Chilling in Chennai

Jaipur

  Selva kindly arranged for us to stay at his friend’s place (a former AID employee!), and we met Sitara and Angelie upon arrival. They were really friendly and welcoming.

After sleeping in on the next morning and having a very, very long lunch (the cooks kept going out to buy the ingredients), we went to buy movie tickets and for a walk in the old city. We found many shops, tourists, Gaëlle took a bicycle rickshaw for the first time, and was very, very amused to see a group of 30 tourists, two per bicycle rickshaw, taking photographs of everything and filming the drive. We meet really stereotypical tourists sometimes, and we always laugh, and hope we are not too much like them!

We then went to see the Monkey Temple -- literally hundreds of monkeys live there as people continually feed them! We had to hire a guide for our “protection”, his name was Ravi and he was saving up money to go to college and become a doctor (of course!).  It was pretty scary to be surrounded by so many animals, monkeys, dogs, pigs, goats and even snakes! But the view was worth it, as was the sunset (Devan’s new obsession). At the temple, we had to make a donation -- it is always frustrating to see how unappreciative some people are when we give money. They always want more money from us, and although we understand their reasons, it is always hard to face after a nice experience. 

In the evening, we watched the film “Chennai Express”, in the Raj Mandir cinema (which looks like a pink cream cake!) and we were so proud to understand some of the Tamil spoken in the movie and know the places the movie was referring to (places we have been to!). However, the representation of Tamil people was very offensive; they are portrayed as primitive animals, but we know how lovely they actually are and understood why we had heard that the movie was really bad.. We still enjoyed the dancing and singing, and the beautiful landscapes as well as the clapping and yelling of the people in the theater! 

On our second day, we hired a driver to go explore the sights outside of the city : we visited Amber fort, the Nahargarh, before heading back to the city to visit the city palace and Hawamahal. We also ate a delicious Rajasthani lunch! 

Ajmer and Pushkar

We arrived in Ajmer on Tuesday night, after a bus ride on which Marion made friends with locals who wanted us to go to their house and take the next bus to Ajmer, offering us peanuts (we accepted) and paan (tobacco to chew, we declined). The first person we met in Ajmer was a rickshaw driver who drove us straight to his friend's hotel ("best hotel!") instead of the one we had booked, and tried to make us pay extra to bring us where we wanted.. Needless to say he didn't succeed and we only paid the original price of 50 rupees (less than one dollar). 

We woke up early the next morning to go to Pushkar, which is a Hindu pilgrimage city, with 1000 temples, including the only Brahma temple in the world! We had been seeing pilgrims walking on the side of the road for a while, wearing orange or white clothes and carrying flags, sometimes walking after trucks blasting music (surprisingly, mostly techno, perhaps to keep them motivated?), and we met two more groups on our way. These processions are always really impressive, with the pilgrims seeming to be in another world, dancing and chanting. 

In Pushkar, a student of the Brahma temple guided us and explained to us that pilgrims came to visit the temple, but that the sacred ceremony took place at the lake with a prayer and a holy dip. We then each had a priest pray with us and bless us, and after repeating the prayers for a good life, good health, good family, good partner and happy marriage (in Hindu and English), and putting our offering of rice, flowers and pigments in the sacred water of the lake, we each threw a flower over our head to symbolize leaving our negative thoughts behind and focusing on the present and the future with a positive attitude. Even though we were the pressured to each give a donation to a local charity feeding the poor ("one donation per person! Karma is separate!", they argued as we said we would give one donation for the four of us), we still felt good and ready to move on without negative thoughts. 

We then went back to Ajmer, also a holy city, but this time for Sufi Muslims, as Khwaja Muin-ud-din Chishti is buried there. A major pilgrimage center in India, it is a very chaotic city, as we were soon to discover. We decided to walk to the Dargah, the religious complex in the center of the city, and were amazed as we saw a woman beginning to dance to the music coming out of a car, between orange-dressed Hindu pilgrims and Muslims on their way to the Dargah. She was very beautiful and an amazing dancer! Everyone was clapping and singing, women were joining her, and, after being asked many times, Gaëlle ended up dancing with her as well. Even though she had no idea of how to dance and just imitated her, the dancer and the people around seem to appreciate it very much and even tried to prevent her from leaving! We met a few women later that day who remembered her from the dancing and complimented her in the traditional Indian way : saying "super super!" with a big smile. 

We finally got to the Dargah, but the rain and storm arrived at the same time, so we quickly removed our shoes and rushed inside to find a dry place. Just like the bazaar we had just gone through, the place was very crowded : hundreds of people were trying to escape the rain, and a priest ended up giving up his spot for us. Of course, we were joined by an entire family who tried to engage in a discussion with Devan, and since we did not have a common language, they just gave us some sweets! We then wanted to go inside the marbled shrine, but the line to get in was endless and it was very, very hot, even though it had just rained. We felt a little claustrophobic in the crowd and left to eat thalis in an air conditionned restaurant! 

