ivy’s page

My work-related week in India was very enjoyable! I’ve only been working at Wisdom for about a month, and already I’m joining a week of team-building in India. This week is full of hiking, camping, learning, reflecting, discussing, yoga and team-exercises, Yoga. This is a rare opportunity, but the best way ever to get to know my colleagues.

Our company supports an orphanage for homeless kids. Giving them a future. This is an impressive home some of us visit on our last day….

26-02-2006

I slept quite long, must be the time difference. Yesterday in the city, I picked up so many impressions, it makes me feel like I’ve been in India for a week… Anyway, I arranged an auto-rikshaw to take me all the way down the airport where I was about to fly the cheapest airline ever: Air-Deccan. I hoped they’d be a little safe though, but it seemed quite ok on Wikipedia. After landing, I intended to take the train to Varkkallai and skip Trivandrum mostly. But I wouldn’t have been supported by light for more than one-and-a-half hour…. and the cab charged me quite some money for going to the train station, but relatively not that much for driving me to Varkala directly (only 40 km). Ok… excuses. I am not as adventurous as I claim to be, and I was taken comfortably to my destination. No hassles at train stations and unknown co-passengers in my wagon; just a cab. Like all cabs, this was an ambassador of course

The trip was nice though, scenic views and we met a large dressed up crowd on the road. Celebrating something religious, like carnival although this is of India instead of South-America. Funny detail is that my driver doesn’t have enough fuel nor money to really get me there, so I end up paying for half the trip in order to finance the

fuel guy (1), can you imagine? I regularly find myself looking for words to describe the impressions I get these days. The countryside so very different, filled with people, little houses, temples, markets, cows on the road, horning traffic, and crazw smells. It won be captured by any picture I make. It’s just very different, a worthwhile experience…

In Varkkalla I was dropped of quite a walk from the hostel I picked. I like the strategy of picking one from a guide book (or advised by other travelers) in advance in order to be able to ignore the touts. It still works, although I have to carry my luggage for a mile across the

sandy beach (2), up some stairs, and keep on going north. I must have missed the place I wanted to go, and as the surrounding get to dark for my likings, I return and decide to take any good place I encounter… … except for the first one which tries to charge me 3000 rupies for a night! It looked nice although empty (wonder why), but I can stay two weeks in another place for that amount.

So I end up in Paradise Beach Resort. Nothing special (again), and there seem to be many other places on this beach worth checking out (price wise and based on quality), but it’s time for me to quit walking and get some real fresh sea-food in any of the restaurants further on, with a point-and-cook fish dish. Yummy!

27-02-2006

At home, I’m currently taking a photo course, and was taught some new ideas about portrait photography. The course teacher is a journalism photographer and he teaches an up-and-close wide-angle approach to people instead of the safe-and-distant telephotos. The contact between the photographer and the subject will show on the picture… Or so he claims. I’ve read about wide-angle distortion and the flattening effect of portrait lenses (say around 85mm), but I like to experiment and I’m willing to give this close approach a try. I even left my telephoto lens at home, saving 1.5 kilos of weight (I always bring the extender) and intend to experiment a little with my newly gathered knowledge…

This morning, I woke up early to spot some

fishermen (3) in action. Not a real challenge with a beach full of hard working men (4) fishers… At first, I had a hard time determining how their business operation worked. They all seemed to be pulling large ropes out of the sea, in groups of ten. But what and how I still had to figure out.

Sadly, some of the more interesting subjects opposed being photographed. I felt a bit useless anyway, carrying a camera while so much work had to be done… So I joined in. And this actually was so much fun! It took a while, but they taught me what they were doing; how their fishing operation worked. Some of them spoke a little English and I got to know the fishermen a little more. After an hour they thought it was good idea to be photographed by their tourist helper… This is quite a strategy!

So, when I just met him, I would have described a man called

Abdelkader (5) as an authoritive person: folded arms, looking down on me and saying strongly NO to being photographed. Maybe he was just shy . But an hour later we were joking around (6) and taking pictures. Ha!

But to get back to business… Fishing in India is hard work. After one and a half hour of pulling ropes, finally the net attached to it (

this is how it works (7)) came out of the sea. The net didn’t get in the sea by itself either… The lights I’d been seeing on sea last night, it had been the fishermen throwing in the big nets. So they’d been working for the whole night now, with the net-pulling as their final job. It was a sad thing to see only so few fish (8) come out of this labour… Their explanation was that after the big tsunami, lots of corpses (fish, people?) had been floating around in sea, and as the fish ate them, they became sick and died as well. So it’s only little fish for now .

