Days 2 & 3: Hampi

There is no way describing the awfulness of the road between Bengaluru and Hospet. Yes, it does indeed run from point A to point B, but that really is about it. To make it brief, it is full of holes. They are everywhere and they are huge. Every time the bus encountered one you would literally lose touch with the bed and hover in the air for a few tenths of a second before coming crashing down again. Not much sleep for any of us that night, that was for sure.

Our somewhat fragile condition upon arriving in Hospet in no way bothered the armada of ricksha drivers who put their heads through the windows and even entered the bus to offer their services for the last thirty minutes of our trip to Hampi. My evil me was happy to see their enthusiasm go away as soon as they found the bus company set out to foot the bill as it turned out we had in fact purchased tickets with Hampi, not Hospet, as our final destination. Bus company pays = less money than you can try to extract from a clueless foreigner. Touché. We teamed up with two French guys we met on the bus, one of whom had already once been to Hampi and was able to show us to the very pleasant Gopi Guesthouse, where we would be spending the coming two days.

After breaktfast, Thomas and I decided to cross the Tungabhadra River in order to see the Hanuman Temple, believed to be the birthplace of the monkey god with the same name. Just as in Bengaluru, our LP map was now to fail us miserably. Intuitively it seemed as if we were supposed to go left through the village of Virupapur Gaddi. After ten minutes of walking we decided to consult the map, just to be sure, and found the opposite was true. We walked back and continued in what we believed to be the right direction right until the moment the road was no more. Instead there was a field, with I believe rice growing all over it. Confusion was abound. A new look at the map (why do we keep trusting it?) seemed to indicate (once again, I pose this very question...) that we were in fact walking parallel with the road that goes past the temple and not very far from it - lucky us! If there only were a way to get across this mountain ridge that separated us...

So instead of going around the mountain, taking a ricksha, renting a bike or any other kind of perfectly sane option, we decided to cross it. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. Two hours or so later, after a brief encounter with a family of cows and what seemed like and endless zig-zagging between giant blocks of rock and impenetrable terrain and with an absolutely lethal sunburn, we emerged on the other side. The road was indeed there, but the temple still perhaps a kilometre away. After a comparatively easy walk along this dusty road, we could then climb the 570 or so steps up to the temple (the second mountain to climb that day, may I point out...), which suitably enough is populated not only by a priest and his television set, but also by very many monkeys.

After walking down again we teamed up with a Belgian guy to get back to the village and engulfed in a fascinating negotiation with a ricksha driver who considered each of us paying 30 rupees as too little, but grumpily accepted to take us there for a total of 80... And by the way, we very soon ended up at the exact location where we had decided to turn back again after consulting LP...

In the evening we had dinner at the wonderful Mango Tree restaurant. On our way back to the guesthouse it started to rain. Increasingly. Monsoon kind of rain. Soon everything was water. Water stood like a wall all around us and we were walking in it up to our ankles. Just to add to this perfect night, it was also completely dark, as we tried to navigate our way back to the guesthouse. Everything, absolutely everything, was completely soaked - money, LP, passports, cell phones, clothes, notebooks, shoes, whatever we had carried in our pockets and rucksacks. Trying to dry them during the night was an attempt that proved an utter failure in most cases, but let us not dwell on details here, as there are too many of them and they are sometimes quite painful.

The next day we stayed on our side of the river, in Hampi. Hampi truly is a spectacular place. It was once the capital of the mighty Vijayanagara Empire, which fell in 1565. At its peak, Hampi was a major trading centre with some 500,000 inhabitants. Now, it is merely a small village, the inhabitants of which in some cases have settled in the ruins. That does not matter for any visitors, because the area is almost covered by ruins, most of them very well preserved. The place is enormous and you really get a sensation of how large and vibrant this city must once have been. You are continuously running in to temples, bazaars, palaces, gardens, baths, elephant stables and other constructions that you simply have to go inside to have a look at. The road from the village to the architectural wonder of the Vittala Temple seems to take forever, even if it is only two kilometres, simply because of the distraction. I dare say I have never seen anything like it and I loved it. It is like Rome, but without most of the people.

Speaking of Mediterranean countries, that same evening we set out again, this time with our eyes on former Portuguese colony Goa.

Pictures from left to right: Hampi elephant stables; the 55 metre tall Virupaksha temple in Hampi; interior of the Queen's Bath; view from the Hanuman Temple; entrance to the Vittala Temple.

