A few more weeks and we’re off to Bali. Apart from visas everything is paid and settled, now all we have to do is to pack and go, but first we’ll have a nice Christmas with our families and friends. Good food, sauna, some wine, reading and board games for a couple of days – I mean, what’s there not to like?
Happy holidays to everyone!
Tags: food, friends and family, holiday, it's good to be me
I have good news and bad news.
The good news is that everything is proceeding like planned. I left my laptop and stuff to the office today, brought some pulla to my colleagues and said goodbye to everyone. Next I have to visit the employment office and we should be good to go.
The bad news, on the other hand, is that due to my non-disclosure agreement I can only say that my name is on the paper and that’s it. Not that there would be a lot to tell, but still.
Anyway, we’ll be staying in Oulu for at least three to four weeks before leaving. Can’t wait to have fish eggs, smoked salmon and ham on Christmas!
Oh, right. Since we’re not going to Bangalore anymore, this blog has a new name.
Tags: blog news, holiday, it's good to be me, work
Oh yes, the honeymoon trip. Komandoo was a beautiful, beautiful place with the best diving sites I’ve seen so far, good food and friendly people. In other words, it was almost the total opposite of India – or was it?
As the whole island is built around tourism, it felt… artificial. Like a facade. Not only the 100% imported food and sterile environment (the staff cleans fallen leaves from the pathways in the morning), but also the staff itself. Although everyone kept up a friendly face and asked if there was something they could do for us, I could still sense a big difference between them and, say, their Filipino counterparts on Malapascua. If you ask me, it’s all about what motivates people.
You see, when I’m dealing with Filipinos, I get the feeling that they genuinely want to help me out when something is wrong, whereas Indians are only willing to do something if they get money out of it. Sad to say, but for me the Maldivians were closer to Indians than I expected. The atmosphere wasn’t exactly hostile, but there were constant signals from the staff that they are only in it for the money. I guess I’m even more sensitive to that kind of thing after being exposed to its extreme forms here in India.
Or maybe Filipinos have better acting skills, who knows.
Anyway, the trip itself. I’ll let the photos do most of the talking, so here we go:
The villas were built over water and there was a constant selection of fishes swimming around them. The house reef of the island stretched all the way around the construction and you could spot dozens of species just by sitting on the porch.
On a lucky day you could spot a small (around half a metre wide) stingrays near the beach. This one was no more than three meters from the shoreline, digging for food in the sand.
As Maldives is very close to the equator, sunsets were spectacularly quick. From the position above it took less than ten minutes until the whole star was behind horizon. The main thing for us was of course diving, and boy did we see everything imaginable:
I’ve never seen corals like this before, but that’s not all. How about this:
Or this:
And how would you feel about having one of these on your plate?
What’s more, we found some turtles on our explorations:
This was only a small sample of what we saw, the rest can be found behind the small thumbnails and this link.
Tags: diving, holiday, it's good to be me, luxuries, maldives, money, natural beauty, photos, service, travel, ways of working, what is different
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!
Tags: colleagues from India, holiday, it's good to be me, money, oh bugger, surprises, travel, ways of working, what is different, why I wanted a change, work
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.
Tags: holiday, money, moving, planning, practical stuff, time, travel
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.
Tags: culture, holiday, sightseeing, what?
Today and yesterday the people around us have been celebrating Ayudha Puja. For us, it looked like this:
People decorate their cars and tools, smear them with sandal wood paste and rejoice.
Also, there were lots upon lots of firecrackers going off on the main street, which alerted us (hanging out in the hammocks) to check out the convoy passing our home street a block away. So out we went to see what was going on and saw these trucks:
There were people shouting slogans on the trucks, and apparently they were happy to see us there judging by the hollering, waving of hands and smiling faces. There was one guy who looked like he’s in charge, at least he was ushering the dancers and drummers on if they tried to stay to impress the gawking foreigners as you can see from this video. And here’s the guy with my sweetie:
In other news, we seem to have a resident falcon, who tends to perch on the palm trees on our home street. Its screech is beginning to sound familiar, as it’s telling off the rooks trying to get its food. (I’m not sure if it’s the same falcon all the time, they all look alike and there are lots of them, but I like to think it’s the same individual.) I will do my best to get some footage of the big bird.
Tags: culture, holiday, natural beauty, people in india, religion