Going out in Bangalore - in style!

Hard Rock Café Bangalore (Ally, Me, Rahil)

UB City, Bangalore

Skyye Bar, UB City

Toads, snakes and lizards....

After I removed the third toad from a place where it didn't belong last week, I thought it was time to write something about the animals here at Shanti Bhavan.
Starting with toads: they usually lurk around in the high grass and especially when it's raining and at night you can see them jumping around or just sitting in the middle of a path. Two volunteers I know have already stepped on one, one of them barefoot....
That's one of the reasons I always use a flashlight at night! My most memorable experiences with toads are as follows: 
One time, when I was teaching the 4th grade, I saw a movement on the floor to the right. When I looked closer, I saw half a toad, the rest of it disappearing under the foot of a shelf. At first I thought the toad's head was crushed by it and it was still moving (creepy, right?) but them I found the small hole in the foot where the toad got stuck. It did a pretty good job in getting stuck, because when I pulled gingerly, I was not able to free it. Therefore I got some of the 4th grade boys to help me lift the shelf and - the toad was freed. There was already enough commotion when the toad was still stuck so I just picked up the confused toad in my hand and dashed with it towards the exit while it was struggling in my hand. There I put her on a nice piece of grass and went back to my class where everybody was staring at me ;) Same thing happened last week, only in a different classroom. How do these things always get in there??
The other time I encountered a toad in an odd place was even more confusing for me. I got up early one Sunday morning, getting ready to catch a bus to Bangalore. While I was standing in front of the mirror shaving, I heard a splashing noise in the toilet behind me. Taking a closer look, I saw a toad swimming in the small pond in the toilet! I mean, how did it get there? It must have swum all the way through the pipes. Although I was not exactly thrilled to carry a wet toad outside early in the morning, I tried to grab it when it suddenly tried to jump out of the toilet. However, a few moments later I was walking out of my room with the dazed toad in my hand, bumping into one of the Indian teachers, Ms Helen, who got pretty scared :D
Again I put the toad somewhere in the grass in front of the teacher's quarters, hoping the snakes wouldn't get it immediately. Snakes? Yes, snakes!
In the book that the founder of Shanti Bhavan wrote, he describes the place as "once being a snake and scorpion-infested piece of land, somewhere in Tamil Nadu". This has changed, of course, with the guards killing every snake and scorpion they can find which I can even understand - given that most of the species here can kill you in less than half an hour if you don't get antitoxin immediately. For some reason I haven't seen any scorpions during my time here, the kids tell me that they are mostly really small and they don't come that close to the school building. The smaller boys sometimes walk around in the nature (high grass, trees and bushes) surrounding the school, looking for everything that's dangerous and exciting - it' just what boys do at that age :). I went with them on one of these trips once, but except for some giant spiders we didn't find anything.
I had, however two encounters with snakes so far. The first time I was taking a shower, when I heard a hissing sound right above me. My bathroom has one window at around the height of my eyes and there is no glass or anything that closes it really - just a mesh to keep out the mosquitoes at night. Looking up I saw an impressive snake crawling along the window sill and I was kind of reminded of a visit to the zoo. Except that this was the real deal, there was only a mesh between me and the snake (with a small tear at the bottom, luckily too small for the snake) and I was standing in the shower completely naked....I was staring transfixed at the snake until it was gone.
The second time is not as exciting, just a snake crossing my path as I was walking back to the room. Have I already mentioned how weird it looks when snakes move on an even surface? They are surprisingly fast, too! (That's the reason I couldn't take a picture) Even though they probably leave you alone if you don't do anything, I felt a bit uncomfortable in my flip flops...
With a few words about lizards we will have all of the reptiles covered ;)
Lizards run around outside (they are greenish-brown, like the ones in Germany) and in my room and the school building (these look really funny, sort of a pinkish-white color and when they're small you can see through their skin!). Actually, the are kind of cute :)
The only strange thing about them is the noises they make...they can be really loud and sound like some birds! Makes you jump in your seat when you are in the schoolbuilding at night and suddenly there is this noise right behind you...
Indians don't seem to like them that much, I was walking to the teacher's quarters with Ms Nirmala and when we entered the building there was a lizard walking on the ceiling. Ms Nirmala stepped aside and warned me that it will mean bad luck if it falls on my head - good to know, right?

