to get used to this. Ninad also told me that he's been waiting for me to explode but I haven't done that yet. A few times I've gone to his office totally frustrated about that company and banging my head against the wall. But it seems this is only the beginning of a beautiful total madness. Looking forward to it!

Monsoon has arrived! Cleaning!

The monsoon has arrived! Rain! Clouds! Humane temperatures!!

Everyone has been waiting for this to happen. It was supposed to start a few weeks ago, but mysteriously got "delayed". And this state is sometimes called the "desert state", so it never rains much here. Monsoon has lately been quite small I was told. But, well, at least the everlasting sand will fall down from pestering the sweaty people and supposedly temperatures with it.

This morning I actually used my other bedsheet to cover me to make me WARMER. Imagine that! Of course both of my fans were on (one regular at the ceiling and one at outer wall blowing watercooled air inside), but still.

I'm really expecting to see what the water does to the temperatures. With a little bit of luck I might even stop sweating like a pig everywhere. But, well, as today is Sunday, it was supposed to be a pool day. As it was raining half the day I decided not to go there, wonder if some people did go there in the end. So it has been a bit boring day for me.

That's why I did some cleaning :) As there shouldn't be much sand coming to my room anymore I decided to do what I can to clean this place. So I swiped the floor and tables. There's just one problem: the carpet which is on the floor. It has soaked about 5kg of sand and it's too big to carry and dust. So after consulting my hosts we decided to just roll it and stash it to the corner of my room. As nobody has vacuum cleaners, there's nothing we can do about the carpet. I wonder how long the carpet has been gathering dusts... But now the room is otherwise quite ok.

My room's carpet and the impossible job of cleaning the room.

I also decided to go to a tailor cut my new pants a bit shorter. Obviously it wasn't as easy as it could be. The host mother guided me to a tailor just across the street. So I went there and saw a woman ironin some pants and shirts. His boys spoke a bit English and we agreed that I'd get the cut for 10 rupees. So the woman took my pants, ironed them and handed them back. Great. Uh, what? Obviously she's only professionalized in ironing and can't do anything else. I tried complaining to her but to no use, I paid her 5 rupees and left with my straight pants. Now I asked my host dad about a tailor and he guided me about 1km away to the nearest tailor. Sweet.

Also a bit about yesterday. As it was Saturday, something was bound to happen. Tani is still in Delhi and Pyry was too exhausted after shopping the whole day (he came here with very little stuff), I decided to force my colleagues Amit and Gaurav for beer. Of course they were working as it was Saturday. So around 19 I just went to the office and dragged them with me to the nearby bar.

It turned out that Gaurav is an old player in that game. He started telling stories about a volunteer who was here for 2 years and how they went drinking together very often. And eating meat. It also seems that Amit is a bit more conservative: he's pure veg and not so much into the drinking thing. But well. Had a few beers with them and then they left for their wives. Gaurav gave me a ride to Orca. As I suspected, 'everyone' was again there.

Gaurav and Amit upon leaving the bar. And yes, everyone seems to drive here after who-knows-how-many beers. And officially there's zero-tolerance :)

From Orca we left again for the poolparty. It seems to be a thing for Saturdays. Met a French guy there who introduced me to some locals and got a few free beers for me. Also invited me and my friends next Sunday for the soccer final to one of the locals' place, free everything there. Unfortunately(?) I will be in Mumbai then, but maybe we'll figure something else for some other evening. Seemed like a nice guy. After the poolparty I decided to walk home which took about 50 minutes. And, well, partially also because it was quite hard to get a tuktuk in the middle of the night.

My apartment area's gate guard. (The only gate to the area which is open during the night.) He didn't stress too much about his work :)

Sightings on my way home from the poolparty. This is how the rickshaw drivers seem to spend their nights. It seems the bike is their whole home.

So, it has been an ok weekend again. I think I'm starting to form an opinion of this place now. I both hate and love the place. I hate the ¤#"$hole everyone lives in, but I love how everyone copes with it. This it all perfectly natural for them and everyone is accustomed to this. It's really interesting to observe how people behave and cope with everything here.

So I think I will survive. Thanks for asking :)

Lameness and mangos

I'm such a pussy.

Today, I was walking around my neighbourhood again. I walked a bit further than usually (and in a new direction) so I saw a lot of different stuff. And also some interesting stuff. But why didn't I stop and buy and/or look at them?

It's somehow hard for me to participate in the Indian culture in this way. It takes guts to just go somewhere and do something that the locals do all the time. And too often I don't have the guts. It's usually nothing too complicated, just like stopping at a street stall to maybe buy some cheap and crappy shoes. I'm slowly trying to force myself to stop and act like a local and get over my nervousness, but it's not so simple. But, slowly.