Day 1: Bengaluru

Early Saturday morning, Thomas and I were sitting in an auto ricksha, bound for Ahmedabad airport. There, a

GoAir Airbus was waiting to take us to the city of Bengaluru, formerly known as, and still frequently called, Bangalore. It is no more than a two hour flight from Ahmedabad, but the differences between the two cities are huge. We only spent the afternoon and the evening there, so it would be a shame to say we got to know all the ins and outs of the city, but I can tell you this: Not a fan.

Yes, it by all measures more Western than probably any place in Gujarat. You can eat beef if you want to (and yes, we did - thank you Hard Rock Café). Most people do not find your skin colour exciting. And there is beer for anybody who likes it. So far so good, but still it is missing something. Charm is, I believe, the word that I am looking for.

Bengaluru is hectic, traffic is awful and the ricksha drivers refuse to go by the meter. Negotiating the price quickly gets tiresome, when the gentleman in front of you insists 250 rupees is the fair price to go to an address a few blocks away. (I do not think there are two places in India a ricksha drive in between of which would amount to 250 rupees...) There is really not that much to see. After an absolutely delicious Western lunch (Subway, but still) we went to see the not super exciting Tipu Sultan's Palace, from where we walked a considerable distance to the Bull Temple. That the distance covered on foot turned out to be this massive was mostly the result of Lonely Planet's Bangalore map clearly telling us to take a right, when in fact left was the answer. The LP maps were in fact to evolve into a continuous ordeal during our journey. To briefly summarise the Bull Temple, it was pretty cool, though oddly enough came with a corporate sponsorship.

A dinner even more Western in nature than the lunch left my stomach not really in uproar but still somewhat grumpy, as the sudden inflow of Hard Rock Café amounts of dead cow was something it was no longer used to. After what seemed like a long day, I was looking forward to the night sleeper to Hampi, which was supposedly only a few minutes away.

Private bus companies, unfortunately, do not leave from the main bus station in Bengaluru, from which only government buses are allowed. Instead, they leave from... well, other places. It is chaos. We had an approximate address (near a roundabout and a Ganesh temple) to help us locate the place, but this turned out to be far from the smooth ride you desperately want at that hour. Nice gentlemen kept pointing in completely opposite directions. Luckily (we thought...) we suddenly stumbled upon the bus company's office, where they pointed out a location about a hundred metres away, where the bus was supposed to pick us up. There, the people said they had never heard of any such bus and we were directed back to the bus company's office, where they then sent us back to the position from which we had so recently come. We decided to hold our position and hope for the best.

All of a sudden, my telephone rang. The man on the other end obviously spoke no English, a fact he tried to compensate for by instead talking louder than normally. After two failed attempts at communicating I was able to locate somebody who looked nice and well educated enough to be able to interpret whatever was coming out of my phone. As it turns out, the man with no English skills had simply wanted to tell me that our bus was five minutes late, which at this point really did not seem like a very big deal. All was more or less well and suddenly the bus even showed up. We hurried to get onboard only to find out that it was the wrong bus. Apparently, the people at the bus company office (how I do not fancy these people) had got the buses mixed up. Realising the mistake, we were taken to another stop, where the genuine, true and air conditioned Hampi sleeper coach was peacefully awaiting us. If only we knew then what to expect from the ride...

Stay put for days 2 and 3 on Hampi.

The pictures, some of which stolen from Thomas' memory card, show, from left to right: The exterior of the Venkatamaran Temple, which we unfortunately could not enter; the cow-inhabited interior of a temple we found while we were heading in the wrong direction to see the Bull Temple and which some children (pictured) showed us; and an interior of theTipu Sultan's Palace.

Off traveling

For the first time since I arrived in Ahmedabad I'll actually have more than two days off from school, providing me with some time to travel and discover other parts of India. So early tomorrow morning new-found friend Thomas and I will take a ricksha to the airport. We fly to Indias IT hub numero uno Bengaluru (Bangalore), where we'll spend the afternoon and evening. From there we take a sleeper coach to Hampi, an old village with many ruins. It's a world heritage and something we both have been wanting to see. We stay there for two days, upon which we catch a second sleeper to old Portuguese colony Goa. Having been to Macau earlier, I wonder to what extent the Portuguese heritage can still be experienced. Goa only gets one day, as we must hurry back to Ahmedabad for classes that start on Thursday. Update and pictures to come!