Apart from that there are tons of insects that the toads and lizards are happy to eat. They are mostly the same as in Germany with a few exceptions that are so big that they look like mutants. If you don't believe me, look at the picture of the millipede I took in Hampi - we have these at the school, too. Also there are way to many mosquitoes if you ask me, they are really aggressive and will bite you even through your trousers and shirt. 
We have lots of birds, there are really interesting and beautiful ones among them. Really annoying are the crows, first of all they are really loud and can make it difficult to fall asleep sometimes. On top of that they enter the dining hall at breakfast and lunch and try to snatch away food - they are quite cheeky! The sparrows are much cuter, they jump around on the ground picking up crumbs :)
Let's see, what else do we have? Oh, squirrels! They are really small, grey, cute and run up and down the palm trees all the time. You can't get a picture, they are just too fast...

Have I mentioned Chelsea, Chester and Buddy before? They are the guard dogs, at least Chelsea and Chester. Buddy is a pug that is not very intelligent and does all the funny things pugs do. Some kids love him, the little ones are scared of him because he barks a lot.
Chelsea and Chester are two Dobermans that the guards patrol with at night. As Dr. George told me when he was at the school, they are supposed to be "very ferocious" but with all the kids petting them they are just like normal dogs around people they know. It's a good thing they know me, because I usually am the last person in the school building at night and at 11 o' clock, the guards will unleash them to run around the school building and check if there are people that shouldn't be there. I got scared quite a few times when the power was out and I suddenly felt a dog snout coming out of nowhere ;) What really surprised me is that these dogs actually eat rice and vegetables! (picture below)
Stray dogs are found all around India, tons of them in the big cities, and we also have a few of them on campus. They are usually no problem as they will just go their way. We had an issue with one aggressive dog some two months ago who attacked Ally and so all of the volunteers walked around with baseball bats for a while at night.
Shortly after I arrived (which means a long time ago) one of the dogs got puppies, which the kids of course found and played with (see pictures below). 

I think that's it for the animals here,  I put together all the pictures I could find, hope you like them :)

As I said, they appear in the strangest places...

That's the one in my toilet :D

Some sort of gecko

A chameleon!

The only picture of a lizard I got....

Yes, that thing over my bed is a spider...and the shining thing are its eyes...

Why not take a closer look?

This grasshopper is way to big!

About to steal some food....

This little guy got something already

Chelsea, one of the guard dogs

 Chester eating rice :)

Puppies!

Bear necessities!

I didn't have the link for it when I uploaded the last Post, but here it is - the adorable performance of "Bear necessities":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0KGVrWAY-o&feature=endscreen&NR=1

:)

Halloween, Children's Day and Diwali

As you will have guessed from the title, the last few weeks have been filled with holidays. They were all amazing days and I'm trying to describe the feel and atmosphere of these days here as well as possible.

The first celebration we had was Halloween. Coming from Germany, I didn't care that much for Halloween but for the kids here it's a big deal, they were all so excited the days leading up to it! Some of the grades were allowed to go trick-or-treating in the teacher's quarters but the main event was the Haunted House we volunteers set up for the 12th grade (according to Lizzy, the lower grades would have been way to scared^^). I didn't know who came up with the idea for it, but the final idea was amazing. The Haunted House was set up in the volunteer's quarters. Over the last few weeks, we had some of the students who graduated from Shanti Bhavan in the previous years on campus: they currently have a break from their studies and came back to SB to help out with the teaching and give additional tutoring. On Halloween they agreed to support us in our mission to scare the 12th graders to death. As the 12th grade approached the volunteer's quarters, they would find some of the graduates, apparently dead, on the benches in front of the building. Stepping towards the door, it would open by itself (a simple trick with a rope pulled from the inside). On entering, they had to notice Ally, who was lying at the bottom of the staircase, looking as though she had broken her neck. A sign pointed towards the lounge room were the rest of us volunteers was waiting. We had emptied the room completely, except for the fridge (obviously to heavy), the TV (we put white sheets over it) and a table, also covered in white sheets. Someone had the idea to write the name of a 12th grader (Kavitha) on the wall in creepy letters and with red chalk, including red handprints. Candles were lit everywhere and on the table in the middle of the room, Rebecca was laying in white robes. The idea was to make it look like a sacrifice - Lynn was murmuring something in Latin with a book in her hand, standing next to the table. Sachin was wearing a hoodie covering most of his face and was holding a knive over Rebecca. I was sitting at the other end of the table, also wearing a hoodie, faceless (as it was covered by a black shawl) and having a singing bowl in my hand that produced an eerie noise. Lizzy was sitting on the fridge with a white face, just staring, Bitsy was standing in the corner with lots of makeup, also looking dead. When the 12th graders entered, they were still in good spirits, joking as they picked up the chocolate bars we spread across the room. After a while, as none of us made a move to resolve the situation, they became a bit nervous. Suddenly Lizzy came off the fridge and started to "creep" across the room, blowing out the candles. We all were chanting something in Latin now, growing louder and louder. They tried to leave, but we had Ally lock the door from the outside. In complete darkness, we started following them or grabbing them when they least expected eat. Soon the room was full of terrified screams. We enjoyed that moment for a bit before opening the door to let them out. Mission successful!

