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Rediscovering the Ruins - Hampi

The bamboo basket boat ride

The Lotus Mahal

Getting ready to gun `er

Mango Tree restaurant overlooking the river

I can't believe how fast the time has passed, but here we are on our last week in Mysore. We finished classes last Thursday and this week is dedicated to exams, which started today. On Saturday we leave for Varanasi and several other stops as we make our way North to Jaipur. I'm looking forward to our stay in the North since we'll be paired with host families for the duration of our time there. Though it makes me a little nervous and uncomfortable to be going to live with complete strangers, I know it'll be the best way to experience Indian culture first-hand and get a real taste for what living in India means.

I guess I will pick up where I last left off. Last weekend we had Sunday off, which was a welcome break from all the rigidity and structure of our daily activities. A solid sleep-in was badly needed, followed by a real Canadian-like breakfast of apple cinnamon oatmeal (so glad I brought a few of those along). A bunch of us went out to Savoury, the restaurant by the department store for lunch, and reviewed our natural chemicals homework. At night we all took rickshaws to Mysore Palace to see it lit up - they have the whole palace strung up with white lights and it looked so amazing! For dinner we went to dominos for some corn and chicken pizza, which seemed to have become a tradition.

Our final week of classes was much like the two prior ones; yoga in the mornings, class all day with a tea break in the a.m and p.m, and a  non-negotiable curfew of 9pm (at which point the gates are locked and guard dogs released). Monday we went downtown after class for a bit to hang out at India's cheaper version of Starbucks - Cafe Coffee Day. Coffee isn't as popular here, not with all the chai and masala tea, so finding good coffee for 25 cents was a huge score!

Tuesday was the Indian version of a snow day. But it wasn't snow preventing us from being able to have class - it was monkeys! During our afternoon tea break, while we were down the hall from our classroom, a bunch of cheeky monkeys came into the hallway and started rummaging through a garbage bin that had been left out. They were emptying cookie wrappers, polishing off unfinished juice boxes and dumping shit everywhere. Since they were between us and the door to our classroom, we couldn't get in and most of us didn't feel bold enough to confront them, except Chris (our beloved prof/savior), who grabs a chair and heads towards the monkeys. The one monkey starts hissing at Chris and creeps towards him, so Chris retreats. Out comes  one of the ground maintenance guys brandishing a pellet gun while we all clap and cheer. The monkeys were instantly gone but not before a few pellets were fired; overall, a much more entertaining 20 minutes than if we'd been in our econ lecture that whole time.

Wednesday was Lauren's birthday, so most of us went to this nice restaurant at Parklane Hotel for dinner. After a few lost in translations, we managed to explain to the server that we wanted them to bring her a cake after dinner and preferably sing to her, which they finally did (to our delight)! Thursday we had our last classes and were given way too much information about the contents of our exams (I don't think any of our Indian profs believe in formal evaluation of any sort), and spent the afternoon at Savoury, studying and drinking lassis. I think at first the staff there were confused about why we'd all show up with notes and laptops and study there... our server kept coming to check on us and ask for orders, but I think they've gotten used to us going there to study - it's our closest thing to a library and some quiet/air conditioning.

We didn't have any classes on Friday except for a final review session for natural chemicals. In the afternoon we all boarded a bus to head to Bangalore for our night train to Hampi, and shortly after experienced our first motorbike/bus/SUV crash. I'm not sure what happened at the front of the bus but one moment I was asleep across three of the backseats in the bus and the next I was on the floor. Luckily the bus managed to basically stop before colliding with the motorbike so no damage was done to the riders. The motorbike was pretty twisted up though as was the jeep/suv-type vehicle that rear-ended the bus because of its abrupt stop. This all caused quite a scene and delayed us for awhile but thankfully nobody was injured.

We took the night train to Hampi and got to the Gopi guest house in time for breakfast. Hampi is a collection of ancient temples, with hundreds of structures spanning over 20 km2. It's the biggest UNESCO World Heritage Site and is one of the coolest landscapes I've ever seen. It kind of looks like a desert and reminds me of the Southwestern states, but there are piles of huuuge boulders that look like they  just dropped from the sky and form small mountains. There's a big river that winds through Hampi and creates a really lush green oasis amid the red rocks and dirt.

There's also a really colourful bazaar which is set along this road lined with temples and served the same purpose 500 years ago. It cropped up in the late 1990's as a result of a tourism boom to the area. Unfortunately, our guide informed us that the next day they were starting an eviction process to remove the vendors and local inhabitants from that area in the interest of preserving the site. Most of us received this news with mixed feelings. I guess there is a balance of preserving valuable elements from our past and allowing life to continue while looking to the future but how do you draw the line between historical preservation and the rights of living people?