After visiting the Jain temple and its incredible gold portrayal of the ancient world as they see it (using 1 ton of pure gold!), we decided to go to the Taragah, another holy place, located on a hill with a view of the city and its lake. A rickshaw driver tried to take advantage of our bad pronunciation and took us to the Dargah instead (which was obviously really nearby), pretending he hadn't understood and asking us to pay anyway. We did not and walked away, while he was yelling and threatening to call the police. Luckily he never did and we never saw him again! We finally got to Taragah and admired beautiful views of the city. Again an imam took it upon himself to guide us for free, unless we wanted to donate to the mosque. It was again a beautiful mosque, people were really friendly, and we really appreciated that our guide did not force us to donate anything.  We listened to two men singing and playing drums before going back to Ajmer. 

JODHPUR

 Jodhpur is named the “Blue City” for a good reason, the majority of the houses are blue. Traditionally, the houses that were painted blue belonged to the Brahmins (one of the highest Hindu castes), so that everyone could recognize them, but this is no longer the case today - we suspect that the reasons behind painting one's house blue today are rather commercial (tourists like it) than religious. We even stayed at a hostel called the “Blue House”.

We started out by visiting Fort Mehrangarh, a magnificent fort atop the hill overlooking the entire city. It was a stunning view. We even had a little (spontaneous) private concert played for us of 'why this kolaveri di' (a Tamil music hit). A big NANDRI to those musicians! Marion had also a palm reading session in the fort, while Devan, Gaelle and Carmina listened to a man playing beautiful music with a traditional wooden Rajathstani flute.

Later in the day, we went to the white marble memorial of Maharaja Jaswant Singh II, Jaswant Thada, which had a nice view over the city. He is remembered for the justice system he imposed in Jodhpur. We had lunch on a rooftop terrace overlooking the clocktower in the square, and continued on to tour the Umaid Bhawan Palace, built in honour of Maharaja Umaid Singh. His grandson still lives there and the palace has now been turned into a partial (very expensive!) hotel.

After sightseeing, we wandered around the old city and discovered the market filled with colourful scarves and turbans... it looked like a kaleidoscope! In Rajasthan, the women dress so beautifully with flashy headscarves. All the colours of the rainbow are present in the streets. Even on a rainy day (as is often the case at this time of the year), the streets are shining!

Udaipur

We took a 'sleeper bus' from Mumbai to Udaipur, in which we enjoyed a beautiful view, lying down and looking up the window (for those of us who were on the top bed!). 

Udaipur is a really romantic city, with narrow streets. The first day we arrived, we took a tour by autorickshaw to visit a palace garden, a local miniature artist's studio, and the Monsoon palace with spectacular views over the city. We also spent quite a while shopping and bargaining in the many, many shops of this tourist hub. In the evening, we saw a traditional Rajasthani dance show. Some of the performers were very impressive, especially the woman who carried 10 pots of water on her head while dancing and stepping on broken glass! It was a fun event, even though it was a bit touristy for our taste. In Chennai and Tamil Nadu, we got used to being the only foreigners around.

MUMBAI

Our second stop was Mumbai, India's most cosmopolitan and wealthiest city! We learned from a taxi driver that it is one of Asia's most expensive cities to live in, second to Tokyo. After our relaxing time in Goa we were excited to explore this bustling economic hub of India.

We stayed with the friend of Selva's friend in Andheri, which is a little north of the main sights. This meant we got to experience the Mumbai city train! We also loved meeting and spending time with our hosts, Abishek and Tina, who were both so friendly and interesting. 

On our first day in Mumbai we experienced Indian McDonalds for the first time (masala grilled chicken burgers, mmm)! We then took a walking tour of South Mumbai and stumbled across the High Court. We went in and watched a few of the cases, and although we could not really understand anything, it was pretty cool to see all the lawyers and judges arguing in a mix of Hindi and English.

After a sandwich and lassi stop, we went to see a Hindi movie, B.A. Pass.

We chose it because the movie poster said it won a lot of awards; unfortunately, it ended up being super depressing. We had gone in thinking it would be a Bollywood film full of song and dance...the film was about prostitution, we could not have been more wrong! 

That night we took a cab back to Andheri. The view of the Mumbai skyline from Marine Drive was stunning; the sparkle of the city lights and the wind from the open windows thrilled us all. However, we were not so thrilled that it took us two hours to get back because of the awful traffic! The drive was exasperatingly and unimaginably slow. After waiting too long, we got out of the cab and took a rickshaw through the back allies of the Mumbai suburbs to escape the cars. We ended the night chilling with our hosts and their friends, most of whom were actually film actors, which we thought was awesome. 

