I’ve been asked more than once what the stuff is, so here’s a photo:

In the inside it has three types of chocolate mousse, wrapped in a leaf of milk chocolate and decorated with – you guessed it – chocolate. Maybe not so sushi-ish, but still sinfully delicious.

Shiro, the restaurant that serves this, is one of the few things I will really miss about India.

I have been very quiet for some time (again), because I really feel like I’ve taken one too many hits from the stress on this whole assignment. Although my anxiety as such does not feel so overwhelming anymore, the somatic symptoms prevail. Muscle ache, sleepiness (10 hours a night isn’t enough), sweating of palms and feet, being out of breath and gastrointestinal disorders could result from a number of things, but my best guess is a sort of anxiety disorder. I hope to know more on coming Friday after consulting a doctor.

In actual news, there has been some progress in the repatriation negotiations. I would love to give out more details, but there are so many company confidential ones I don’t want to take my chances. I hope it suffices to say that Corporation payroll will be missing one specialist by the end of this year.

I’d be jumping up and down from pure excitement if I was feeling well.

The packers-and-movers will be here on Friday, and we’re moving to the hotel on Thursday. So basically all we need for survival in Finland needs to be packed in the luggage, as well as stuff we’re contemplating to take to Bali. Just the thought of packing again feels slightly dreadful, although I do know that this is just another leg on our long trip.

It’s not all bad. The ‘hotel’ we’re moving to is Oakwood, where Heikki stayed before moving in to RT Nagar. They have a swimming pool and a gym, and the best restaurants are in the same building. (sushi, anyone? pasta, pizza…?) They also have a net connection, which is always a plus. (geek? who, me?) We have a bit less than a week there, and then it’s back to the winter wonderland of slush and darkness. Here’s hoping Finland gets more snow soon, so it won’t be so damned bleak.

And then we get to live in other people’s houses once again. Hopefully not for too long, and hopefully not in the same place for the whole time, but chances are we won’t be setting up our own home there – chances are that we’re gone before that.

So what to do meanwhile? Thus far I’ve sewn myself two shirts and read an innumerable amount of pages on the ‘net. I’m planning to stitch up a pair of pants while I’m at it. I’ve also played on the Xbox, drunk countless cups of coffee and chai and learnt some yoga. Three sessions to go before take-off. I also managed to get a crick in my neck so that my head wouldn’t turn to the right during the weekend. Luckily it’s heaps better already. I expect to do some serious swimming now that I have the chance and read some more, on and off the net.

… and try not to stress about things I can’t affect. Just chill.

There is a new countdown timer on the sidebar. Right now it says we’re two weeks and two days from Oulu, after which we can shake India off our feet for good. Never say never, but the odds aren’t good for our return.

I also realised I have only 11 working days left after today. Oh, joy.

Komandoo was beautiful, clean and quiet. White sands, blue skies and clear seas all around. The only things that had wheels on them were the wheelbarrows used to lug scuba gear and luggage around. No need to use shoes. We had two spa sessions included in our package, which helped Heikki’s neck-back-shoulder problems and calmed us down.

Of course the island was completely built to cater western tourists, and it showed especially in the prices. But we did get the things we went there to find – peace, quiet and diving. You can find the photo evidence here.

The week flew past in a blink of an eye, and before we knew it we were headed back to India. At the airport the rain was pouring down with a dash of thunder, and we boarded the plane 30 minutes late. Then we proceeded to sit in the said plane for another two and some change hours. The crew did not see it necessary to tell the passengers why we were delayed until we actually got airborne. I managed to watch all the even remotely understandable programmes (=in English) before taking off.

We hit Bangalore some three hours late, and it was pretty much like being slapped in the face with a drenched towel – I had almost forgotten what the noise and pollution feel like.  Now, two nights later I wake up again to the 5 am prayer call and the yelling of the street vendors starting at 7 am. Earplugs are more handy than ever.

There’s still some three weeks to go before heading back to the homeland, and there is so much to do it feels overwhelming. But it still has to be done, so I’ll get on with it.

Oh, bloody hell. And oh yeah!

For one, the Corporation payroll withheld 70% of my salary in taxes this month. Those masala-eating surrendermonkeys have been paying too little taxes so far, so they decided to compensate a bit now that I am leaving soon. Of course, it must be bloody difficult to get the percentage right when there are so many choices (four), and the highest one is chosen when annual income exceeds 7500 euros.

And of course I have a hugely expensive honeymoon trip to pay on top of usual living expenses this month.

On the other hand, we’re off for the said honeymoon in 12 hours. I can’t wait!

There is an expat saying, or more like a rhetorical question, that goes around. It’s used whenever anything goes wrong or works in an unexpected manner. It’s this: “Did India surprise you?” This country does surprise us, daily. Most of the time it’s nothing big, occasionally it’s even something that’s positive, working or just simply induces happiness.

As we were heading out for dinner however, the surprise was a bit on the nasty side. It’s payday today, and my sweetie gets an SMS every time the balance on his account changes. We were expecting the usual monthly sum (as is due until the end of November, the end of the contract), but somehow about 70% of the sum had been deducted. In other words, only 30% of the monthly salary landed on the account. We do not know why, but the guess is that the tax people at the Corporation have decided to do Something Radical, and they decided not to give a heads-up.

