My advanced course is now also behind and I like diving more and more every time I surface. The fun is much more there now that I don’t have to train skills or go right behind the instructors all the time. I’m already looking forward to my next dive, no matter if it happens in Thailand, Bali or Vuohijärvi.
Otherwise today was not that great, especially with the locals. I am struggling to put my thougts out nicely since I want to avoid generalizations, stereotypes and the term “complete jackasses”. Take a simple example of a small car crash with no injuries and minor damage to the cars involved. You would think the first course of action would be to drive the cars to the roadside and see what happened and why, but unfortunately that was not the case. Instead there was a crowd of severals dozens of people in the middle of the road, blocking the traffic both ways and pissing everyone off. How hard can it be to move to the side?
Apparent road rage idiots aside, the second irritation relates to the way of living around here. Every second person I come by wants my money and nothing else (the other 50% are tourists), and they will surely try every trick in the book. Although I knew it beforehand, I still couldn’t prepare to being treated as a stupid object with excess money in his pockets (which I may be, but still). I am sick and tired of the millions of junk sellers all around the place, but avoiding them is a bit difficult in here.
Seems like I’m too misanthropic to write right now, so I’ll be off to one of the nice places I have found, a restaurant called Casandré close to Calangute beach. I need a cold beer or two as well as something to eat.
Oh, just BTW: the third dive was indeed wreck diving, followed by navigation and underwater photography exercises today.
Tags: diving, drink, food, holiday, oh bugger, people in india, tourism, traffic
I am now officially a certified Open Water Diver, but that’s not the end of it. Tomorrow I’ll start my Advanced OWD course of two days and five dives, after which I can extend my dives as deep as 30 meters under the surface. Seems like tomorrow brings with it some buoyancy control practise, a deep dive to around 25 meters and one I’m not completely sure about which it will be. Wreck diving perhaps, but only time will tell.
Today I completed my first two official open water dives in the Indian Ocean. It was definitely worth doing although we had a lot of small trouble on the way. The worst part for me was that my mask didn’t fit really well and it applied constant pressure on my forehead, eventually giving me a headache from hell. The instructors promised to try and find another one, which will hopefully be more suitable for the shape of my face. I also had a mild nausea after getting back to the boat, probably because of the headache, all the whirling around and possibly also the sun. Tomorrow will tell me more about how my body reacts to diving.
Apart from the trouble, all that stuff down there was really worth seeing: a lot of colourful fish, sea cucumbers, shellfish and finally a WW II era shipwreck site on the coast of Grande Island. The ship had been caught in a storm, hit some rocks and been cut in half from the middle. The front half was carried towards the shore by the waves and gradually washed back to the sea afterwards. A lot of fish colonies seemed to be living inside the wreck and parts of the hull were all around the area. My favourite part was to examine the insides through the holes in the sides, and of course seeing a part of the ship’s transmission (or something similar) with all the gears still in place. Wrecks are definitely one of the things I like SCUBA for.
It has been an unbelievably exhausting day and I’m thinking of hitting the hay already before nine. Spending the rest of the vacation like this would eliminate much of Goa’s downsides for me. The tranquil of the sea, the good company onboard the diving boat, good night sleep and a bonus feature of having effective exercise every day – what’s there not to like?
Tags: diving, holiday, natural beauty, practical stuff
I have now been in Goa for a little more than 24 hours, and already I find myself in the middle of a lot of things. I didn’t get a Bullet this time, but instead I have a lightweight and agile 150-cc Bajaj Pulsar for moving around. A bike is definitely the best choice of transportation here, so if you have the least bit of courage and preferably a license for MB, I suggest you go for it. The traffic isn’t even remotely as bad as in Bangalore, so you should be doing fine.
The open water diver course started today with a bunch of theory lessons followed by a good hour and a half in the pool for practical training. The theoretical part was easy for me, as usual, but surprisingly the practice went brilliantly as well. According to the instructor, I am “a natural” with SCUBA skills. No wonder it felt so easy! I had some concerns about breathing underwater without a mask, but I cleared even that without extra effort. All well for now, more diving practice tomorrow!