As I run through the valley of the shadow (not really...) of death

Today saw the IIMA 5 kilometer run. Anybody could participate and so they did. By the gates at the New Campus a masse of people had assembled at 5 o'clock, as stipulated. As always in India, the actual thing didn't start until at least 20 minute later. I'm not judging here; I just say things don't start on time.

Five kilometres is a relatively short distance, I think most people would agree. When temperatures have well exceeded 30 degrees Celsius, it doesn't seem so short. It was warm. It was sweaty. It was long. It was sometimes absolutely horrid. And in the end, it was over. I'm proud to say that the exchange students dominated and took places 1 through 4 among the males and 2 and 3 among the females, despite being the visiting team on the ground.

And I shall dwell in dorm 15 room 24 forever.

Pictured are happy contestants Hubert (France), Thomas (Switzerland), Ole (Norway), me and Pierre (France).

Nothing to fear but fear itself

I've lived in Moscow, Shanghai and Ahmedabad. I've flown Soviet-era Tupolevs. I've gone by car through the pitch black nights of Kyrgyzstan highways. I've had coffee with the Baku police force. I was even once followed by the Belorussian KGB, while sightseeing in Minsk. Despite these experiences, nothing has ever been able to compete with the level of fear I've had to encounter when engulfing in one particular activity, regardless of which foreign city it took place in: getting a hair cut.

At home I feel very comfortable at the hairdressers. I look forward to the visits, even though I tend to postpone them for as long as possible for Filofax-related reasons. I admit I enjoy the sensation of having somebody else stick their fingers in my hair. Above all, I usually prefer the way I look when I leave, as compared to when I came. This is where the hick-up shows up.

I know (or at least I used to know) all the moving and quite a few static parts of a tank in Russian. I can spot a leutenant-colonel of the motorised rifle infantry from a hundred meter. I can make the distinction between an active and a passive hydrophone on a Russian nuclear submarine, at least when it comes to terminology. In short, I'm very capable in some areas, many of them quite useless. What I don't know is how to say "short on the back and sides" to a Moscow coiffeur. And did you ever try to avoid having your hair dyed in Mandarine ("wo bu xiang ni ran wo de toufa", you all yell, and yes, that's very true, but you also have to get all the tones right; otherwise he'll just stare at you with the puzzled look I find so frequent among Shanghainese hairdressers/waiters/taxi drivers/most people.)?

I don't know how to communicate the way I want my hair to look in most languages. In India many people have an advanced command of English, but far from everybody. They usually know numbers, so they can charge you money (even if today the difference between 120 and 170 rupees wasn't all clear). Really, today's hairdresser didn't even speak to me about my hair. He just cut it, and that he did at warp 9 for all you Star Trek lovers out there. (For all you other people, it means he was really fast.) Happily enough, he was also not entirely unskilled, as can be seen in this newly taken photograph of pretty me.

NB: I've changed the security settings for this blog, so now everybody who so wishes will be able to post comments. I've been unaware of the problem until now, but they were pointed out to me by my very good friend Lars. He has promised that from now on he'll comment on every entry. It wasn't exactly put that way, but it was in between the lines.

(Here I'd like to pause for a moment and convey to you that I believe I just heard an elephant.)

Navrati

This week has seen the celebration of Sharad Navrati. It is a nine-day celebration with, I believe, dancing taking place every night. It's a huge hit in Gujarat. I believe it's a celebration of the feminine side of creational divinity, but as my knowledge of Hindu traditions mostly rests upon a foundation of Wikipedia browsing, I just might be incorrect. Indian readers must here feel free to correct or complement this interpretation in the commentaries. Anyway, this Friday saw the IIMA campus invaded by people from all around Ahmedabad campuses to perform garba, a ritual dance. Exchange students happily contributed, often wearing Indian traditional outfits, as can be seen in the picture with Stéphane (France), Hadrien (Belgium) and an unidentified bloke. For some reason, the video previously uploaded video didn't work very well, so it has been deleted.

The haggling

Yesterday evening we frequented the absolutely wonderful Barbecue Nation restaurant, which is I believe the only place where you can eat excessive amounts of meat in this highly vegetarian city. (The school mess serves meat only three dinners a week; one of those days the meat is usually eggs...) I'm a fairly enthusiastic carnivore back home, but since I arrived here there has been very little of the kind obviously.Today my stomach has been suffering from somewhat of an unexpected protein shock, which will under no circumstances prevent me from reliving the experience in the future. Luckily, today was spent mostly by the poolside at the Gateway Hotel and their Sunday brunch. It was an incredibly peaceful experience, which I hope will be repeated sometime in the immediate future.

