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.

Tags: accommodation, hotels, moving, planning, practical stuff, travel

My (hopefully) last weekend in a hotel for some time is almost at its end, and it could be worse. For the last two days I’ve been chilling out on the poolside, eating in ridiculously priced joints and reading a lot. I’m currently going through Steve Berry’s The Templar Legacy, which I bought just because I found The Da Vinci Code fascinating and well written. Berry draws his ideas from the same pool with Dan Brown, but his themes and locations are a bit less well-known than Brown’s. For example, while Robert Langdon deciphers messages in The Last Supper, Berry’s Cotton Malone has to settle with less known artists such as Don Miguel de Manara. Still, the story is quite interesting – I only bought it yesterday and I’m on page 350 or so already.

Things seem to be going well towards me moving out next Thursday, but there’s plenty of room for catastrophies to happen. I’m usually not this pessimistic, but seeing how things (don’t) work around here has given me enough reason not to hold my breath.

Tags: books, food, hotels, money, prices

I needed some hard data on the causes of stress levels, so I did some math about last six months in my life. To be frank, the results were a bit terrifying.

Six months can be considered 180 days, or 26 weeks if you wish. On 92 days of those 180 I’ve lived in my own home, and for about 5 of those 92 days we were emptying and cleaning up the place. That said, I’ve lived 88 of the last 180 days on temporary accommodation, and the number is going up as I write.

But that’s not all of it. Taking into account that I can come up with 11 different places I’ve lived in this period (not counting my original home), I’m left with an average stay of eight days in each place. Take out travel days and the number is even lower – my flight hours alone come up to something like half a week since last December.

Throw in the dysfunctional circumstances of the country, dependence on other people and my need to take care of everything by myself, and it’s easy to see what’s wrong. I hope it gets better once I move in to the house and can finally settle down for a moment.

Tags: accommodation, hotels, oh bugger, stress, time

For the last few days I’ve been running around the town and arranging things (along with having three-hour lunch breaks). It took me several days to realize what a cultural shock it has been for me, but it’s easy to see now when it’s fading away.

The Residences has been okay, but there are still some things that make me want to leave. The toilet doesn’t flush properly, dustbin lids are broken, the kitchen sink is stained and so on. Today I visited Oakwood to see the place in person and, first and foremost, to get the lowest rate they could offer. The final decision is with the Corporation and its agent, but I am hopeful in getting a good apartment this time. Oakwood is brand new, its location just brilliant, amenities include saunas and a (long) swimming pool on the roof, plus there are some good restaurants in the same building. It should really be the place where every expat lives while looking for a more permanent apartment.

I don’t remember being so shocked the last time I came here, but I can also see why: besides some bad luck (especially with accommodation), I’m here without my second sanity (Eve) and there’s no way out. I’ll just have to bite the bullet for a couple of weeks (excluding the diving holiday, I hope) before I get to build my own sanctuary from all the bureaucracy and millions of Abus trying to separate me from my money and my sanity.

They say that the first and last month are the worst, with all the paper work, temporary accommodation, gathering and getting rid of stuff, registrations, phone arrangements, and the list goes on. Doesn’t sound even half as difficult as it is, but I still don’t recommend anyone to try without professional help from the locals.

I seem to have ran out of things to say a long time ago, so I’ll get back when there’s something really happening.

Tags: accommodation, cultural shock, hotels, oh bugger, traffic, ways of working, what is different

Riding in a rikshaw is pretty much like taking a ride in a joyride – keep all your limbs in the carriage, try not to fall out and enjoy. The beeping and tooting of various horns and the smells of the city (both in good and in bad) are a feature, not a bug.

The food is great, no doubt about it.
So far Le Méridien has been more than I expected, the pool is surprisingly long and the service is impeccable.

There are a huge number of hawks circling in the sky during daytime, plus some swallows and common pigeons. The hotel has its own geese, the function of which I haven’t yet grasped. Dinner…? Conveniently close, I’d have to admit.