Goa seems like a nice place, but there are a couple of catches: first of all, you should have a friend or two with you. Second, be prepared to see a lot of western tourists, and even more locals who want every penny the tourists (yourself included) have. Go see an elephant in the side of the road and the people next to it will surely figure out a way to charge you some money for just looking at it. Walk a hundred meters and you will see half a dozen of taxi drivers offering a ride. These people live out of us.
I’m not saying that Goa is a bad place, [insert entity] forbid! It can be the ultimate mix of relaxing on the beach, having a good time with your loved ones and experiencing something new like SCUBA diving. My views are obscured by the fact that I am here alone, which in turn makes chilling out in the beach rather unattractive. That leaves me with only the third aspect, which I’m going to concentrate on as much as possible. The rest of the time I will be roaming around the area on a bike, eating in different places and consuming alcoholic drinks in various environments.
Speaking of alcoholic drinks, I am currently sipping my test portion of McDowell’s Single Malt, the only non-blended Indian whisky I could get my hands on. I was looking for a bottle of Amrut, but half a dozen liquor shops later gave up and bought a 50-rupee (80 cents orso), less-than-a-centiliter bottle of McDowell’s to see if it’s any good. After half a glass I am pleasantly surprised to say that this stuff is no bad at all: yes, I’ve had better, but I’ve definitely had worse also. Put a reasonable price tag on it in Finland and I’ll be definitely adding this to my home bar.
Tags: diving, drink, holiday, motorbikes, people in india, practical stuff, tourism, transportation, travel
You know them when you see them, no matter where you are. For some reason they pop out of the masses just by their appearance, and a trained eye can spot the signs from far away.
As I am writing this in the airport, I would hope I was talking about terrorists. Unfortunately that is not the case: instead, I immediately got the familiar hunch when I saw two women talking in front of the gate, and only a minute later I could confirm that I was right. I can recognize a bunch of languages when I hear them, but this one is definitely the strongest one.
Of course, they started chatting in Finnish.
It would be way too easy to spot two Finns in a crowd of Indian people, but that was not the case. I encountered several caucasians, men and women, tall and short, but only these two drew my attention in the first place. Most of the others I could identify as non-Finns because of their languages, passports, behaviour or other aspects. None of that came to me as a surprise, since the hunch was also missing.
It might be that I am just overoptimistic about my ability to spot Finns, but the success rate still seems to be high. I don’t know what the distinguishing features of a Finn are, but I still believe there are some.
Only one hour from now and I will be soaring towards the skies over Indian soil. All has gone well so far, I have my boarding pass, a stomach full of lunch and I’m through all the formalities. Now I’ll just wait and see where the plane will take me to.
Tags: people in india, travel
Walking out of the office was exceptionally joyful today. My vacation started, I have found a really nice apartment and everything is in place for taking off tomorrow. If I believed in some cosmic balance, I would already be waiting for setbacks and guessing what they could be.
Instead I enjoyed a nice, spicy Murgh Tikka and Stuffed Kulcha dinner in the hotel restaurant for 330 rupees (around 5 euros). I have a conservative hunch that 90 per cent of Finnish people would have left it uneaten due to excessive amounts of chili it contained, and even I broke a nice sweat during the dinner. After all the chicken was not that hot, but the problem was that I didn’t have anything for breaking the burn for a while (rice, milk, or white bread – the kulcha was stuffed with spices). I anyway ate the whole thing, but I might encounter a ring of fire the next morning. What better way there is to start a holiday?