The weekend after that, the next, even bigger event followed. On Saturday, the 10th November it was Children's Day at Shanti Bhavan. I think I already wrote about Teacher's Day in my blog in September. The kids had been preparing a day full of performances and skits to thank their teachers. Now it was time for us to reciprocate!
In the weeks leading up to this event, we volunteers started to make the children curious by disappearing to strange "meetings" every day right after dinner. They know something was going on, as we usually meet only on Wednesdays and Fridays. Truth be told, we were practicing our performances for that day in the volunteer's lounge. Event though the curtains were drawn some of the kids couldn't help overhearing the song that was playing there every evening - it didn't take long till the started asking as whether we were, by any chance, going to perform "Gangnam Style". We, of course, denied it emphatically ;)
Another thing that needed to be done was drawing cards for all of the children with some nice words in them as all we got cards on teacher's day, too. The only problem was, that there were only about 15 teachers and volunteers compared to 200 children. The female volunteers proved to be extremely helpful, blessed with an extraordinary artistic talent, Rebecca, Lizzy and Bitsy painted piles of beautiful cards after school and on the weekends. I took the task of making all the cards for my 9th grade - I felt bad leaving all the work to be done by them and it was my class after all. The only problem was my lack of artistic talent and confidence when it came to drawing. With enough other work to do I ended up postponing the time I would complete my pile of cards till two days before children's day. However, pressure of time always proves to be the best motivator and so I stayed up one night, completing my cards. I was pretty surprised about how decent they looked in the end. ;)
On Saturday morning, all the teachers went to the school building to get everything ready and have one last practice. Just the night before we had decided to make up a skit, making fun of the kid's behaviour in class that we needed to go through again. At around eleven, we opened the doors for the kids, handing out sweets and waiting for them to find their places. A graduate and Miss Preemi were the moderators for the day. We started with a singing and dancing performance of the song "Bare necessities" from the movie "The Junglebook". My fellow germans will know it as "Probier's mal mit Gemütlichkeit" aus dem Dschungelbuch :). Lynn came up with a really cute choreography and especially the younger kids were thrilled.
Apart from our performances, the teachers and aunties (who are the ones caring for the little kids and watching over their dorms) had of course prepared several Indian dances. They were really interesting to watch and especially the folk dance by three of the male teachers (including the extremely popular Mr. Ranjan) was hilarious! In between several skits provided lots of laughs, including the one were we volunteers tried to mimic the kids as exact as possible, with a real-life performance by the principal, Miss Beena as a teacher.
When we came to the point where we performed our highly anticipated version of the "Gangnam Style", the kids went crazy! We volunteers had at least as much fun as the kids. After the performances were over, we had lunch and the rest of the day was dedicated to relaxing. An opportunity that I took happily to read and take a nap. In the evening we had "movie night", something that is supposed to take place once a month and was cancelled two times already due to bad grades and bad behavior of the kids. Finally, it took place again, and everybody gathered in the quadrangle to watch the animated movie "Brave". I really enjoyed it, considering that I am not a big fan of animated movies. 

Now everybody was looking forward to the week following this weekend. There would only be school on Monday, followed by two free days with Diwali on Tuesday. Diwali is the Indian festival of lights, in its importance it can be compared to Christmas in Germany. The meaning of it differs all around India, in South India many people celebrate the victory of Lord Krishna over a demon. "Festival of lights" is an appropriate name, as small clay oil lamps are arranged in beautiful patterns and fireworks are burned. During the day, there was not much going on - everybody was excited for the evening when we would have a special dinner and fireworks. At around seven, I went to beautifully lit dining hall. We all wished each other a happy Diwali and took some time to admire all the lights. For dinner, we had fried rice - either with chicken or a potato-vegetable ball in a delicious tomato gravy. 
After dinner the kids ran to the lawn in front of the dining hall, equipped with crackers, sparklers and flower pots (what we would call volcanoes). The little kids were going bananas, running around with sparklers and immensely enjoying themselves. The older kids took the task of lighting the incredibly loud cracker chains, lighting them preferably next to groups of people. Another thing to look out for were the fire circles, as the kids started dancing around them as soon as they started spinning, occasionally kicking the across the whole floor. I was told that traditionally, Diwali ensured at least three burned sarees at SB. I managed to celebrate without getting any burns but it was a close call. While I was holding a sparkler, Prashant (one of my 4th graders) came to me to light the thing he had in his hand (which I assumed to be another sparkler) on my sparkler. I was happy to help and he excitedly touched my burning sparkler with the tip of his thing, pointing it straight at me. It suddenly erupted in a blast of light which I managed to dodge in the last second. Without giving it a second thought, little Prashant had been pointing a fountain at me! The best thing is that an 8th grader who borrowed my camera managed to capture that moment in two pictures ;). In the first picture, you see me offering my sparkler, in the second I disappear behing an enormous fireball.
After all the crackers were burned and the kids in were in their dorms, some of us volunteers and the graduates had a little dance party in the school building, reenacting our famous Gangnam Style performance. It was just so much fun celebrating with the kids that I already know I will miss them a lot when I'm back in Germany. 
Fortunately I still got a good month left at the school! After all these festivals however, a lot of work is coming up in the form of the monthly tests next week, closely followed by the term exams two weeks after. A new volunteer, Rahil has now arrived at Shanti Bhavan (she was already here last year as an OSA) and she will be taking over my lessons for 4th and 5th grade. On the other hand this means, how Lizzy revealed to me on Thursday, that I will instead be teaching the infamous 8th grade in English Literature, Grammer, Creative and Persuasive writing. Why infamous? Well, this grade is known to have one of the school's worst troublemakers in it and the rest of them aren't exactly angels. Surprisingly, my first lesson with them on Friday was quite nice - they were really well behaved. I just hope it stays that way! ;)