Lying on the beach in this fishing-village being taken over by tourists didn’t really satisfy me, so I took the local train to Quilon. My hotel is neat but not really cosy, I tried to have dinner at a lonely planet adviced place, but they refuse… The people seem a bit unfriendly here, or maybe being watched constantly makes me feel uncomfortable, so I get back to my hotel to have dinner and drink something in the no-tourists, men-only no-fun bar. I end up at my room watching telly. Gee, great experierence… I’m glad to some sleep and away .

28-02-2006

As I approach the harbor in Quilon, I spot a hostel on the other side of the river, and it the seems a lot nicer! But as far as I’m concerned, I don’t mind getting away from here, into the so-called backwaters! The boat will take me a across the swamps, and it’s like a tour boat, taking a whole day to deliver me to Alleppey. Aboard, I meet the first Dutch tourists (this happens everywhere). One of them is a young woman running a internship for veterinarian. She’s working with monkeys, which must be quite cool… until I here she just had to take her seventh tetanus injection or so (monkeys bite)…

We were dropped of to have lunch in the most touristy place in the neighbourhood, which wasn’t very well, but ok, and I was traditionally expected to pay for the lady as well. And now comes the funny part, she insisted on paying me back! I told her it was like half a euro and I would laugh at her back home for insisting to pay me back, but she really wanted. Sure, fine with me, but it made me think… going Dutch (split the bill) can be regarded as honest, but it also is a cheap thing to do. So I always thought going Dutch would be for the cheapy men in our country (we seem to be known for it), but it might as well be the women which won’t let us pay!

I didn’t stay long in Alleppey, but boarded a bus to Cochin straight from the boat. It made me arrive late in Cochin, a bit late for diner after which it was time to get some sleep. But these are days like I like them

01-03-2006

I spent this day in Cochin, Fort Cochin to be exact. Just by walking around, seeing the fishermen, talking to locals, playing Santa Claus near a primary school with a load of pencils I brought from back home (kids swarming around me), had my future read by a so-called truth sayer (I should get married, but that’s what all people from conservative/traditional countries seem to insist on), talking to an American reporter (which insisted I should record my digital photographs in RAW), and watching a bit of Kathakali.

I ended up eating and drinking a bit with a guy from Friesland (The Netherlands). And I hardly ever speak Frisian in other occasions…

02-03-2006

As the whole country was on strike for some reason, I tried the beach. I ended up with a group of 5 people at a deserted beach. Burned a bit, but I was ok. When I returned in the evening, and went into a not-so-touristic area, I was confronted with an angry shouting and protesting mob. They were wearing Islamic robes, carrying signs with Bush on it (but not to celebrate him) and burning American flags. I stould aside as the people passed, and hoped not to be mistaken for an American. The country had been striking because some high placed US-officials (along which the president as I understood) were visiting India to rally support for the war against terror. Well, nothing really happened in my corner and I ended up eating with mr Frisian again .

03-03-2006

I chartered a riskjah driver to show me the final spot I hadn’t seen in Fort Kochi. I liked seeing the tourist area by daytime (and no demonstrations going here), but the “spice market” I was shown was a big commercial business. The ginger factory was interesting though. Later on, I was instructed not buy anything down the synagogue / jewish district (a big sign at the beginning at this street affirmed my driver in this instruction), so-called because of outrageous prices, but maybe jews aren’t treated fairly around here (I can’t tell). The part I liked best was the Jain temple. Altough it’s awkward to see the abundant usage of the swastika symbol, I liked the dove feeding (something ritually done) for loads of these birds.

The riksjah driver would take me to the airport, but had informed me wrongly (communication issue I guess), so it was (very) late when he brought me to the flightcenter. I arrived only 25 minutes before my plain would leave, but everybody seemed to help and step aside (is it because I’m a white guy?) and I accomplished what would have been impossible in Europe or the US: I was in time for my flight, this time arranged by KingFisher airlines.

It was still afternoon when I arrived, and instead of spending another whole day in Bangalore, a bus drove me to Mysore. I had a nice chat with the nice guy sitting next, and I agreed on letting him show me the city. So, at 10pm or so, we drove up the mountain to visit some temples (huge elephant statue) and see

Mysore by night (9). Superb day!

04-03-2006

I had a morning to visit the sites of Mysore. The palace was nice, but the guards will do and say literally anything to get an extra ruppie out of your pockets.

As my bus wouldn’t leave I took a cab back to Bangalore.

A flat tire (10) made me (and not my driver) worry for a while, but I still made it in time to have dinner with my collegue, his partner and a friend. Our other collegues would only arrive at 2pm, so in the meantime we visited a big student party (big fun).

A bit after 2pm, get to the planes to meet up with my collegues. The fun part was over, and ‘work’ had to be done…