By the way, I found the post office and got my package on its way. The central post office of Bangalore is a large, old building that would easily qualify as a mosque from the outside. Inside I was a little lost and it took me a while to figure out how the system works. I had to visit two different counters, one for the packaging of the parcel and one for the actual mailing process. Getting instructions was somewhat difficult, so here’s how it goes:
You first have to make sure there are no liquids in the package (presumably they are prohibited for some reason) and preferably pack the stuff in a cardboard box. Then you find the packaging counter, where the cardboard box is taped firmly shut and wrapped in fabric. The packager actually sews a pouch around the package while you fill in the customs declaration. You should be able to identify each item or item category (“foodstuff” is too general, “idols” should be fine) along with the weight and value of each item/group. On top of all this, two identical copies must be written, of course by hand. Finally you will be given a worn-out marker for writing in the address to the surface of the fabric. It is a good idea to bring your own marker just in case.
After all this you get to take your package to another counter for weighing and payment. The customs declarations should be attached by now and the address should be clearly visible. The fee will be determined by weight, destination country and type of transport (sea or air). My 3.4 kilograms of sea freight to Finland cost 820 rupees or about 13 euros, but may take up to three months to arrive. For some reason I didn’t ask the air fare, but I presume it would have been significantly more expensive. Maybe next time.
In fourteen hours I will be on my way to the airport, so it’s about time I get some sleep now. I don’t feel like Xmas at all, but on the other hand I think it was exactly what I was looking for: something completely different, as inspired by a brilliant group of British comedians.
Brace yourselfs, I’m about to fly again.
Tags: accommodation, food, holiday, hotels, planning, post, practical stuff, prices, service, travel, ways of working, work
I visited the tailor today for final fitting. The tail was a little long, some adjustments to the front were made, but otherwise the whole thing looks promising. I will try to get some photos when it’s ready, but I’m afraid I will be missing some parts of the suit until I get back home.
After the fitting I went for dinner and ended up in IndiJoe Sizzling on Church Street. The place was quite tidy, the staff was friendly as usual in restaurants and the ambience was somewhat western. When I got my Sizzling Chicken in Garlic Sauce, I realised what the name meant: it was served on a hot stone plate, still cooking and emitting a huge cloud of steam. The food itself was not to my taste, especially because the plate overcooked the whole thing and every piece had a charcoal topping in the end. The prices seemed reasonable on the menu, but after adding taxes, service fees and a small Kingfisher, the total went over 660 rupees (10 euros). To me it was worth it for once, but I will not be going there again anytime soon. Still, the sizzling portion is worth seeing.
This is the second to last day I am spending at the office this year, so understandably the pace of working is not exactly killing me anymore. The E called in sick today, which leaves only tomorrow for making the finishing touch to the work we have been doing during these weeks. Seems like there’s really not much for me to do today, so I might as well surf on the web and make plans for the trip.
I have come up with a solution to the accommodation issue, since the locals don’t seem to handle it too hastily. I will check out of the hotel on Wednesday, get the excess luggage to a safe place and fly to Goa in the afternoon. Coming back about a week later, I’ll get my stuff, check in to a hotel again and will hopefully have an apartment ready in a couple of days. After all, these people will have had over two weeks to arrange the matter when I come back.
A word about accommodation in general: do not accept apartments without seeing them first. Book a hotel for a couple of days, ask the local people to arrange a few alternatives for you to see, and check those places out as soon as you recover from the jet lag. If you find the location, build quality and other aspects satisfactory, make the deal and check out from the hotel, if not, ask for other options. The Indian understanding of “well built” or “luxurious” is many times so far from yours that it’s better not to let anyone else be the judge. Good places are available, you just have to find them.
Tags: accommodation, holiday, hotels, luxuries, people in india, planning, practical stuff, travel, what is different, work
I slept over breakfast today, so I did a couple of Google searches to find a decent Sunday brunch. I have already seen the one in Leela Palace, so after a couple of results I ended up walking to the Taj West End hotel. They serve an all-inclusive Sunday brunch with sparkling wine and a full range of foods from salads to grilled meat and dozens of desserts, which seemed exactly what I was looking for.