Greetings from India,

Peter

Done - finally!

"The bare necessities of life will come to you...."

Our skit: Me, Miss Beena, Lizzy, Sachin and Bisty (left to right) :D

The dining hall on Diwali

Shashi (12th Grade) and me

Some of the 8th grade girls and a graduate, Chaitra (on my right side)

Just posing...

Miss Helen (a teacher), Lynn and me....and Preetha behind me ;)

Of course, I was expected to light a few crackers :D

Prashant, fountain, sparkler and me

Prashant, fountain, FIREBALL!, sparkler and me

A fire ring (about to be kicked around)

Fireworks everywhere!

Go ahead, take it!

Woooow!

Aaaaand last but not least, the link to "Gangnam Style":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aDbZAaPWASM

Odyssey in India

As I left Shanti Bhavan for Bangalore this morning, I couldn't know what a nightmare it would be to get back. This blog entry tells the story of my 5-hour odyssey between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and is also meant to thank people like Gokand and Habib - without them I wouldn't sit in the school building right now and write this post!

This morning I took of for Bangalore, planning to spent a few hours there, having lunch and and do some shopping. Over the last week I had put together quite a list of things I needed to get, including a warm hoodie (I only brought one warm hoodie and one jacket to India and right now the mornings at Shanti Bhavan are unpleasantly cold - this week I spent every morning PT I had shivering.), a jar of peanut butter (some extra protein, tastes amazing on Chapatis!), some candles (to deal with upcoming power cuts) and some other small things. 
Lizzy and Saching also went to Bangalore, so we took the trip in the morning together. I could have already taken it as a warning that our bus had a delay of over an hour. ;)
We arrived in Bangalore pretty late and as I was starving I went straight to Domino's Pizza. Lizzy and Sachin had some other plans so we didn't stick together. I accepted quite a challenge as I ordered one Pasta and a Pizza Margherita with double cheese. After I finished eating and managed to get up I looked at a few shops around Brigade road, hoping to find a jacket or a hoodie. However, the stuff was pretty low quality and not exactly cheap so I gave up and went to "The Forum" a huge mall with the busses to Hosur running basically on the opposite side of the road. I had a nice coffee there and decided to do my shopping at the "Bazaar", a huge department store next to the bus station that would probably have everything I was looking for. I got everything, except for......matches! Good thing they sold candles, but neither lighters nor matches. By then it was already around 3.30 pm and I was planning to get a bus at 4 pm so I headed to the checkout only to find a massive queue that stood behind the only open checkout counter. It seemed as if the cashiers spent 10 minutes on nearly every customer. As I came closer I saw the reason - that very day a special offer promised incredible amounts of gifts, coupons and points for every customer registering for a payback card. The registration process involved filling out various forms and the cashiers had a very, well, relaxed way to carry out their duty, hence the 10 minutes. Having about 8 people in front of me I spent over an hour waiting -.-

Leaving the shop, it seemed as if I was lucky: A bus was just standing there, with the conductor screaming "Hosur" - exactly where I had to go. It was nearly 5 pm as I got on the bus and I was just happy to be on my way home. Everything started of right, except for the moment when the bus driver found himself on the oncoming lane and not noticing it until the conductor started screaming. The right lane was seperated by a small concrete wall which ended further up the road from where another bus came right at us. Suddenly it was just chaos: the bus driver accelerated like crazy, hoping to change lanes just in time for not being hit by the other bus, the conductor kept shouting, the bus was equipped with TVs on which an Indian movie was running, the volume turned up as high as possible and on the inside as well as on the outside decoration lamps were blinking in all colors. In brief: we changed lanes in time. Doesn't it feel amazing to be alive?