The next day we took a tour of the city with a driver. We saw a few hilltop gardens, a glittering Jain temple, the Haji Ali mosque (situated at the end of a long path that curves into the ocean), and a Hindu temple. All of these sights were gorgeous, and our driver even gave us a brief history of religion in India as we drove--although we are not sure how precise his history was. It was great to once more experience India's religious diversity, all in one city. We also saw a slum where thousands of people in Mumbai send their laundry to be cleaned every day. There were hundreds of pieces of clothing hanging from lines on top of buildings, organized by colour.

After the tour we went to Taj Mahal Palace, the most expensive hotel in Mumbai (minimum 20 000 rupees a night). We walked in, attractively sweaty from our long day of touring, and went to the insanely pricey restaurant on the top floor. There, we ordered really expensive cocktails and appetizers, because YOLO! 

That evening we had a great night at a bar called The Three Wise Monkeys--Selva's friend Vaibhav had invited us there to see his friend's band play. We ended up hanging out with them for a few hours after the bar. We also had a great rickshaw ride to the bar; it included impromptu group karaoke to "Halo" and expressing our desire to climb on the rickshaw roof. Needless to say, we more than amused our rickshaw driver. 

GOA

Our first few days of the trip started off in Goa, where we relaxed on the beaches, explored the beautiful Portuguese colonial churches and rode around on scooties! Goa is known for its feni (an alcohol made of cashewnut), so for our first night we indulged in “friendship day” at the local bar. It is still the monsoon season, so when it rained we explored ‘Old Goa,’ where the biggest Church in Asia is located. We also found ourselves in a local market where women sat in their stands selling fresh fruits and vegetables, and men cut the heads off live chicken!

We were lucky to have one super hot day, which was spent lounging at Baga beach. Us foreigners going swimming in a no-swimming zone attracted quite the crowd taking pictures, so the lifeguards were quick to keep us out of the water, unfortunately. We have begun charging 500 rupees for photos since then (as a joke).

Riding around Goa was an amazing part of the trip, as the scenery is a mix of lush green fields, palm trees and the waves of the ocean. Gaelle had a little accident on her bike (don’t worry), but we ended up enjoying our learning experience about the casual attitudes in Indian hospitals…  aaram se. We had this tattooed on our wrists, and is definitely our favourite Hindi word.

The End of the Internship

Our internship ended yesterday and we are all very sad to leave Chennai and the people in it! However, we are now embarking on an 18-day trip across India! We will be visiting Goa, Mumbai, Rajasthan, Agra, Varanasi, and finally Delhi, from which we will be flying back home. On one of our last days in the office, each team gave a final presentation at the AID office about our internship experiences. We had planned a lot of jokes and funny stories, but since everything had to be interpreted into Tamil by our supervisors, a lot of it was lost in translation. Thankfully we still got some laughs!

We also had a goodbye dinner with our respective teams (Education and Agriculture). Marion and Devan received a gift of kurtas from their supervisors, while Gaëlle and Carmina each received a biography of Gandhi. While Gaëlle and Carmina’s goodbyes to their supervisors were very casual, Devan (unexpectedly) and Marion (expectedly) cried a lot! We are all happy to have worked with such great teams and we will miss everyone at AID. It was truly a friendly and welcoming place to work.

Last night, we had a dinner with Shahista and Mithun. Shahista was our very first friend at the hostel and we were so glad to have met her--she helped us with so many things throughout our stay, from taking us on our first rickshaw ride to helping us speak to the cleaning ladies who don’t know English! She has been a great friend.

It would be remiss not to mention all the wonderful women from the hostel. To our cleaning ladies, all the cooks, our favourite security guard Ganesh and his family (thanks especially to Ganesh for not being angry when we wake you up at 2am to let us in!), and the many friendly girls at the hostel--we had such a great time getting to know you and we will miss you very much.

Our Final Weekend: Mathu, Kanyakumari, and Madurai

Last weekend was very eventful for us, as our fellow intern and friend Mathu left to return to Singapore, and we took a trip to Kanyakumari and Madurai! Mathu has been working with Marion and Devan in the schools, and she also came on our Ladakh trip. She is an absolute joy to hang out with! On one of her last days in Chennai, we all went to dinner at a wonderful Keralan restaurant in Chennai. We had some good times over delicious seafood curries, and we were all sad to have to say goodbye to her! We miss you Mathu!

After the dinner, we got in Selva’s car and he drove us all for ten hours overnight to Kanyakumari, which is at the very southern tip of India. This is the place where the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean meet. We checked into an ashram in the morning and then went off to explore the town. Kanyakumari is a picturesque little collection of colourful seaside houses, vibrant fishing boats, and stone streets.

We first visited the local temple and the Gandhi and Kamarajar memorials. The Gandhi memorial was very cool, as it had a box which had once contained Gandhi’s ashes before they were thrown into the sea. There was also a very tiny hole in the ceiling, and we discovered that, every year on Gandhi’s birthday, the sun shines through this hole, illuminating the box. Afterwards, we took a short ferry ride to Vivekanada Rock memorial, a nearby island which has a palatial-like temple on it.Then we spent some time chilling in the shade in towering Our Lady of Ransom Church—one of the most beautiful we’ve seen—and in the restaurant of a nearby hotel, where we cooled off with ice cream.