Both these happenings indeed provided me with an immense amount of pleasure and joy. There is, though, in these and all similar instances a part to it that can quickly turn into a true fly in the ointment moment. Ahmedabad really wasn't made for walking, so wherever you go an auto rickshaw will normally take you there. Quite often the driver will try to rip you off if you're a Westerner. It's perfectly understandable, since 20 rupees are indeed less to me than they are to him. Still, pride makes one want to avoid it and then the matter of 20, or even 10, rupees too much can matter a great deal.

The rickshaw system works like this: Either you decide on a price beforehand or you go by the meter. The meter is a small round machine that spits out numbers nobody really seems to comprehend, but the driver usually has a laminated sheet of paper that transcribes these highly confusing numbers into spans of 5 rupees, giving a rough indication of the proper amount to pay. The asked for sum can often drop 10 rupees the moment you request to see this sheet, so it's a good thing it's there. Sometimes it's claimed the sheet doesn't exist, an occurrence which is usually correlated with a suspiciously high tariff of the day. When the address is a place where I've been before, meaning I know roughly the amount the driver is trying to overcharge me, I sometimes give him 10 rupees less than what would in fact be the proper price and then make a run for it, simply to make a point. I can be a bit moody, so sometimes I don't care enough to risk my life and go for the debating option instead, even though it can often be a less than joyful and sometimes truly annoying experience.

What surprises me, though, is that the haggling skills sometimes really don't even meet even the lowest rickshaw driver standards. Consider the following example, which is based on a true story:

Driver: To where you want to go?

Me: IIM.

Driver: IIM, ok. 40 rupees.

Me: No, by meter.

Driver: By meter it's 35 rupees.

Me: So why should I pay 40?

Driver: Stunned silence, upon which I turn to another man, who is happy to accommodate me. The price in the end? 30 rupees.

And there was humming and singing.

Temperatures: indoors, outdoors and bodily

Winter hasn't come to Ahmedabad yet. It was supposed to, but cooler weather was instead put off for some time. Only time will tell when weather and calendar will again function not as separate entities but in harmony with one another. To answer your question here and now: it's 36 degrees centigrade. This, however, is only outdoors. In the classrooms the ACs are working on all thrusters, creating an artificial climate that is incapable of reaching anything above 21 degrees. That's a 15 degree temperature difference that I'm exposed to several times daily and which certainly has health repercussions. One really wouldn't expect to catch colds here this frequently, causing annoying disruptions to my several-times-weekly football games, but here we are.

Luckily, my room is only equipped with a gentle ceiling fan, which provides a little bit of relief from the murderous coolers in other parts of the campus. The only trade off is the constant dilemma of which humming level to set it on in order for it not to wake you at night but still drown out the sounds of the campus dogs trying to kill one another, or fighting the campus monkeys - actually quite possible judging from the sounds sometimes emitted. Decisions, decisions...

The illusion of normality

India is different in many aspects. It's poorer, more chaotic, friendlier, often happier, warmer, more humid, spicier and in desperate need of small change. I come to think about my Moscow days, when, with pockets full of nothing but 1,000 ruble bills thanks to the well-to-do target clientele of the Radisson SAS teller machin, I desperately tried to stuff my shopping basket full of biscuits, crisps, expensive Belgian chocolates and other sweets simply to avoid the social stigma of asking for more than 100 rubles in change at my local grocery store. The local chemist here once awarded me some rupees worth of Mentos, as their local balance sheet didn't have enough cash at hand to support operations, at least not of the appropriate very small values.

There are, though, places of conceived normality (from a Western person's perspective). These are the Ahmedabad malls, which look fairly similar to their distant Western cousins. Their supermarkets at first sight should leave nobody disappointed. They're huge and well stocked, with everything from clothes to groceries, kitchenware, sports equipment and electronics on display. Now this might all seem well enough and like a place to discreetly run away to when the need to experience something home-like (at least if you squint somewhat) sets in. An illusion, indeed. The bubble first bursts at about the time when you have successfully acquired a bottle of shampoo, then asks for some body wash to go with it. "I'm sorry, we're out of it." 16 different kinds of shampoo and not a single bottle of body wash spell supply chain management 101 utter failure like nothing else. Disregarding the sudden disappointment you then quickly try to pull the illusion back together again, however the project almost instantly fails beyond recovery with the following short dialogue: "Excuse me, do you have toilet paper?" "No."

Bought an electric kettle, though. And there was much rejoicing.