After that experience I decided to try not paying attention the driving any more and took out my book to distract myself a little bit. I knew the highway and if we stayed on it we would arrive in Hosur in about an hour. The only problem was: it started getting dark. By the time I looked out of the window again it was pitch black. (At that point I have to mention: In India, you're not told the name of the bus stop you are currently at, you just know when to get out.)
I decided to ask about the time left till we would arrive in Hosur, just in case. The conductor gave me a weird look and started repeating the name of the town we were actually going to which suddenly sounded a pretty similar to Hosur. However, after five minutes of gesturing and with the help of other passengers I knew I was headed in the wrong direction and my best bet would be to just get out at some bus stop along the dark highway, hoping to catch a bus to Hosur from there. My pulse rose to unknown heights.

There I stood in the dark, the sign on the busstop saying Bommasandra (the rest was in Tamil) and with no idea how to get to Hosur. By then it was already 6pm. After asking around I finally found an english-speaking Indian (Gokand!) who could tell me which bus to catch. It wasn't that easy though as I would have to change busses at some point. As he was my last hope I joined him on the bus that came half an hour later, waited till he was screaming "Get out" (because the bus obviously didn't stop as planned) and managed to point at the bus I would have to catch. Too bad nobody was there to film me jumping off a moving bus, running after another bus on the highway, dodging cars and finally jumping into the open rear door. Anyway, I had reached to point where my pulse couldn't rise any more long ago.

I was surprised at how the bus arrived in Hosur as planned and I found the bus to Bagalur (the next village I had to got to on my way to Shanti Bhavan) without any trouble. I arrived in Bagalur at around 9 pm and spent some time wandering about in search of a rickshaw driver to take me to Shanti Bhavan. I finally found Habib, who started going on about how it was night and how dangerous the roads would be but finally agreed to take me to the school for a higher price than usual. 
We were speeding through the dark, being the only vehicle on the road, when suddenly something happened that would have caused me a heart attack had I been only a little older.
The silence of the night was suddenly broken by the bloodcurdling scream of a woman. 
I clasped my chest with both hands, dying a little bit inside. 
Then I realized: my driver had a Hindi song as a ringtone with started with the female singer screaming. While I was shaking on the rear seat he calmly answered his phone. For the rest of the drive I tried hard not to look into the dark forest on both sides of the road.

When we finally arrived at the campus gate at 9.30 pm it took me a while to realize that I actually made it. I'm already sure about one thing: Next weekend I will just stay at the school and actually enjoy it!

Domino's Pizza :3

The blinking bus that almost killed and abducted me ;)

Having a fun time with power outs and mosoon rains ;)

How's the weather back in Germany? Cold and windy? I'm kind of envious!
Why? - Well, I suppose you still have light at night, water to take a shower and you're not swept away by the rain. Enjoy it!

I've just realized that there is never any normal week at Shanti Bhavan. That is a good thing though, otherwise it would get boring, right? I meant to write a Blog entry about a typical day at the school but I always get distracted by unexpected events (apart from not finding time to do it).

Last week started with me getting incredibly sick on Tuesday morning. I woke up at 3 am and managed to get a bucket just in time. Shortly after I felt like not having to hug the bucket any more I had to run to the toilet. I stayed in bed the whole day and felt surprisingly good again in the afternoon.
It just seems inevitable to get sick at some point when staying in India for a longer time. Since I arrived here I already have been sick once, that Tuesday was the second time. Now I just hope I'm immune against any stomach bug that's out there!

The rest of that week was dominated by the celebrations for the "International Day of the Girl Child" that took place for the first time on that Thursday. For us, that involved people from Intel (the computer chip company) being on campus, giving an entrepreneurship training for the older girls and helping with organizing the celebrations.
All this resulted in the girls barely being in class, speeches and celebrations during classtime and finally, classes being cancelled on Thursday. It was not too bad though, as it meant I had time to finish reading one of my books ;)