Sunsets and sunrises in Kanyakumari are pretty famous, so we took an auto out to Sunset Point that evening. We found a wonderful viewpoint to watch the sun as it descended behind the clouds, flooding the sky in pink and orange. The wind was astoundingly strong, as you can probably tell from the photos! As the sun was setting we also tried to take some jumping photos in the ocean...unfortunately it didn’t work out very well. We had an amazing dinner of fish and prawns, and then had a few hours of rest before starting back to Chennai at 1am.

Three hours later we reached Madurai, a city famous for its enormous Sri Meenakshi Amman temple. This temple is over 2500 years old and receives thousands of visitors a day. It has 14 intricately carved gateway towers, which stunned us with their detail and amazing colours. We were glad to visit in the early morning, as we were fortunate enough to see the colourful towers glow in the rising sun. Also, the temple was nearly empty when we visited. Inside the temple we again saw an elephant, and got to try some small pancakes dipped in sweet syrup that were being sold near the entrance. After a yummy breakfast of idli and dosa, we left for Chennai!

Gaëlle and Carmina : last week of fieldwork

We had our final field work trip last week, with the goal of doing 50 more farmer surveys. We have been trying to give the questionnaire to as many farmers as possible so we could get the most meaningful results possible. Magasool had arranged for their local coordinators from Dharmapuri, Kanchipuram and Thiruvannamalai districts to give surveys out to 100 farmers each, and with the 50 we had already done, plus 50 more, our total would be about 400! Our questionnaire was fully translated into Tamil for the coordinators, which was pretty cool to see.

We headed out to our favourite village family in Manjakollai with Selva one evening and slept at their house for the night. We woke up early the next morning and left with Selva and our adopted mother (the coordinator’s wife, who feeds us enormous amounts and to whom we became very attached) to start surveying in Nagapattinam. This is a district just south of Cuddalore; it has a slightly different insurance scheme but the same weather patterns, which makes it ideal for comparison. We visited several Nagapattinam villages over a period of two days, and with the help of Selva, our host family, and a volunteer as translators, we managed to survey 51 farmers!

Considering that it can be very difficult to find farmers in the first place, not to mention the high temperatures and the problems that can occur with translation, we were proud to finish everything in two days. We also experienced a variety of interesting responses to our questionnaire, often varying greatly by village. We are planning to make a summary sheet of our research results, which we will definitely post on the blog.

Both of us agree that meeting farmers and their families and learning about their different experiences with insurance and risk management was a highlight of the internship, particularly because these topics have come up in a few of our international development classes. However, it was also because most farmers and families we met were very kind and welcoming, sometimes serving us tea and pinning jasmine flowers in our hair (a regular accessory of Indian women). We also really enjoyed seeing different villages, with their variety of houses--from small straw huts, to large, pastel-hued houses with entry gates in a rainbow of colours. We feel like we have seen a number of rural areas in Tamil Nadu and it was a great experience.

Once again, we felt very grateful to stay with our host family in Manjakollai. We became quite sentimental about leaving for the final time, particularly because the coordinator’s wife bought us each a souvenir keychain: a single grain of rice with our names written on it, placed in tubes of liquid. We will definitely never forget this amazing family and all the hospitality they showed us.

Marion and Devan: Last Few Weeks of Our Internship

This blog entry is written at Selva’s request, after having scolded us for not blogging in so long! After returning from Ladakh, we have been travelling to the two Eureka schools in Vembakkam and Koovathur to continue our work with the transition to an English-medium school.

  Koovathur:

          We have been so impressed by the teacher’s motivation and improvement with their English skills. In addition to this, we have been teaching classes on feminism, human rights and our countries/cultures. Everyone was so amazed by the photos of the “Eiffel tower” for France, and of “snow” for Canada! At times, the classes were a bit hard to manage, as the students were so entranced by seeing “apple” laptops for the first time and were a little over-excited.

  Vembakkam:

          The Vembakkam school is a longer journey for us, so AID has rented a house in a nearby village for the volunteers for the year so that this school doesn’t get left behind due to their inconvenient location. It takes us 3 bus-rides and about 4 hours to arrive at the school, so we ended up meeting what we refer to as “our team” of bus-drivers and ticket collectors who had to help us find the buses to catch each day. We usually find the bus system quite easy, but for some reason our last stop is extremely difficult for us to pronounce. We also had our first experience hitch-hiking on the back of a truck after we missed one of our buses! 