Anyways, we took a guided tour for most of Saturday; our tour guide was an Indian man with a thick accent AND a lisp, who referred to Chris as "captain," which was amusing to everyone but him. He showed us around the temples and ruins and brought us down to the river, where we got to ride in these round bamboo basket boats. I convinced the boy who we hired to paddle us to let me paddle, but it wasn't nearly as water-dynamic as a canoe and the novelty wore off quick enough. We stopped for a Thali lunch and then visited the royal palace, including the queen's bath, King's balance (a system of weighting) and the Lotus Mahal - all structures we learned about in our Culture and Civilization classes.  Most of us had mild heat exhaustion by mid-afternoon, so we headed back to the Gopi Guest House to recuperate, and I got a really delicious mushroom and cheese pasta for dinner on the rooftop restaurant.

Sunday, me and some of the other brave kids on this trip rented motorbikes for the day. That was the best $10 I've spent so far in India, though I was sort of surprised at the lack of formalities (no helmets, no deposit, no legal waivers, no insurance or licensing, just $10 for a bike and gas). I was a bit shaky at first but once I got the hang of riding I was flying - such a rush! We hit the road early to avoid congestion, and headed down the main road out of Hampi and into the countryside. The scenery was amazing! Huge boulders and cliffs with bright green rice paddies along the roadside as well as irrigation canals. It was a fantastic way to see Hampi, so much freedom and definitely more authentic than looking out the window of a tour bus. The looks we got from locals made it even better. Chris wore these huge goggle-like sunglasses and tied a rag over his head like a turban; and combined with his bright yellow tshirt and neck-breaking speeds, he looked pretty much insane.

For lunch we went to this outdoor restaurant called Mango Tree with an incredible view of the river. It was basically several levels of terracing done with stones to create comfortable sitting areas for groups of people to eat off of little tables they'd bring out. It was a really cool idea and we weren't the only ones who thought so - the place was teeming with grungy european hippies, but we fit in just fine. I was pretty light headed and wind-whipped from the biking/sun, so the tomato cheese sandwich was fantastic.

A few of us did some shopping in the afternoon before heading back to the train station. As per usual, we got the the station about two hours early and a few people formed a circle on the platform and started up a game of euchre. Within 5 minutes there was a crowd of about 15 people gathered around them to watch, then one of the station managers ushered us to a private air-conditioned waiting room. I'm not sure why but I'm guessing we were probably in the way...anyway, it was alright! After a long night on the train (I decided to forego the gravol this time) and a long bus ride in the morning, we made it back to Mysore yesterday around lunchtime. Now it's study, study, study for the rest of the week! After all, this is a 'UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH SEMESTER ABROAD' - We don't mess around!

Can't Type with Hands Full of Chapatti!

Chilling on the rooftop of our building

Pizza Hut - Corn and chicken pizza!

Rooftop restaurant downtown Mysore

Rocking the bindis for good luck - Chamundi Hills

It’s been a week and a half since the nomadic tourists from UofG swarmed into Mysore from their whirlwind adventures across Southern India. We settled right in to a Catholic missionary called the Organization for Development of People just on the outskirts of town. It is like a gated sanctuary from the dirt, dust and pollution of the streets. It’s all green; potted plants and flowers everywhere, trees, a veranda and….about 5 daily calls to prayer, sufficiently loud and starting at 5:45 a.m. The first morning we were rudely awoken by this long, out-of-tune drone of some sort..I thought I would get used to it but that’s yet to happen and I start pretty much every day diving deeper under my pillow and cursing the call to prayer – seriously, why can’t a watch suffice?

Anyways, enough about that. Mysore is fantastic – it’s a much cleaner city than some of the others we visited in January (Chennai…), and there’s so much to do and see – so many cool markets and stores, a huge palace at the town center, a zoo, great restaurants and a department/grocery store (about 100 metres down the street for which the 25 of us are likely generating twice their regular profits). The center here hosts conferences and groups of people, who come and go. This week they were hosting an agricultural conference, so Abby and I were chatting with some of the farmers over dinner. Mostly, they just wanted to try her peanut butter, which they’d never had before. With the grocery store so close, most of us have acquired peanut butter and/or nutella and have found various combinations of spread+banana+ carb product to supplement the pretty bland menu here. Our prof Cynthia somehow persuaded the cooks to switch from spicy Indian breakfasts consisting of curries and idli (rice patty things), to ‘continental’ breakfasts consisting of white bread, peanut butter and jams, and fruit.