That weekend we (Ally, Lynn, me and two new volunteers, Rebecca and Fanny) went to Bangalore from Saturday to Sunday, staying over night at the Sri Lakshmi Comforts Hotel. The main reason for me to go was to see the movie "Looper" which was supposed to be amazing, according to dozens of critics. I found it extremely disappointing - it just wasn't a good movie. Probably the critics were distracted from the content by Bruce Willis who played one of the main characters.
However, we still had a great time at the mall where the cinema was located, eating frozen yogurt and stuff we don't get at the school ;)
The next day Lynn, Fanny and me went to the botanical gardens of Bangalore which are somewhat away from everything else but are huge! That was basically the most impressive thing about them, together with some trees, planted by either Queen Elizabeth II, Jawaharlal Nehru or Indira Gandhi. The rest was not that well-kept so we didn't stay for too long.
The weirdest thing about the weekend though was that every single auto driver wanted to cheat us. They asked for ridiculous amounts of money, the driver who was supposed to take us to the gardens didn't know the way - even though he said so before, took forever to get there and wanted a ridiculous amount of many in the end, way more than we agreed on. When we refused to pay the got aggressive and Lynn got scared, so she paid him what he wanted. Strictly spoken we should have called the police.
Two! other drivers who should take us to our Hotel wanted us to walk the last 1,5 km so they didn't had to take the turn required to pass by the hotel. The reason they gave us was: "Sir, I can't drive on the other lane here, only one way!"
This was far from being true as the road our hotel was one was one of the biggest roads in Bangalore! He just planned on us not knowing it and wanted to save some time and money by making us walk.

As we arrived at Shanti Bhavan, the power in the school had been out for almost two days. When we came back on Sunday it still wasn't on again. On the weekend and in the following days we also had heavy monsoon rains so supposedly some power lines broke down in Tamil Nadu. However, another problem became apparent on Sunday. The school, being remote, gets its water from an underground well with a pump distributing it to the different buildings. There it is stored in water tanks on the roof. The pump is run by electricity. On Sunday, the water tanks were almost empty, with no electricity to refill them.
The reason that I am able to write this post now, on Tuesday, is that we had power for some time today. However, it only has half the amperage (don't ask me about details! ;) which means it is sufficient for charging a phone or a computer and for the energy saving lamps in all of the buildings but not for running a pump. This afternoon I was able to squeeze half a bucket of yellowish water out of one tap to take a shower after PT...I just hope real power comes back tomorrow.
The other problem is that the classroom light in the school runs on solar power, to be precise, a battery that is charged by solar panels. With the sky being gray and cloudy all the time now we barely get enough power to light the classrooms for one hour in the evening when the kids are supposed to learn and do their homework.

That's another not-so-common week at the school so far, how about Germany? I still wait for the construction workers to hit the main or accidentally cut the power while building Stuttgart 21, should that happen when I'm back again - I'm ready now!

Some more pictures from Hampi!

As promised, here are some pictures from my stay in Hampi that my fellow volunteers took. LIzzy, who was with us on the trip was really busy during the last two weeks so she couldn't give me the pictures she took until today - that's way it took so long.

Here we go:

 Ally, me and Lynn on the bus to Hospet/Hampi

 During the procession for Ganesha :)

On the rocks next to the Hanuman temple

The Hampi-Crew: Bitsy, Lizzy, Ally, me and Lynn

From Hampi to Hyderabad

All right, here it comes: the super-long blog entry covering my one-week holiday :)

As mentioned in the short entry before, we (Lizzy, Bitsy, Ally, Lynn and me) went to Bangalore with Babu, the driver, on saturday last week. We went straight to UB City, some sort of shopping mall with nice restaurants on the roof where you also have a great view over Bangalore. The one we went to, some mediterranean-style place was not too cheap (well, you could say European prices) but I had an amazing Hummus with really good bread and olive oil as a starter, followed by a Pizza which wasn’t bad. 

After that we took an auto to the bus station where we would catch an overnight bus to Hospet, the city next to Hampi. We found the right one pretty fast and got in. It was basically the cheapest bus you could get: no beds, no pull-back seats and no AC, it looked a little bit like an American school bus. And it was way too hot inside - we didn’t know that this was about to change soon...an over eight-hour drive awaited us.

The first stop after about two hours was in the middle of nowhere, it was really strange to see the lights of a tiny restaurant being turned on as soon as the bus arrived (the people there were preparing food at candlelight before) and everything being pitch-black again as the bus left after 20 minutes.

Back to the temperature: as soon as we left Bangalore it was already starting to get colder. Soon after our first stop I already had to put on my scarf. Later it got freezing as some of the windows couldn’t be closed and the wind was blowing through the whole bus. I was sitting there with my scarf and my hoodie and there was no way I could sleep on this bus. It was basically shaking all the time due to the condition of the Indian roads, at some times I was even afraid the bus would fall over. Also the driver was constantly honking, the horn was so loud it felt like it was going to the inside of the bus, not the street. Other busses and trucks also made generous use of their horns which sounded like sirens at times. Near the end of our ride I was able to fall asleep for about 15 minutes. Upon waking up the two Indians sitting next to me were somehow lying on me and I was incredibly puzzled about where I was and what was going on for some seconds. It was a unique experience though which I don’t necessarily have to repeat - going by train is definitely a better idea!

