Mumbai

Mumbai is the largest city in India so we needed to go and see it.  I spoiled us by booking us in at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel which is considered one of the best hotels in the world, let alone India.  We were greeted with a blessing of good health and fortune:

 Our hotel:

Mumbai was not what we were expecting at all.  It is about double the size of Bangalore with 11 million people so we were thinking that it was going to be crazy.  I don’t know if it is because we are desensitized to the noise and busyness of India that we found it so calm.  Rickshaws have been banned in the heart of the city due to pollution and too many accidents so that takes away a lot of the buzz. 

There are not very many tourist attractions in Mumbai other than the city itself.  The British influence is still felt in the look and structure of a lot of the city, it is just unfortunately really run down. 

The Gateway to India:

The Arabian Sea which makes a little bay called the Queen‘s necklace:

A slum about a five minute walk from our hotel, we find that the contrast between classes here is extreme. I am not sure that there is anywhere else that you go from 5 star to slum so quickly.

Here are some kids playing marbles on Chowpatty beach:

 We also visited the Elephanta Caves.  This is an hour boat ride from the gateway of India to an island.  It has lot of temple caves.  These were impressive as they were not as detailed but much more grand in their height and size from the Badami caves. 

We also saw the slums that the movie Slumdog Millionaire was based off.  It is massive, stretching for kilometres.

We really lucked out that even though it is monsoon season, we only got rain on our boat ride home from the caves and on Monday on the way to the airport.

Badami Caves

On our trip to Hampi, we stayed a second day so we could take a side trip to Badami cave temples.  It is a 3 hour drive over very bad roads.  We thought the roads were bad in Bangalore but these were incredibly potholed and rough.  Our driver should not have driven any faster than 50 km an hour but he at some points was going close to 100 km which was a little bumpy.  We did not say anything though as we both have developed a huge dislike for being in the car so much as it takes forever to get anywhere here….and it still took us 3 hours.
The caves are really neat.  It took us about 45 minutes to go very slowly through the caves as we were not in any rush to get back into the car. 

Due to the fact that we had gone so far, our driver also took us to a market, to some temples in Aihole and some more ruins in Pattadakal that were in close proximity to Badami.  Everything was ok to see, but we were kinda templed out by this point so it felt like too long a drive for what we saw.

These little kids were pretty rambunchus and talkative with us, so I asked to take their picture but then they stood so proper.  It was really cute.

The further you get outside of Bangalore, the poorer it becomes.  Here is a couple of women doing there laundry in a ditch.  It makes you feel a bit spoiled as last week I had a conversation with one of my friends about how I sympathized with her for not having a clothes dryer.

We sat and got a drink and there was this cat with her kittens hanging around, so i bought it a coconut so that it could drink the milk out of it.  Miss my kitties!

Hampi

Sorry for the delay in blogging, just laziness on my part I guess.  This housewife thing is keeping me really busy these days.  :) 

A couple of weekends ago, we headed out to Hampi.  It is a place that has ruins from a kingdom back in the 1500s.  We took the overnight train.  It left Bangalore at 9 pm getting to Hampi at 6:30 am.  It was interesting to say the least.  Here is a picture of our first class A/C sleeper cabin:

As you may be able to tell, not exactly our expectation of first class.  It was very basic and kinda dirty.  The toilets are separated into Indian style vs. Western so I thought I was going to be ok.  Not the case and were deemed unusable by myself which led for a long ride.  The toilet is just a glorified outhouse with the hole going all the way down to the track which was filthy.  They have made a new rule in India that you are not allowed to use the toilet while in station due to the growing smell of fecal matter on the tracks. 

Our cabin mates were a middle aged woman and her elderly mother.  We were lost for words, as at one point in time, their entire family it felt like was also in our little cabin eating supper.  I think we counted 10 people at one time.  They sat in and around Ryan and I on our side.  I know it is suprising but we were speachless.  They didn't ask, they just sat and touched us and were super comfortable.  We honestly didn't know what to do, just kept reading our books and giving each other looks.  We weren't even offered any food! 

Hampi itself was great.  Really well preserved ruins.  My favorite was the elephant stables:

And these cows on some temple stairs licking Ryan, lol:  I think it must be good luck since cows are so sacred here.

A couple more pics of the ruins for you:

I took tonnes more so if you want to see them all, check out facebook, I will post the trip.

We went for lunch at this really neat restaurant and I had a traditional Indian plate.  It comes with rice and naan and a mixture of sauces to eat with them. 

The train ride home was much better.  We just so happened to be in a cabin with an expat couple, Sandra and Tim from England.  I play tennis with Sandra a couple times a week so we know them quite well and knew that they would be in Hampi that weekend but never expected to run into them but were we ever happy to see them! 