I’d say this is inconvenient, as we’re leaving tomorrow morning for Maldives and can’t reach the people at the office to find out what is going on and why. Happy honeymoon from the Corporation, or something. Sigh. Patience is wearing thin, since pretty much everything we have to sort out we also need to bitch, moan and yell at someone with the Corporation to get the sorting done.

Here’s hoping we can unscrew this screw-up. At the latest it will be sorted when we come back in a week. Expect photos, lots of photos.

Gone divin’.

They usually say that no news is good news, but right now I’d like to have some. Almost anything would do, but one thing is hanging above everything else: I would very much like to have a schedule and know the terms for our move.

What I know right now is not much: we will have our honeymoon in Maldives, come back to Bangalore, repatriate to Oulu and then get going to Bali for our IDC (SCUBA instructor) internships. I will have some severance pay from the Corporation, but we still need to gather some more cash for the whole trip to be feasible. If we are going to stay in Finland for more than a few weeks, we also need a place to stay, and that will complicate things even further. Our furniture won’t reach Finland before end of this year, and getting an apartment for one or two months would anyway be far from practical.

It would be easy to fill the gap by selling some of the furniture we have, but by the time we’re supposed to head southeast, our cargo will be evading pirates somewhere in the Somalian seas. We could of course sell them in advance, but the last expat to leave Bangalore had a nasty surprise in the box when they opened it – the whole crate was sprayed with bug spray that destroyed every single piece of cargo and they had to discard it all. Claiming the insurance money after something like that would be the quick and dirty way to liquidate our assets, with significantly better prices and all, but still…

A lot of questions are still open and a lot of loose ends need to be caught, but I think we’re on top of it again. Most likely I forgot to mention hundreds of things, but if something bugs you, please leave a comment.

Yesterday was the Sunday that was really a Monday. People have been celebrating Diwali all India wide, and yesterday was yet another national holiday. I must say that for three nights it has occasionally felt like we’re living in a war zone with the fireworks, minor bombs and firecrackers going off non-stop after sunset until midnight. Gracefully though, the people stop bombing pretty much after 12 am, which is nice.

We decided to make the best out of our sunday-that’s-not-a-sunday by taking a look at the Bannerghatta National Park to see what was there.

First of all, there were animals. Lots of them, and mostly in too small enclosures, especially the birds. 3 x 3 x 3 metres cage just is not roomy enough for over 30 birds, even if they’re budgies. But then again, I suppose PETA does not fare overly well in India anyway. At least they didn’t have any big primates which always make me sad (who me, anthropomorphising? nooo…) as they seem a bit too human to me. On the other hand, some of the enclosures were not only roomy, but could also be described as almost cosy for the animals with lots of shade and places to hide in, the panthers for example.

We also had an encounter with an elephant, who was being ridden apparently by its keeper. It was absolutely enormous, especially up close and personal:

We got to touch its trunk, and it got to give a 10 rupee bill to its keeper afterwards.

I later on caught the same elephant on video, eating hay or whatever it was. The elephant took a bunch of munch, waved it about so that excess would fall off, then jam the bunch between its trunk and tusk and rip the bunch in two, so that the straws would be shorter and fit better in its mouth. Quite clever, I think. We toured the hippos as well, there were a whole bunch of them, at least two calves and many grown-ups.

To top it all up, we did the “grand safari”. The safari started by us queueing behind about 60 other people. One of the first buses became full quite quickly, but we somehow got jumped in the queue, got to climb some fences and then sit next to the bus driver. And what a bus it was! Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo to prove my words, but it was close to that poisonous green also known as “British racing green”, with (mostly rusty) grilles over all of the windows. Most of the floor was the not-originally-see-through kind, which made the trip all the more exciting. Needless to say the bus was jam-packed when we set off:

First on the list there were the herbivores as shown below:

Then were the sloth bears. There were a lot of them, so we got many pictures too. Some of these were taken by the bus driver, so cheers for the pics.

Finally after much shaking and rolling (no, the ride wasn’t the smoothest one, and neither was the path the bus was taking) we hit lion and tiger country. The lions quite unsurprisingly were sleeping in the shade:

Also the white tigers chose the shade:

This one was especially cute:

When the safari was all done we set off looking for our vehicle. Happily some people had parked it into a pocket and we had to haul some ten motorbikes and scooters out of the way:

As long as we were on the south side of the city, we thought to get some food first and then find the Big Banyan Tree on Mysore road. So we hit a country club our driver was happily a member of, had lunch with very good value for money, and hit the road again.

The Banyan tree was not so much one tree in itself as a grove of trees. This is a specific kind of a tree, which first grows branches and then some more roots down from the branches creating an interesting sight:

Lots of local families had come there to have picnic and just to hang out in the shade. At times it seemed we were more interesting as photo targets than the tree in itself, which is starting to be a bit annoying. I really don’t get what is it that compels people to shout and wave at us. Strange times in a strange country. Anyhoo, the rest of the pics can be seen here, enjoy!

Still four days until Maldives, more reports coming up then.