            We stayed overnight in the village, and it was such a fun experience interacting with the local villagers and our neighbours. One of the neighbours has a silk saree-making factory in his living room, so we got to see the effort that goes into this complex process of making beautiful silk sarees! On average, one saree takes him 15 days and sells for 20,000 rupees (approximately $350.00 cdn dollars!). We couldn’t believe the intricacy of the designs and how each strand of silk can be put together to make an entire piece! We also loved their kids, and the 6 of them came over each night asking for English lessons and photos. Overall, we had an amazing experience staying in the village and look forward to our last couple days there as well. We had a lot of fun at Vembakkam, and the atmosphere and working environment among the teachers is so inspiring, despite the many problems. They did henna on our hands and feet at lunch break, took us jewelry shopping, and invited us to their homes and village festivals!

  Gift-Exchange:

            In Chennai, we had a meeting with the activities director of a high-end private school that costs 60,000 rupees a year to attend in order to initiate a “home-made gift exchange” project for the ‘Joy of Giving’ week in India. This exchange between our school and the students of the private school is an effort to help foster friendships among children of the different social classes and districts. The gift exchange is to take place in October, while a science fair is to take place in December.

           Overall, our experience here has showed us the vast differences between these two schools, but more importantly, they both show the extreme inequality gap of the education system in India.  Although the work is extremely rewarding, we are often saddened to see the limitations that the students in the villages face due to their lack of money. By comparison, the students we met from different private schools in both Chennai and Kancheepuram seemed years ahead of our students, presumably due to their ability to afford a higher quality education. Our students, however, have such an amazing potential with the Eureka project and all the passionate people involved, and we have a lot of hope for their successful futures. The Eureka school project provides a great middle-way between the government schools and private schools in order to give a high quality education to those who can’t afford to pay as much. Given the recent transition the schools have been undergoing, we have no doubts that the students will catch up to their peers in no time.

          Unfortunately, it is that often a kid may seem slow to understand the lessons and be labeled as a “dull student.” It is clear to us, though, that many of the students face learning disabilities and dyslexia, along with medical illnesses (like polio), and visual impairments that are disrupting their ability to learn. It is hard for us, because these students seem to end up getting left behind due to the lack of understanding of these issues that go undiagnosed in the villages. There is still so much to do and we both wish we could stay another year to keep working on these improvements.

          As we continue our last week or so of our internship, we have been faced with saying our good-byes to some pretty special people we have met along the way here. We had a delicious going-away lunch at a Bengali restaurant to say goodbye to everyone at the office, and Priyanka and Parvathy gave us beautiful kurtas to always remember AID and our experience in India when we return home! The AID office also had its 1-year anniversary since moving into a new office building, so we were lucky enough to take part in the cake cutting and celebration of such a great organization and people.

  Interviews in the villages:

          For our own research papers, we have both created a set of survey and interview questions for locals in the village to help us learn about their opinions on various issues in India, such as caste violence, women’s equality and their political involvement. Unfortunately due to the language barrier, we were unable to ask them on our own, so Mithun and Mathu were gracious enough to take the day off and help us out with translating. Muthu, our favorite auto-rickshaw driver, took us around to 3 different villages and was a huge help in showing us the differences between the different caste communities. 

          We met with some women who had started their own woman’s organization in the village, in which they work together to pool money in order to gain economical independence from their husbands and be dependent on each other instead. We were super impressed by the initiative and by the strong women in the village, but we could still tell they were skeptical to tell us the entire truth if their husbands were around. One woman admitted to Devan and Mathu that she could not be sure that we were not from the government and was too scared to reveal her political opinions. Some other women thought Mithun and Marion wanted to convert them to Christianity in exchange for money! One family had admitted that having a daughter over a son was an incredible financial burden, but would not outrightly say that they favor men or would wish away a daughter. Moreover, their conception of “equality” is entirely different from ours and traditional gender roles are so entrenched that it is hard to even question them. It was also surprising to learn that they did not know the meaning of the word ‘democracy,’ while India is known as the ‘largest democracy in the world!’ We often have to remind ourselves, however, that these are Western concepts that can be hard to translate into Tamil.   

          Something that is shocking to us as foreigners is the paintings on the trees that change colors as a sign that one is leaving an area of a more “forward,” or dominant caste and moving into the community of the “backward,” or oppressed castes (still not entirely sure of the politically correct way to refer to caste). The majority of people we interviewed were skeptical to speak out on issues surrounding caste, but Muthu and another Dalit man that we met had enlightened us with some of the truths surrounding the oppression of the Dalit caste.  Until the recent establishment of a Dalit political party to represent their interests, they were required to bow with a scarf under one arm whenever they went into a different caste’s community, as a sign of respect and subservience. Moreover, they are not to be served food with the same eating utensils as the dominant caste, and are required to take a leaf from a different tree to eat off of instead. After interviewing this same man, he actually asked if he would be able to interview us about our culture and countries, and we were pleased to oblige!

           After this, a temple festival was taking place and we had the opportunity to observe the preparations for the festival! There was loud music, everyone had taken the day off work, and were drawing ‘Kolam’ all over the ground, which are auspicious and beautiful Indian designs made out of rice powder (see photo). There was a gypsy family selling colorful toys, balloons and henna stamps on the side of the road, and we were entranced by their beautiful light-colored eyes and free spirits. They were unlike any Indian families we have seen in the villages of the South.

