Jezza’s Blog

Hi everyone

We have now been here for 6 days. Kolkata is where we were all born (except for white boy…of course). We’ve had a chance to relax, as there isn’t as much to see in terms of touristy things, which we are really happy about as we are sort of tired! Anyway we are staying with my grandparents, who live in the city (little bit south of the exact city centre). The streets here are a lot narrower than in Delhi. It still very much looks like an old city, a lot of the old buildings are still around. Today we did a bit of site seeing, we went to the Museum here, after about 3 hours I had had enough, saw some cool things. Particularly this section where there were preserved animals (one was an aborted fetus….i know this is probably grossing people out…but i was really interested…i am a scientist). Anyway I have seen the fetus thing before, but what i haven’t seen is an eight legged baby goat. I have taken a picture, but its not very good. This got me thinking a lot (i am babbling now!) you know a lot of people reckon Hinduism is not as convincing as Christianity…because many of the gods look pecuilar. Well if a goat can have eight legs…why can’t a human have ten hands…like Durga (the goddess worshipped in Kolkata). Anyway lets move on.

Gerard and Abhi continued for another half hour, while Ma, Baba and I watched a different type of museum (checking out the locals!). As Abhi and Gerard always give me the shits, they reckon they saw the best stuff, in the half hour we missed.

After that we ate a late lunch, had Indian Chinese….which is sooooo yum. Many Chinese had migrated to Kolkata, when industries were around. Then due to the dominating Communist government in this region, many of the industries were forced to leave. Most of the Chinese left too! Thank god the yummy food is still around. The place we ate at was slightly dodgy, the wall panel behind Gerard kept falling off and it was very dark, my mum reckons it used to be a good place.

After eating, we went to Victoria Memorial, then drove around, saw the second Howrah Bridge, the banks of the Hoogly River and Eden Gardens. The banks of the Hoogly always have been peaceful to look at. There is smog/fog around the banks which adds to the mysticism.

Anyway other than this all we have been doing is eating and seeing relos. There is so much family politics and everyone is coming together for our ‘reception’ on Saturday. I haven’t been treating this ‘reception’ as anything but a get together,which my grandad usually throws when we come here. But this time its in a hotel, and there are formal invites, etc. Which I get…but a few things over the last few days have really thrown me….an aunt asked me if I was getting my hair and makeup done!!! (alarm bells were ringing in my head….i’m like…this is not my wedding! I have been married for over a year now, this is just a get together where everyone can meet the new groom!) Then we went to this mall and Gerard had to get a traditional outfit. Usually Gold looks best on Indian grooms, and we kept asking Gerard what he liked but he was like…what is this…i don’t know…whatever…also being a guy, he’s never overly excited by clothes shopping. anyway we finally picked a deep red (he looks very cute) which was the colour of our wedding anyway.
So Saturday is going to be interesting!

I can’t believe there is only a week and half to go! scary….i’ve heard its very hot in Melb. Ok to cheer myself up about getting back….things I miss:

my bed, the noise levels (everyone continuously toots their horn here…most trucks have a sign on the back saying “Please Blow Horn”), high pressure shower, summer fruits, drinking water anywhere.

Ok I’m slowly realising I better make the most out of the rest of this stay, cos those things i listed above aren’t as bad as:

experiments not working, going to work everyday, waking up before 9, cooking, cleaning, any domestic activity, catching the train, trains running late….ok gtg. this is not helping.

P.S. Gerard told me to add a few things:

Gerard got his hair cut the other day for $1.30 (although he got a hilarious FOB part and gerard thought the guy was gonna slash his throat…i know…i know…damn! he thought this cos the guy was individually slicing each hair with a razor). I got my eyebrows done for 50 cents. We also got samosas for 3 cents each!

This part is NOT for parents/mature adults:
Every sign here spells come like CUM!!!!We have been in hysterics
I’ll give you a few examples: Boss cum owner, exhibiton cum sale, hair dresser cum stylist (possibly from something about mary).

Also in the museum today, a few things were spelt wrong:
Cocoanut Tree and Tajmohal…both things Indian!

Anyway I gtg.

We arrived at Kolkata on Saturday morning after a good flight from Delhi. We flew on a discount airline called Deccan Air. The plane was pretty good, a 737, however, the distance between the chairs was crazy. The gap was so small that couldn’t fit my backpack infront of me, and its not even a big back pack, only about 6 inches wide. Luckily the flight lasted only about 90 minutes.