Late last week I did a full load of laundry, washed by hand until my hands were raw, with all the bright colours from my new Indian clothes leaching into the water and turning everything I had left that was somewhat white…into a weird blueish/purplish mess. The gardener didn’t like me hanging my weirdly coloured clothes on the railings outside our room and directed me to the rooftop patio – what a discovery that was! This patio wraps around the building in a huge circle, with no floor in the middle but a sweet view over the inner courtyard, the rest of the compound and everything else out there. I now go up there every day to read and take in the view, and we’ve relocated our morning yoga class to the rooftop as well – sun salutations are so much more authentic when we can actually see the sun!

Last Friday was our first yoga class and our instructor is this hardcore yogi who likes to do a lot of humming and chanting, and has this terrifyingly evil cackle of a laugh. He laughs especially hard as he goes around the class ‘adjusting’ people into the correct position; he tends to prey mostly on the guys, who generally crumple to the ground once released from his clutches. But, overall it’s a good class and the most exercise we get between our carb-heavy meals and sedentary days sitting in the classroom.

After class last Friday a bunch of our went out to Pizza Hut for dinner – yes, a Pizza Hut, and right across from it was a Dominos, which made our decision hard. We went for the Pizza Hut because it was on the same side of the street as us, which is a huge factor here, where crossing the street is a life-or-death situation every time. I ordered Corn and Chicken pizza, and loved every bite. That night a bunch of us gathered back in the classroom and set up the projector to watch Bride and Prejudice with newfound appreciation. It was a solid West-meets-East night.

Last Saturday was a jam-packed day. We took a long bus ride to visit Vivekananda Youth Movement; an NGO which has founded a Montessori tribal school, as well as an Ayurvedic health clinic. The school was being run incredible it seemed, and they were producing remarkable academic results. After, we got a tour around a nearby hospital which had been started up by another group of people, and the director has spent his lifetime working to help gain funding and awareness. It was amazing to see all the good, honest and charitable work being done in India by such hard-working people with a genuine desire to make their country a better place. I think everyone in the group was humbled and inspired.

This week was much the same as the previous week, with lots of lectures and 4 yoga classes, lots of peanut butter and chapatti with bananas, and several trips to the nearby department store (I get a pineapple there almost every day and cut it up and eat the whole thing – delicious). I also picked up some pieces of silk at the market last weekend to get tailored into headbands; they let me have the fabric for free (could have had to do with the fact that the guy at the checkout was in the midst of asking Lauren on a date and had plied her with free fabric). I got prescription glasses and sunglasses here (they’re about $60 each) and am still completely in love with the inexpensiveness of India. It’s going to be such a shock coming home…. “You want me to pay HOW MUCH for this dinner and beer!?” Or trying to bargain it down… “Joke price!” as the rickshaw drivers like to tell us when we don’t offer them enough rupees.

Last night we celebrated another week of classes (well, it was our second week anyway), by heading downtown to a rooftop restaurant with an incredible view overlooking the plaza. We all got King Fishers (the popular beer here) and spent most of the evening just hanging out and chatting about our trip so far. We joked about how fat we’re all getting and how far behind we all are on our journaling/blogging (at which point someone made the very valid point that we ‘can’t type with hands full of chapatti’). So true; and that was another solid Friday in Mysore.

Today was much like our busy Saturday last weekend, but I really enjoy having such cool and relevant activities and NGO visits incorporated into our itinerary. We visited a rotary school for the hearing impaired; their primary focus was on integrating the mothers into the child’s education by having her attend school with the child, and after hearing a four-year-old girl read in in English (her second language), I was amazed. We visited another, smaller NGO which was a parent’s association which runs a small school for special children. Before our trip we all made donations and did some fundraising to help these NGO’s out, so we will be distributing this money to these organizations as we see fit (basically a combination of who needs it the most, and who will the funds most effectively).

This afternoon we visited a sultan palace and museum, then drove up to Chamundi hills, with incredible views overlooking Mysore. We decided to get ambitious and hike down the 2000-or-something stairs and have the bus meet us at the bottom. The stairs are all sporadically spaced in height and distance apart, so we had some slips and seriously shaky legs by the time we reached the bottom, but it totally worthwhile cause we got to see some cool temples on the way down and a LOT of monkeys.

Anyways, that concludes the excitement of the past couple weeks. Tomorrow we are visiting Mysore Palace at night, apparently it’s even MORE impressive all lit up in the dark, and then we going out all together for dinner which should be good, since we usually break off into smaller groups. That’s it for now, time for some chai tea and Chapatttiiii! Ciao!