We arrived in Hospet at around 6 and had to take a bus from there to Hampi which took about half an hour. On the ride there we already got a glimpse at the beautiful landscape, with the sun just rising.

In Hampi we desperately tried to find the Shanti guesthouse where we were planning to stay - we soon found out that it had been demolished as it was illegally built on some ruins. (They could at least have left a note on their website which I checked the day before.)

We decided to have breakfast first and went to the so-called “Moonlight Restaurant” which basically was a bamboo roof with blankets thrown over it. The food was really good though, I had Malai Kofta - a vegetable curry with mashed potatoes.

After we finished eating the owner of the restaurant showed us the guesthouse he owned nearby which looked really nice and we decided to stay there.

After leaving our luggage there we walked around for a bit in Hampi, bought some stuff (postcards ;) and went back to the guesthouse to take a shower and a nice, long nap. After that we headed over to the “Bamboo Lounge” , a rooftop restaurant with monkeys running around and stealing stuff (like papayas) for a Lassi.

We planned on having dinner quite early, at a restaurant that Babu recommended to us, the “Mango Tree”. On our way there we got caught in a parade for Ganesha as the Ganesha festivities go on for several days. This day was the climax of it, with a huge, decorated Ganesha statue being carried into the river. The parade included drummers, dancers and firecrackers, everybody had coloured powder in their face (we soon had that too) and was just happy, dancing and celebrating. We were soon asked to join them. The Indians were really nice, explaining everything that was going on. The parade lasted several hours until we finally arrived at the river where the Indians carried Ganesha into the water. It was a really impressive moment, with the stars shining and huge piles of stones all around.

After it was over we went back and started walking to the restaurant which was somewhere on the river in the opposite direction. We stumbled along the dark path with our flashlights for fifteen minutes and were close to giving up as we finally passed a sign and found the “Mango Tree”.

The food there was well worth the trouble, I probably had the best Coconut curry in my life. As we headed back to Hampi on the dark path a man approached us, asking: “Namaste! Would you like Marihuana?” We had a hard time not to laugh at how weird this situation was. Ally, one of the volunteers understood, as she told us later: “Namaste! Would you like Nirvana?”

Without any Marihuana or Nirvana we all slept pretty good which was most probably due to the bus ride the night before. The next morning we had a quick breakfast and headed towards the Hanuman temple which is outside of Hampi, on a mountain on the other side of the river. Hanuman is an Ape-god who is known for helping the God Rama to rescue his wife Sita from Demons that kidnapped her.

We crossed the river in a tiny boat together with 5 heavy motorbikes, their owners and some other people what made me worry about us sinking in the middle of the river. We crossed safely and started climbing the stairs that led to the top of the mountain and the temple. Up there you had to take of your shoes - good thing we had come in the morning as the stones would have been unbearably hot around noon. After watching the monkeys that were running around up there we entered the temple were two men were sitting in an open room, singing verses out of a holy book all day long.

As I stood in front of the central altar a bunch of Indians came in to pray to Hanuman. They were performing a ritual in his honor and let me participate without hesitating for a moment. I had to drink temple water and later got blessed with a line of vermillion on my forehead. It was and amazing experience though it seemed really unreal when thinking about it later.

We all enjoyed the stunning view over the landscape with the huge piles of rocks and the river for a while before we headed back to Hampi. On that day we also walked around in the ruins right next to Hampi where I got quite a sunburn. The mere scale of the temple city was already impressive and I had to think how everything looked back in the time when people were still living there. 

Lizzy left in the evening as she wanted to get back to the school earlier.

On the next day, my birthday, I started the day being greeted by the temple elephant. We saw this elephant being bathed in the river, so we just followed it back to the temple where we were able to pet it :) It’s an incredibly huge animal compared to cats and dogs back in Germany. 

Lynn and me then took a tour around some of the main temples by bike, with a guide who did an amazing job in explaining us even the smallest details and the all the stories about the Hindu Gods. The last temple we visited was actually some kind of a huge cartoon strip, with carvings on the walls telling the story of Hanuman and Rama.

On our last day I decided to rent a motorcycle and drive to the ruins further away that I hadn’t seen yet. Although I didn’t have any license I had no problems renting the motorcycle which cost me around 4€ for the whole day!

It definitely was a lot of fun, driving around with palm trees and rice fields next to the road and all that. Unfortunately, as I was on my way to return the bike the main brake wire was cut (probably because it was way to old and hadn’t been checked recently) and the only option left to brake was letting the bike fall. This earned me some nice scratches on knees and arms, but fortunately nothing worse happened. (In India, you don’t wear a helmet!) 