When we got arrived a Kolkata, Shika’s granddad was there to pick us up (this time!) and we drove back to their apartment in the centre of the city. Cal is quite a strange sort of place, there’s not really any main roads apart from new overpasses built in the last couple of years, so to get anywhere you have to drive through heaps of tiny streets. If I was driving, I’d get lost instantly.

It’s much warmer here, about 27 during the day. But there’s a lot more smog than Delhi. Since we’ve been here we have been spending time just visiting Shika’s relatives, so there hasn’t been to much touristy stuff to report on. Hope everyone is well back home, we’ll be back in about 10 days. Later.

How ya’ll doin? Our last day in Delhi today, we catching a domestic flight at 8:30 tomorrow morning to Calcutta, which means we’re gonna have to get up really early .

While we were staying with Shika’s mums aunty in Jaipur, we went to a city 400km south called Udaipur. It was quite a long trip, took us about 6 hours both ways and we stayed 2 nights. Bit of a waste of time, Udaipur is supposed to be the most romantic city in India cos its got this palace in the middle of a man made lake, but we all thought it was a bit of a let down. We got conned into getting this guide who took us out in the morning, and he only took us to so called “museums”, which were really just shops where he got a commision on anything we purchased. Seems like all private guides in India are only interested in ripping you off, at least all the ones we’ve met. Only the ones on the public tours have been good. So once we’d gotten rid of the guide, we went to the city palace, which was quite amazing, but probably not amazing enough to justify a 3 day trip. There were lots of paintings, stained glass and other crap that we took some photos of which we will show you all when the time comes. The crappiest thing about Udaipur was that its almost 100% vegetarian, so we had lots of trouble finding some meat (we cant live without it). We had been looking for a long time for an indian painting to put on our wall, and we finally found one in one of the little shops leading up to the palace.

How are you all? I hope that everyone is well and I do miss you guys. Well we are back in Delhi and things are slowing down which is great, cos its been crazy. I felt so sick on the bus back yesterday, and the bus trip was fine, so I think I’m pretty run down. It was very sad leaving Jaipur, saying bye is always hard and saying bye to old people is harder because you are not sure if you’ll see them again, since this has happened to me twice now.

We are off to Kolkata tommorrow morning. Today we went out with my mum’s friend Juhi and I got mehndi (henna) on my hands, they look orange now, i like my left hand better than my right…the left one has a peacock design. For those of you who may not know mehndi is usually put on before weddings and its semi permanent, so its looks like my hands have been painted, it will last for 15 days. It looks crap once it starts fading, so it’ll probably look crap by the time we come back.

My mum got her palm read today, but she wouldn’t let me listen to what the guy was saying. Gerard and I didn’t want our palms read. Anyway my mum said he was accurate. Usually people think my mum is my sister, so if the palmist says that, you know they are shit. We looked at shops today, but didn’t buy anything because we are flying tommorrow and the domestic airline allows us less than the international, so we are probably already over. Once I get to Kolkata, shopping will begin again! yay!

Today we ate pani puri and aloo tikki for lunch. The food has been incredible (although every time I put something in my mouth I say a lil prayer asking not for it to come out too wrong!). Gerard quietly said to me that “we” need to go on diets when we get back, I think this means I have put on weight but I really don’t care, we are on holidays right! We overdosed on the egg rolls last night, we had 2 for dinner, cos thats how much we like them. I couldn’t finish the two doubles I ordered. Wait till we get to Kolkata, most people get sick in Kal cos of the overfeeding.

Ok, other than the food. I don’t expect there will be much more to see now, its mostly catching up with family and relaxing, watching hindi movies (till late…like duminda!). I’ve seen most of Kal, but I’m excited that Gerard will get to see my hometown. I better go. I hope I’m not boring you guys. gtg.

lots of pots of love from shika

Hi everyone. We’re back in Delhi today after returning on the bus from Jaipur today. We caught the bus at about lunch time and reached Delhi at about 5:30pm, then we caught an auto-rickshaw for about 20 minutes from the bus station. The auto was lots of fun, today was the first time I’ve been in one, luckily the traffic wasn’t too bad. Really scary when your driving next to a bus though, cos all you can see is the big wheels next to you through the fog of exhaust fumes.

Anyways, I think last time I was up to telling you about Jaipur. Well in one of the forts/palaces, we were having lunch in a outdoor restaurant/take away place underneath a verander. Shika was sitting next to one of the poles holding up the roof. While we were eating, we heard some people shout, then we turned around and a huge monkey had climbed down the pole to table level right behind shika, and was reaching over her trying to get her food. Shika jumped onto me and we all just sat there looking stunned while the monkey was trying to reach the table. It seemed like it was unsure as to wheather it should jump onto the table and grab the food, or attack shika first! Anyway, after about 10 seconds some guy from the restaurant ran at it with a broom and it climbed back up the pole, leaving rishika and her food untouched.