Some people doing something on a street. Some dancing, but no idea why. Very weird things happens all the time around here.

Earlier I didn't buy anything from the streets due to fear for my stomach. Now I've been here for over 2 weeks and I've had zero problems. I've slowly started to try different stuff now. For example I stopped drinking bottled water a week ago, now I mostly drink the filtered water. Let's see how far I can go without stomach problems. I'll let you know, don't worry :)

Well, I did manage to buy some drinkable mango thing at a street stall. And it was really great. 10 rupees, although I think the real price should've been 7 rupees. Oh no, I just lost 3 rupees. And another thing I manager to do was notice the signs of "Beer - 90 rupees - self service". For some weird reason it's much easier to go for those places than to go for some shoe shops.

Local traffic. Many intersections have this square thing at the center to mark where to drive. But of course if people are turning right for example, they always drive at the wrong side of the square to cut the angle. So, the square thing is quite useless.

I have to talk to you about mangos a bit. They are simply.. awesome. Nowadays my family usually provides me a mango after dinner as a dessert. And the mangos are simply.. awesome. I have totally fell in love with them, they are sweet and very tasty. Indians say that mango is the kind of fruits, and I no longer wonder why. They also say that there's like 1000 different mango types, but unfortunately I have only tasted a few different ones so far.

In general, please let me know what you wanna hear about. It's somehow difficult for me to know what is interesting for my readers. Somehow most of the stuff here seems normal and almost boring, even though it's far from the European standards, but still. And I'm also a bit afraid of taking pictures of interesting events as some of the locals don't like their pictures to be taken. I think I should just take all the pictures I want and run, but then again........

Ah, and Agra. Well, in the end I didn't go there. The trains were already full and it was really hard to find out about buses. Internet has many different sources and it seemed like most of them were outdated. And the other group left with a 6:30am train, so I should've gone around 6am to the bus station and wonder if there happens to be a bus going to Agra. And the same thing at the evening. So, chose not to try going there. I think I will still have time to go there later.

Yesterday's dinner. From left, clockwise: Ninad (my boss), Vinita (his wife), Pyry, Lena and Tani.

Yesterday we were for some food and beers with my boss, his wife (who also works at Idex) and four Finns: me, Tani, Lena and this newcomer Pyry. It was kind of a welcoming dinner. It was really nice. Today I tried to lure Gaurav and Amit from the office for some beers (so far I have never succeeded in that), but let's see if they manage to come this time. Also need to get Pyry to join, Tani left for Delhi for this weekend.

P.S. Please keep on commenting the blog. It's nice to see that someone is reading ;)

Trips (and beer!)

Someone complained that there were three blog posts in a row without a mention of beer. I'm afraid that could've been possible. So let's make sure this one doesn't make the same mistake: beer beer beer.

Yes, I got some beer yesterday. We have a new Finnish guy, Pyry, here at the office who came two days ago. So me, Tani and him went for some beers at a nearby bar. And it's a cheap place: 90 rupees for a big beer (66cl). And we found a new beer which was actually quite good: Haywards 5000. Unfortunately it doesn't have 5000 percents of alcohol but only something like 7-8. (No way to know how much, they only tell here "below 8 percents of alcohol" for the strong beers).

Our yesterday's bar. Not the most idyllic, but most of them aren't...

Anyway. As I already mentioned in my facebook status, I bought flight tickets to Mumbai with Tani. 9. - 13.7. Total about 10000 rupees, so 2500 rupees for one person one way. Not a bad price I think. Still people wondered here at the office why we didn't take a train. Well, it takes something like 30 hours to Goa, so to Mumbai it would be probably around 20 hours. Uh, no thanks.

It seems like Mumbai is a nice city. Or, well, at least more developed than this nomadic clay village. I think the trip will be quite nice, seeing some intelligent places. And at least it's different, no need to stay here all the time. I'll let you know what it was like.

Also, some people are going to Agra this weekend. And yes, Agra is the village with Taj Mahal. I'll try to stick my head in that group (I have a their phone number!) and go take the must-have photo of me in front of the hut. It takes maybe 5 hours to go there in a bus and that seems to be a really short trip by local standards. No idea yet if we will stay there for the night, but probably not as I think there's nothing to see besides the big hut.

Another trip that I started thinking is to Kalkutta (Kolkata). Seemed like a nice place aswell and most importantly they fly there directly from Jaipur. Checked the ticket prices, it's about 7000 rupees per person, return trip. But this trip will have to wait for a little while. (I'm a taxi driver in Kalkutta....dum di dum...)