Gaëlle and Carmina : Day trip to Kanchipuram

On Monday, Carmina and Gaëlle took a day trip to Kanchipuram. This city is known for its temples and its silks. We took an auto-rickshaw tour of the five main temples, all of which were unique and interesting in their own ways. Some were ruins from 600AD, others are still in use and filled with people. One had a holy mango tree that was over 1000 years old, another had an elephant to bless those who entered, and another was made of sandstone with some sculptures showing remnants of brightly coloured paints. They all had such different and wonderful features, so we cannot choose a favourite!

Our driver also took us to meet a few silk weavers. We were fascinated by the weaving process, which is incredibly complex. We watched two friendly weavers make amazing wedding saris from gorgeous threads. Afterwards, we bought some stunning scarves and fabrics from a nearby store. We definitely fell victim to their well-oiled business--they have great tricks to make you buy stuff, like giving you Fanta and giving you a price that is way less than what is on the price tag so you feel good about your purchase. However, we are very happy with what we bought. 

Peaceful weekend in Pondicherry

Because two of us are French and proud of it (and the other two like France too), we decided to go to Pondicherry last weekend for French National Day! We were excited for a relaxing time in “Peaceful Pondicherry”, a beautiful little French comptoir on the the Bay of Bengal. Selva was kind enough to drop us off on his way to a village, and even though most of us were sleeping the whole way (ie. everybody except Gaëlle), we really appreciate it! Thanks Selva!

First we decided to check out Auroville, a “utopian” settlement just a few kilometers away from Pondicherry. It was founded by a French woman, who wanted to spread the philosophy of renouncing materiality and devoting oneself to spiritual growth (this is a loose/inaccurate version of the philosophy…you should Wiki it). Auroville is famous for Matrimandar, a huge building meant for meditation only for residents of the settlement. As you can see, it is shaped like a giant golf-ball! Interestingly, most of the Auroville residents we saw were white fifty-somethings whizzing around on scooters. There is actually not much to do in Auroville (because you’re not allowed to go into the town), so after seeing the exhibits we left for Pondy.

We specifically chose Hotel Corbelli, a “budget hotel” in a nice location, because of its rooftop swimming pool. Having spent a few sweltering summer months in Chennai, it only took us a few seconds after check-in before we were in the pool. We literally spent 5 hours in it, only taking a break to eat lunch in the Italian restaurant downstairs (which was run by a kindly Italian man who had lived for 15 years in Auroville and then moved to Pondicherry). After that we were back in the water, where Gaëlle skillfully refused requests from Indian boys to have a photoshoot and dinner with us while the rest of us felt awkward.

Following a long afternoon in the pool, we checked out a few of Pondicherry’s local sights, including the beautiful Church of Our Lady of Immaculate Conception and the Gandhi statue. Along the way, Marion and Devan were happy to find some world maps to take to the AID schools to show the children. Then, we ate a little too much ice cream and spent some time on the Pondicherry beach. A highlight of that night was the French National Parade! Many people marched with lanterns with the colours of the French and Indian flags down the cobblestone roads (retraite aux flambeaux). We joined in, and even had some free juice at the end with Madame La Consul! Vive la Republique! Vive la France! Devan and Carmina were left wishing Canada had such a great representation in India.

Also, one of the coolest things in Pondicherry is the elephant Lakshmi at Sri Manakula Vinayagar Temple. She is painted beautifully, and if you put money in her trunk she blesses you by touching your head. All of us were so thrilled to do it!

Our second day in Pondicherry was spent in the pool (what a surprise), followed by several hours in the beautiful LB2 Lounge, where we had patriotic cocktails (see photo) and an amazing lunch of steak and fish. We highly recommend this place; not only was the food delicious, the owner was also really friendly and gave us free chocolate lava cake at the end of our meal. (We are a group of chocolate addicts, so it was much appreciated!) That day we also saw a pétanque competition! For you Canadians, this is like Bocce ball!

North India Road Trip : Amritsar-Wagah Border-Delhi

The drive to Amritsar was absolutely exhausting. This may be hard to imagine for those of you who live in countries with nice paved highways, but at one point, it took us about 6 hours to travel 100km. This is because we had to traverse through the mountains on the Indo-Pakistan border. There were so many military and transport trucks and traffic was horrible. We spent 6am-8pm on the road to Amritsar, which is only 450km from Srinagar. To our amusement, the way to Amritsar was also lined with cannabis plants. For hours, the main roadside foliage was just marijuana (see the photo above)! 

At one military checkpoint, a huge crowd of vendors surrounded our car  and shoved their products in our faces. These included boxes of cherries and plums (they pronounce them “pullums”), knit shawls, and Sikh knives. One vendor put his knives in Devan’s hand just as the car was driving away and she had to throw them back out the window at him. We ended up buying cherries and plums and they were actually really delicious! 