Gotta go

Okay, I started writing this yesterday, but crappy IE decided to crack the shits and reload the page minus my additions. So I’ll start again (this time I’m writing in notepad)

I think Shika was up to Jaipur. We reached after 12am on the 5th. We were all so exhausted from the car ride from Agra, that I’d thought we’d sleep forever, but somehow we managed to get out of bed the next morning. Rishika’s grandma’s sister lives in Jaipur, so we stayed at her house, which we were all relieved about, cos hotels are really dodgy in india, unless you want to spend like $500 per night. So on the 6th, Shika’s aunt drove us around to see some of the sites in the city. Jaipur is remarkably different from Delhi and Agra. It’s much greener and cleaner, and the houses are in a decent condition. (From the outside, all buildings in Delhi look like they have been abandoned for at least 20 years). We also did a bit of shopping in the old part of the city. As you can imagine, it’s quite different from shopping in aus. So far it seems like the first price shop people give is at least 2.5 times more than they are willing to sell it for. It’s a real pain in the arse, cos anytime you are interested in looking for something, you have to argue with the guy for 20 minutes before giving you the a proper price. In saying that, things a ridiculously cheap, even if you don’t bother bargining. For example, there were these fantastic egg rolls in delhi, we couldn’t get enough of them. They were sort of like fried egg rotis with red onions and chilli sauce and they were only 10 rupees (30 cents) And we went to McDonanlds and they had burgers for 25 rupees (80 cents). The burger names were fantastic, my favourite was the equivelent of the Big Mac, but cos they cant have beef it was the “Chicken McMaharaja Mac”, and there was also the “McTikka Wrap” (This was like the salads plus menu.)

Hmm, where was I up to? It was weird staying with Shika’s extended family cos they all spoke Bengali, and so far I only know how to count to 10 and say a few words (like sticky, hot, sweet, idiot, shit, stupid, big, small…). Most of the time I have some vague idea of what they are talking about, but none of the details. I’m really crappy with languages as well, so unfortunatly I don’t think I’ll ever be able to learn properly.

So the next day in Jaipur, we when on the Rajasthan Tourist Bus. It took us to the million forts in and around Jaipur, and some other landmarks. The ones I liked the best were Jantar Mantar, which is the biggest sundial in the World, I think it was like 40 meters high (could be less) and has an accuracy to 2 seconds. They also had other funky sun things which showed where the sun was in the sky, relative to constellations.

We went to lots of forts and palaces, but the best was Nargarh, which is on the top of a mountain which is surrounded by the city. The palace housed the maharajah and his 9 wives, each had their own apartment, and At the top of the palace, you could see every part of the city, it was one of the best views I’ve ever seen (sorry, cant upload the photos yet, taking photos is a pain here by the way, cos each place you have to pay more for taking photos. One of the places cost 200 rupees (thats like 20 egg rolls!!), so some of the time I just used my pentax as a spy camera, on rishikas insistance).

Unfortunatly, I’m taking too long to write stuff, so I’ll finish another day (I’m already about 5 days behind).