The place was empty when I arrived, so I got to choose a table from anywhere around the place. I ended up in an outdoor table on the terrace, just beside the bushes that surrounded the back yard:
For starters I pursued the salad table, from which I found about ten different kinds of dishes from all around the world. It made collection of them to my plate and ended with this:
The selection included German potato salad, chicken salads from Hawaii and India, large shrimps and octopus salad, just to mention a few. I was a bit hesitant with the octopus, but it turned out to be really good! The other salads were also brilliant, so ten points for them.
Next I went for the main dishes and again there was a variety of choices waiting for me. I gathered a nice set of meat, bread and vegetables to fill up the next plate:
Yes: meat balls. Apart from them, there is some chicken in a tomato-and-strawberry sauce (yum!), German and Italian bread, some lamb and those Italian pasta thingies I never remember a name for. I could not have imagined eating strawberries in a salty main dish, but the combination came out really nicely. Again, ten points.
I didn’t have the time to get up and get the next plate, when a waiter from the grill brought me a sample platter with a little bit of everything:
There you have it: chicken, pork, lamb and a some kind of a cake grilled on mild flame. To me, this was the weakest link of the brunch, but still the lamb was excellent. The chicken was not thoroughly white, so I decided to skip it just in case. I don’t want to get a food poisoning three days before my holiday, thank you.
Seems like the sparkling wine had a little effect already since the next picture is not entirely vertical:
Double chocolate mousse, some kind of a pudding thingy and a cake with white chocolate decoration, all extremely tasty and sweet. Ny personal favourite was the cake, apart from the fruit on top – I’m not sure what it’s called, but the taste was really mild. The mousse was overwhelmingly heavy and I had to give up with it before my stomach exploded. I left at least a dozen of desserts to be tried later, since I just couldn’t eat more. Luckily I got a glass of whiskey included in the brunch after a minute of haggling, so I could let the food settle down before getting back.
The whole thing cost me a little over 2700 rupees (42 euros), but was definitely worth it. There were several occassions where I just sat in the table, held a glass in my hand, peered at the birds in the sky and felt like I was really alive. Enjoying life seems to be something I can do here more frequently than in the cold, dark winter of Finland.
If you ever happen to visit Bangalore, I definitely suggest you to try out both Leela Palace and Taj West End. Just don’t go to both on the same day as it would be total waste of your money,
For once I wanted to have something particularly non-Indian, so I went for lunch to the local Pizza Hut. I am getting used to taking a rikshaw now that I know the price range, so it took me only a good five minutes to reach Brigade road. That was the only quick thing in the whole lunch, since of course the Hut would be crowded as hell on Saturday afternoon. On the way I spotted this:
It took almost an hour from my entry to the point when I finally got the food, including a twenty-minute wait between getting the menu and having my order taken. To add injury to insult, I ordered only a personal size pizza and was left hungry after all the trouble. The price of the meal, including a nice cooler drink, was a reasonable 300 rupees (around 5 euros), but the visit wasn’t really worth it. I will have to try my luck again another time, definitely not in the middle of the weekend rush. It didn’t exactly cheer me up to see the all-American decoration overflow landing to India too:
I made the mistake of trying to catch a rikshaw from the north end of Brigade road, the worst of all those tourist traps. The best offer of a 20 rupee distance was 50 rupees (the most ridiculous one was 100), so I decided to walk instead. Luckily I had my camera with me, so I snapped a bunch of photos to illustrate the overall look of streets in Bangalore. This is what I came up with (and here you can find the rest):
Cost-efficient transportation of goods
These traps are all over the walkways…
…even in front of these
And especially these
Walking around here is significantly different, but I seem to get used to it pretty quickly. I know my way around the most important places already and I have an understanding of the distances, so I am not that likely to be cheated on anymore. Living here doesn’t look that bad at all.
Tags: food, people in india, photos, practical stuff, prices, service, time, traffic, transportation, what is different