We arrived in Amritsar at night and headed straight for the main attraction, the Golden Temple. This is a site of pilgrimage for Sikhs, and it is an absolutely gorgeous structure. The temple is made of marble and gold, and at night it is illuminated with white lights. There is an enormous pool of holy water in the middle in which devotees can take a “holy dip”. The temple is open to all people regardless of age, sex, religion, caste, etc., the only restrictions being that you must remove your shoes and cover your head for the duration of your stay. We sat by the water at night for a short while, admiring the view. 

That night, we stayed in the “foreigners’ section” of on-site, free accommodations for pilgrims to the temple. We slept on the floor of a large room filled with backpacking youths! The Indian pilgrims, however, slept together in a big open space. The next morning, we tried “langar”, food from the Sikh community kitchen. You take a plate and cutlery, sit in a line with your fellow pilgrims, and servers come by and drop roti or spoon dahl on your plate. You can eat as much as you want! There was a constant soundtrack of plates clanging together as people streamed in and out of the hall. Langar is completely free and is done in a very organized manner. The food was delicious beyond words, particularly the karah prashad, a sacred pudding made from wheat, butter, and sugar. 

We were quite surprised at the organization of the Golden Temple in general. Volunteers run everything and there are thousands of visitors who pass through each day, but it is completely clean, even the bathrooms! There was such a feeling of solidarity. Everything was free, and everyone helped each other. For instance, people pointed us in the right direction or fixed our head scarves if they were falling off. It was a far cry from our next attraction, the Wagah Border. 

The Wagah Border is the only road border between India and Pakistan, just a few kilometers from Amritsar. Every day there is a border gate ceremony at sunset, where the gates are opened and closed, and soldiers from both sides perform an elaborate ritual of movement (high leg kicks!). We were pretty excited to see it, but we were not anticipating the chaos. It felt like 50 degrees outside and there were thousands of people waiting to get in, Indians and foreigners alike. People were pushing and shoving each other and the heat was unbearable. There were no lineups and nobody telling us where to go. We were so fed up and tired that we almost left…but we managed to get into the foreigners’ galley without passing out. 

There was a short parade at the beginning of the ceremony—girls ran up and down the road carrying huge Indian flags, loud music blared, and many people danced. Our favourite part was watching elderly women in India-flag print saris dancing with all the children. The ceremony itself was pretty cool; we couldn’t believe we were so close to Pakistan. We watched the soldiers raise and lower the flags, open the gates, march, and do their high leg kicks. We were surprised that with all the contention between these countries, the ceremony was perfectly synchronized, and there were no feelings of malice, even with huge, screaming crowds of Indians and Pakistanis. 

We arrived in Delhi at 5am and slept at Selva’s friend’s house for a few hours. Mathu left us to go visit her relatives in Delhi. The remainder of us spent a few hours touring around Delhi with Selva. We visited the Lotus Temple, the Qutab Minar, drove by the Parliament, and saw the outside of the Red Fort. We finished off the trip with a delicious lunch and headed to the airport, where we had our first beer in two months before flying back to Chennai! 

North India Road Trip : Lamayuru-Srinagar

It was 3am when our journey out of Ladakh began. We all slept in the car as our driver took us to Lamayuru, an 11th century monastery cradled in the mountains. It was 6am when we arrived, and the early morning light over the buildings was an amazing sight. We loved exploring the buildings, but the best part was watching the monks’ morning prayers and breakfast. We sat cross-legged in their prayer room and observed as rows and rows of monks (young and old) chanted Buddhist prayers, ate breakfast, and drank butter tea (tea made with butter…it tastes exactly like it sounds, we avoided it at all costs). Their prayers were like a harmonized song and it was enchanting to experience. We were reluctant to leave.

Our drive to Srinagar went through the Kashmiri Mountains. Once again, the landscapes were captivating—green hills and mountains dotted with tents, herds of sheep and goats being led by shepherds, fast-flowing rivers, small Muslim towns, and the ever-present military checkpoints. 

Srinagar was a surprise, as we were not used to the heat and crowds after the empty landscape of Ladakh. Srinagar is a fairly large city near the Indo-Pakistan border and is often subject to military conflict, but we could barely tell from the lively urban center we experienced. The only give away was the amount of military presence, which alarmed us--particularly Devan and Carmina, peace-loving Canadians who have never seen so many guns! Srinagar’s main attraction is the Dal Lake, a huge lake in the middle of the city set against a backdrop of hazy mountains. We ate a huge Srinagar lunch/dinner (all different kinds of meat and rice) and then refreshed in our accommodations, a houseboat stationed in a nearby river. 