Everyone’s been telling me how India smells bad and/or strange, but nothing too particular so far. Ok, there are open sewers in places and the waste disposal could be more efficient, but nothing impossible. And you get the whiffs of incence and fragrances of flowers and fruit every once in a while – something that’s very much missing from home.

And no, we haven’t been cold. Not in the very least. During the day it’s around +30 and above, but since it’s not humid, it’s very very tolerable, even enjoyable. Yeah, a sweat is easy to break by simply being there in the sun, but living is easy…

So, all in all very pretty indeed, but the contrasts between poverty and richness are very striking as well. Makes me consider myself very lucky when I think the drinkable (free) water in our taps. Water is something of a sought-after resource down here, and it’s not a commodity that everyone takes for granted.

Tags: food, hotels, luxuries, money, people in india, previsit, service, swimming, traffic, weather

It still looks like I am facing the Big Decision in the near future. For a moment there was a chance of everything going my way, but the opportunity was tackled down by – surprise, surprise – corporate bureaucracy. Although work conditions are in favour of both me and my GF living in Bangalore, policies don’t allow her to work abroad.

The past two weeks have been a real strain for me, both physically and mentally. Office hours are long, nothing can be done without forced interaction with other people, there’s no sense of privacy whatsoever and the noises of the city are a neverending cacophony right behind my door. If I’m coming here again, I need a more peaceful place to have my downtime in. Seems like I’m not that fond of cities after all.

It’s easy to see from here how ideal my home back in Oulu is: new, clean and in a peaceful neighbourhood located near the office. My places of living in Bangalore may have been new(ish), but the other aspects have been less optimal. I am still looking for the places here where I can just relax in my own privacy, but without luck so far.

The predominant mentality of living in India is immediate survival,while my view is the complete opposite: I tend to make a larger initial investment to save work in the future. For example, I just don’t understand the local habit of filling holes in the road with sand instead of patching them up properly. The work has to be done over and over again, and the only apparent reason I can point out is to keep workers occupied. Maybe they will stay out of troublemaking if they can feel themselves necessary?

No matter what the reason, I need to create my own bubble of smooth routines in the middle of all this short-sightedness. In a hotel or a serviced apartment life is pretty much dictated by outsiders, which is okay for a while, but six weeks is too much of that. If I am to go for a longer period, I really need to consider where to live and what to take with me.

This whole thing still calls out for a lot of thinking.

Tags: accommodation, culture, friends and family, hotels, oh bugger, people in india, planning, practical stuff, time, travel, ways of working, what is different

I finally managed to get all the photos from my trip uploaded to the gallery. There are some I want to show here, the rest can be found from my gallery.

I spent my Xmas Eve in the hotel poolside, enjoying a complimentary dinner and cheap entertainment before going to sleep early. The place looked actually quite nice in all its glory:

Of course, being in a tourist joint, I immediately made some new “friends” to pose and take pictures for me:

For a few photos they wanted a donation to one of their temples, showing that “all the others” had given a thousand rupees or more. Being a selfish capitalist, I opted to donate a mere 300 without feeling sorry for it. I like to decide how much money I give and who it goes to, but sometimes we have to make concessions.

Further down my explorations I found I nice cliff at the end of a road, north from Calangute beach:

The altitude of the place doesn’t show at all, but the view was really spectacular. Sandy beaches were located on both sides of the cliff and the whole area was really quiet in the morning time.

Next I took a couple of extra turns before reaching Charpora fort on top of the next cliff. Not much to see there, but the view was again worth the climb:

The previous cliff is just behind my left shoulder here. The photo was taken by a drink salesman whose prices were 400% over MRP, the maximum retail price defined by the Indian Government. He still had a business case there since the climb is quite steep and heavy, and at least I had to go for refreshing drinks after that.

Seems like I am still missing some of the photos, so I conclude this post with this photo from our diving site:

This is the east end of Grande Island, a popular SCUBA diving place among people visiting Goa. I have done all of my nine dives around this island, but hope to expand my horizons beyond that.

I’ll try to find the missing photos tonight and post some highlights from them as soon as possible. Stay tuned.

Tags: diving, holiday, hotels, natural beauty, people in india, photos, 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

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