Ganesha, the God of luck must have had an eye on me ;)

I definitely wouldn’t have let the guy who rented the motorcycles get away with that but I had to catch my train to Hyderabad which was running in an hour and we still had to get to Hospet. (We got there just in time - luckily the train was running late)

Bitsy also decided to go back to the school and that left Lynn, Ally and me going to Hyderabad. We decided on that city because it was on of the important Indian cities and supposed to have a nice lake with a huge Buddha statue in it, a nice garden and impressive islamic architecture all around. 

What I can say is that at least the hotel was very nice. We stayed at the Taj Mahal Hotel, an old hotel with rooms in 1940s style and really friendly service. The Masala Dosa I had for breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant was also pretty good.

The city of Hyderabad was not the perfect place to travel: stressful, loud and confusing. On our first day I went to the archeological museum which had an egyptian mummy, sculptures and pictures in their collection and was quite interesting. The public gardens were the first place were it wasn’t as loud as in the rest of the city. Trying to find the lake by foot I got completely lost and had to take an auto there. It turned out though that nobody had made any effort to make it look nice and the Buddha statue stood in the middle of the lake - you could hardly see it.

I certainly would have liked the city more if the traffic wasn’t that bad - everytime you crossed the street you almost got run over and the pollution was unbearable. In the evening we decided to try McDonalds India for dinner. It was completely different from what you find in Germany and America and way better. Over half of the burgers there were vegetarian (meaning also no egg) and all were delicious. The french fries were, as I expected, the same as in Germany ;) One surprise was the coke: in India they have so-called “Thumbs Up Coke” which is made by the Coca Cola Company but contains some Indian spices. I like the classical coke better but it definitely was an interesting taste.

The next day we tried to visit a huge archway the city is famous for. “Tried” is the right that it was in the middle of some junction and the traffic was as bad as everywhere else. Further, there was a huge bazar in this area so you had at least 5 people running towards you, trying to sell you shawls, chains, bracelets and much more. We fled into a Cafe Coffe Day.

After that we went back to the area around the hotel and decided to go to a cake store we had passed the day before. This store had about 50 flavors of cake you could choose from, one looking better than the other. All of these cakes were vegetarian, also meaning that no egg was used - still, the dough was as fluffy as it would have been with egg.

We all got some pieces to try, I went for Pineapple, Black Forest Cake and Italian Chocolate. If there is one thing Hyderabad is worth visiting for, it’s this bakery!

At 6.50 pm our train to Bangalore left and it was the most comfortable means of transport we had taken in India so far. Unlike on the other train, sheets, blankets and pillows were provided as well as dinner! In our compartment was an Indian couple that just returned from their holidays and the husband gave us so many tips on what we should definitely visit in India. I slept really well and upon arriving in Bangalore the next morning I decided to spent the day there while the others went back to the school. The things I did there included getting a haircut, having a nice cup of coffee and a cake and eating at Domino’s Pizza. There I met an Indian called Mahesh with whom I had a nice conversation and who insisted on helping me find the right bus from Bangalore to Hosur, the city next to our school.

Upon arriving there I was surprised to see that there was a lake in front of the school, reaching almost up to the gate. It is usually dry but there was heavy rain the days before. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture - but even without it there are more than enough pictures in this post ;)

I’m still writing an entry about Life @ Shanti Bhavan and the animals on campus, these should be online soon.

Until next time!

Hummus :3

The Moonlight Restaurant

Inside...

A first view of the central temple

Chillin' in the Bamboo Lounge

Monkeys everywhere!

Monkey parade ;)

Well, there was also a cat...

In the courtyard of the temple - the sun is already setting

Ready for the celebration :)

Will it work?

Everybody dancing

And here comes Ganesha...

Dancing in the dark

Carrying Ganesha to the river...not so easy

The famous coconut curry (and a delicious mango lassi)

Good morning!

Here is the reason why we had to take a boat...

Tiny, right?

In the distance you can see the stairs leading up to the temple

 

Oh, hello!

And up we go...

Agent Peter: Mission Kokosnuss ;)

Cute, right? That wasn't even the biggest one...notice the 2€ coin?

I know you want to jump into a plane to Hampi, seeing that picture ;)

Beauty in every direction 

On top!

One of the many monkeys

The temple

India traffic jam :)

Greetings, elephant!

Lynn and me walking around the ruins

I like his look...

The road leading up to the Vitalla temple

The famous stone chariot

Meeting the family ;)

The famous archway...I didn't make any pictures in front of it for the fear of getting run over by a car...

Sunset in Hyderabad

There might be some more pictures to come in the next days.... :)