Hello everyone

haven’t written to you all in a while. Since my last email we have travelled alot. From Delhi we went to Agra and we got detoured off the main highway onto shitty little roads, it was one of the worst trips of my life. My spine did not feel like the segments were connected together, after all the jolts. anyway once we got to Agra, a guide cramped into our car…that made a total of 9 people (including the driver). The guide was a shithead….he was a part of the package my grandad had taken, so there was no way of knowing that he was gonna be a shithead. well when we got to the Taj Mahal, Indians are supposed to buy tickets for Rs. 20, while foreigners have to pay Rs.750….so if you were of indian orgin what would you do? everywhere we have travelled to date, everyone has bought indian tickets (except for white boy), because of the enormous price difference. its not just a little bit more its like 50 times more in most places. Anyway the guide went and told the people at the gate and then they started harassing my dad and my mum started fighting…it wasn’t so bad, we just had to buy another foreigner’s ticket to keep them happy. the bad part was then we had to put up with this idiotic guide. I will stop whingeing to tell you, the drive, the fight, everything was worth seeing the Taj Mahal. People told me that they weren’t very impressed with the Taj, but it was/is breathtaking, incredible, awesome! and i have seen most of the monuments in Europe. Then after the Taj Mahal, we had to go back to the car….trust me i didn’t want to and tried to make our way to Jaipur, Rajasthan. On the way we had a puncture, in front of the puncture repair shop…put two and two together, they obviously put something on the road, to make money! anyway then we were really grumpy because we hadn’t eaten all day. gerard kept making ‘hilarious’ jokes abvout eating anything and everything….my mum cracked it at me! and then we stopped in the middle of nowhere for yummy food. after yummy food, we took the road of death/ hell to jaipur, the driver drove so crazyily, the road was wide enough for one car (for both sides of traffic), there was a pot hole every three feet and trucks on all side (including opposite) would not put there high beams off. It took us 6 hours to drive 200kms. in this time, our spines were jiggled about like we were sitting on top of a trampoline. anyway i was sitting next to gerard, so overall this trip was the WORST i have been on. we arrived in Jaipur at 12am. My grandma’s sister lives in Jaipur and we are staying with her. Jaipur is great, we have travelled around and gerard will tell you more about it: home.exetel.com.au/jezza/blog

today we have returned from udaipur, also in rajasthan but 400kms south of jaipur. anyway that was the update. from this email, please take away that the taj mahal is something everyone should see before, the pollution ruins the marble. even if you don’[t want to travel to india, catch a flight into delhi, then agra….no one should drive to agra…if you didn’t get that bit.

Hi Everyone,

Happy New Year!! We saw fireworks from the belcony on the apartment we are staying in last night. It was pretty cool cos we could hear fireworks going off for about 40 minutes from all different directions (and we could even see some!). Anyways, we’ve all had a really good time so far, we went shopping in KL last Wednesday and we bought some imitation stuff, Shika bought a Guess watch that was pink and enormous. When we got to Delhi it was a bit scary cos we didn’t have anyone to pick us up from the airport as Shika’s grandad got plans mixed up and was not at the airport, so we had to get a taxi to a hotel. there were lots of shifty looking people around and obviously I had no idea what any of them were saying. So when we got to the hotel it looked nice in the foyer (it looked like Daimaru), but the rooms were pretty dodgy (mainly the bathroom) and we got ripped off. The next day Shika’s grandad picked us up in a 4 wheel drive and we all crammed in with our luggage. I sat in the front passenger seat with Shika, and her parents, grandparents and brother sat in the backseat, with the luggage in the third row of seats. Not only were people looking into the car cos I was white, but also cos we looked like sardines in a can (and very stoopid sardines as well).

So far I’ve been amazed by the diversity of the city in so many ways. The difference between how people live is absolutly unbelievable. Some peoples houses just look like rubble built on top of rubble, with only one or two walls. Then we went to one of Shika’s grandads friends and his house was made of marble with 7 bedrooms and an enormous front yard with 3 cars.

Anyways, I’ll write later. By the way the best bit so far has been the food. We’ve eaten all sorts of stuff so far (too much to mention) and its all been fantastic and I havn’t got sick yet either (touch wood). Last night after dinner I had 5 different types of sweets (misti), and my stomach felt a bit weird after that, and the driving didn’t help.

Bye

Hello Hello everyone

Happy New Year! Gerard and I arrived safely in New Delhi on thursday night. After leaving Melbourne on tuesday night we went to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We had a ball in KL (although my brother had the runs ). Unfortunatly our flight from KL to Delhi was brought forward 2 hours so we only got to spend a couple of hours in the city. We went shopping in Chinatown and they had lots of ‘genuine’ fakes. Paul Frank, Guess, Ralph Lauren etc. We traveled on a monorail which didn’t have a driver! The flight that was brought forward was the biggest pain, we had to board the flight after a long wait, and then were told to get off the plane because of security issues….omi god someone just let out a stinky fart in this internet cafe….yuck. Anyway after getting off the plane, everyone was made to re-board the same plane. on the plane there was a turban wearing guy sitting next to me, who reaked of alcohol and kept asking the steward for more alcohol…anyway when we finally landed in delhi…no one was here to collect us. When we rang my grandad, he had mixed up the dates and was still on his way here from Calcutta (on the train). So we had a bit of a dilemma and had to find a hotel to stay in for the night. The hotel was expensive and not as good as the one we stayed in KL. Anyway my grandad collected us the following day and we have been staying in a good place since then. The traffic is crazy here…as Gerard will tell you. anyway thats all from me. take care of yourselves and see you soon….time is flying!

love from shika