Backwater Tour Kerala

Flew out to Kerala for a long weekend.  We did an overnight backwater boat tour and spent a day in Kochi.  The backwater tour was really relaxing.  It is the only way that you can see this part of the country as there are a multitude of channels you can boat down.  I really loved seeing the locals doing their everyday living.  Woman after woman were doing laundry and dishes, children were swimming, people were bathing.  We just sat on our boat, drank a few beers and took it all in. 

The local beer (Ryan in the background enjoying a sip)

Here are a few of my favourite pictures from the boat:

This woman is doing her laundry.  Seems like too much work to me.

This next one is a rice paddy field.  They get 2 harvests a year.  These fields were harvested in February, burnt down, so you can just start to see the new growth come through.  They will be ready again by the end of August.

Another houseboat we followed down this passage:

Fishing...

Doing some dishes....so sanitary,

Everything is done in this water.  Our captain told us that it is not drank, which is surprising since it is fresh water but it must be pretty dirty from all the other things done in it.

We drove back to Kochi for the rest of the weekend.  We spent all of our time in Fort Kochi.  It is right on the water and a low key place.

Fishing nets are used right off of the coast, which is the Arabian Sea, they are called Chinese Fishing Nets:

Right next to the nets, stands of the fresh catch available for purchase:

Great to have a long weekend away.  Ryan definitely needed a break from work.  Check out facebook if you want to see more extensive pictures from our weekend.

Sue Corp

  Ryan calls anything that is related with the house - a Sue Corp project so I thought I would do a blog on it.  I may not have a 'real' job but I do have 3 employees.  :)

Lakshimi:  my maid - she always wears these beautiful saris.  I have no idea how she works in them.  As she moves around the apartment, you can always hear where she is because of the clinking of her bangles. 

There are some major differences between my cleaning practices and Lakshimis.

For Example:  The broom I bought and the broom that she asked me to buy.  It was quite humorous the first day that she came and cleaned.  She had no idea how to use the broom.  I demonstrated and tried to help her hold it but she just couldn't do it.  She eventually went and borrowed a broom from security to use. 

Sobu:  my security guard.  He is always smiling a big smile like this.  He takes all of our bills when they get dropped off and brings them to me.  Also, he handles all of our garbage.

Venketesh: our driver.  We have  hired Venketesh as our personal driver (I mentioned him in an earlier post).  Currently he is working for the taxi company while we waited for our car to be delivered. He is a wonderful driver, knows where everything is.  We almost hit a cow the other day, seriously had to slam on the brakes and I heard him really laugh for the first time.  It was pretty awesome.  Our Ford Figo is being delivered tomorrow so he will officially start working for us.

My logo:

Devanahalli Fort

This is a fort that most people do not know about.  I found out about it from a friend and it is definitely worth the stop on the way to Nandi Hills.  It was the highlight of our day out.  It is a fort that was built in 1501 and to this day there is a functioning little town inside.  The fort is still fully intact and protects the town in much the same way that it was designed to do 400 years ago.

We took a walk on top of the outside wall of the town and peered in from above:

The outside of the wall:

A few pictures of the town:

The last picture shows how manual most of the construction is here.  Blows our mind that most of the work is done by hand.

This is the wall that we walked on:

I know I am repeating myself, but a great stop.  Another good thing is that by stopping at this fort, we got off the main highway and saw a lot more of the countryside on the way to Nandi Hills.

Outside of the fort, there was a cluster of tents that people live in.  It was the first time we had seen this level of poverty.

Two last monkey pictures to finish off my blog today.  I do love all the monkeys everywhere and take many many pictures, so here is couple of them from our trip:

Nandi Hills

We headed out to Nandi Hills on Saturday.  It is 60 kms north of Bangalore.  Again, great to get out of the city and see a little bit of the country side.  The hill is famous for being Tipu Sultan's summer getaway in the late 18th century.  It has his home, a temple and Tipu's drop - a 2000 foot cliff where they brought prisoners to hurl them off the hill to their death.

Out this way, there are many fields of grapes for the local wine market:

Once we got to the bottom of Nandi Hills, we stopped at a temple at the base called Bhoganandeeshwara Temple.  This is a picture of the entrance, if you notice the woman to the far left, her job is to keep the monkeys away from peoples shoes that are taken off to enter the temple.

One of the many monkeys that are around this temple:

A view of Nandi Hill from the temple:

The drive up Nandi Hill was much easier than it used to be.  It has been paved over the last little while.  A friend made fun of me today, when I told her that we drove up as she and her husband walked up the 1175 stairs to the top. Ryan and I didn't even consider the stair climb if that says anything about the type of people we are. :) It was only 5 rupees a piece to enter the area that had the palace, temple and Tipu's drop.  Here are a couple of pictures showing the view from the top.  India's countryside is very beautiful:

Here is the rock where they made the prisoners stand before hurling them to their death:

It was really nice to get out and see a different side of India.