The sun was setting as we drove to Pari Mahal (“the Fairies’ Abode”), and we arrived just as the sky was blazing orange (check out Gaëlle’s amazing sunset photo of Dal Lake). Pari Mahal is a seven-terraced garden on a mountain with a great view of the lake. We were pleased to see many locals enjoying the grounds and picnicking, as we have generally witnessed that people in India do not take much time to relax! Unfortunately, the army guards closed the place at nightfall, so we went to visit a famous spring that produces cold water in the summer and hot in the winter (it’s a mystery!). After a quick kulfi (creamy almond ice cream) from a street vendor, we retired back to our houseboat to rest. 

North India Road Trip : Leh-Lake Pangong-Nubra Valley

After two and a half days in the car, we were very eager to reach Leh! We had driven on curving mountain roads, went through several military checkpoints, and cruised past an endless amount of army camps. Along the way there were tons of inspirational military signs that had boosted our spirits (“NEVER GIVE UP” “WIN” “SUCCEED” “TRAIN HARD, FIGHT EASY”).

Finally, we came to our guesthouse. Leh is flooded with tourists (specifically French tourists…they were everywhere!). It is a small, charming, and walk-able city filled with white, flat-topped buildings, shops and restaurants, and very friendly people. We had lunch (momo, which are delicious Tibetan dumplings) and then headed out to explore Leh Palace and the Shanti Stupa. 

Leh Palace is a decrepit, dusty building on the top of a hill in Leh. The city views are stunning from here, and it was fun to walk through the abandoned rooms and climb the ladder to the roof. However, there was not much to see inside. 

On the way to the Shanti Stupa we stopped for some kahwa. This is delicious Kashmiri tea made with saffron, cinnamon, cardamom, and almonds. It is usually a beautiful yellow or orange in colour and it was one of our favourite beverages of the trip (next to mango lassi)! We even bought some in powder form to take home. 

The climb to the Stupa, a Buddhist shrine on a large hill, was intense. We were not acclimatized to the altitude and were all quite breathless/dizzy, but we powered through because wanted to make it up to watch the sunset from this great viewpoint. Later, we learned that our Lonely Planet guide suggests the stupidity of climbing up to the Stupa on your first day in Leh. Oh well! The Stupa was beautiful, the view of Leh and the mountains even more so. We couldn’t believe we were in the Himalayas! However, we only had one day in Leh before heading out on day excursions to Lake Pangong and Nubra Valley.

Lake Pangong, on the Indo-China border, was featured in the famous Hindi movie 3 Idiots (Carmina highly recommends it if you want to try watching a Hindi movie). It is the bluest lake you can imagine! We drove 5 hours just to spend 2 hours at this lake, but it was totally worth it. We took tons of photos (including a “candid” photoshoot featuring Selva) and splashed around in the icy waters. On the way to the lake we also drove through the second-highest motorable mountain pass in the world.

On our last day in Ladakh we drove for another 5 hours to reach Nubra Valley, this time passing through Khardungla, the highest motorable mountain pass in the world. Here we hiked up to the Diskit Monastery and wandered through the stone buildings and colourful prayer rooms. We greatly enjoyed the tranquility and peace. After the monastery, we took a change of pace from the car and went on a camel ride. We each hopped on one of these weird-looking animals and trekked through the sand dunes for a grand total of 15 minutes. The ride was really fun; Devan and Gaëlle especially enjoyed laughing at Carmina freaking out as a camel sneezed on her leg and then began rubbing his head against her. 

North India Road Trip : Delhi-Manali-Sarchu

From June 29-July 8, we took a trip to Ladakh with our intern coordinator Selva and fellow intern Mathu. However, calling it Ladakh trip would be a misnomer, because it ended up a whirlwind road trip of North India!  Marion, Devan, and Mathu took the train for two days to Delhi, while Gaëlle and Carmina flew in on June 29. From there, we all stuffed ourselves into a car and commenced our great road trip north. We first drove for 14 hours from Delhi to Manali, a mountainside town in Himachal Pradesh. On the way we experienced our first taste of parantha (a buttery flat bread stuffed with mashed potatoes) and an intense rainstorm! Unfortunately, on this leg of the journey, Marion had to turn back due to a family emergency, and her laugh and joy were greatly missed during the trip. 

Manali is a town nestled between mountains with a huge river running through the middle. In Manali, we stepped inside the first of many Buddhist monasteries we would encounter on the trip. Here, we came across some young monks brushing their teeth and giggling at us from around corners. We were also quite amused by the amount of goats and sheep being herded down the roads in town! We slept in a guesthouse for two hours and then headed off again.

On June 30 we drove for another entire day to reach our next checkpoint, Sarchu. As you can see from the photos, the landscapes were absolutely stunning (and they remained so for the rest of the trip). They transformed from verdant hills studded with waterfalls to high, rocky, inhospitable mountains with fascinating geological formations. As most roads are not paved, the drive was very bumpy (we were flying around in our seats). At some points we were even driving across small rivers. Shout-out to Dinesh, our driver, for keeping us alive all week! Also, as we ascended, we thought it was hilarious how many roadside stores were selling full one-piece ski suits for vacationing Indians who are not used to the “extreme cold” in the mountains (it was 10 degrees).