Well, except the airline companies. Like, ten million a day? Dude.

The amount of paper was not overwhelming, they just needed the digital copies (this is unheard-of sometimes even in Finland, that a digital copy of something would suffice!) of the recommendation letters from Indonesia plus the scan of the identity card of the person who wrote the letters, our tickets there and away from the island, and the receipt that we had paid the visa fees.

But of course, there’s a catch. The visas are only valid for  60 days, and our training takes twice as long. What this means is that we need to renew the visas while there, but the good thing is, we have the dive school people to help us with the process. Having natives to help you is a huge bonus, and I’m pretty sure we’re not the first ones to extend their visas while in the country.

Talking of embassies, the Finnish honorary embassy in Indonesia is in Bali, so in case of emergency there’s help to be had. Not that we plan to have cases of emergencies, we plan not to have any.

Not too long now…

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!

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’.

We’re travelling back to Finland next month.

Next destination: the sea.

The first point I don’t like about this country is that people are corrupted to the bone. Nobody seems to think thievery in the office as a problem since everyone has locks in their drawers. Every single Indian I talked with about these incidents was asking the same question: “Why didn’t you lock it up?”

Here’s why: the bloody building has at least one guard in each floor 24/7, no one is let in without a badge, and there’s an access card system in the doors (granted, it’s out of order right now, but still). Even I can’t get through without my badge, and I’m positive that every single guard recognises me. And after all these security measures I should keep my stuff behind locks? Am I the only one to see a problem here? What good is a squad of guards if I can’t trust them to keep thieves from stealing a plastic child’s toy? What the hell do they pay those slackers for?

The second thing I don’t like in the office is the attitude of our Team Leader. Every time I tell him there’s a problem, he tries to wriggle his way out of facing it. It’s biblically frustrating to defend my position against the person who should be my closest advocate on all matters, the single point of contact for my queries about day-to-day work. I guess he’s trying to suppress my enthusiasm to report everything that’s wrong, but that’s where he makes a grave mistake – I’ll be sure to report every problem I find. He will think me as an irritating asshole, but that’s what I am when someone tries to push me around.

I’ve been ranting about my work and how things go wrong in many senses, but this is personal.

Some half-assed donkeyfucker has stolen a small rubber dinosaur my wife gave me when I left. It was innocently sitting next to my monitor when this scurvy lubber decided to snatch it.

What in the world possessed some shit-faced douchebag to steal a used kid’s toy worth two rupees? What the hell is wrong with everyone?

Well, at least the people here are extraordinarily brilliant in making the office repulsive to the maximum. As if lousy ergonomics, missing coffee rooms and dismal infrastructure weren’t enough, someone has to add injury to insult by stealing my stuff.

Fuck this job.

The goddamn shit-faced communist ass-munchers in the office have shown their gratitude for my souvenirs by eating 90 per cent of the hugely expensive 3kg chocolate box I brought with me. Without my consent, implied or otherwise.

Okay, I admit I didn’t lock it up, but still: what the fuck? What the hell is wrong with these wankers?

I swear the next box I bring with me will have liquid laxative and Viagra injected in them.

Edit: Just to emphasise, the chocolates weren’t even showing. Someone has gone through my drawers in order to find them.

You know the feeling when you go to a summer cabin, smell the fresh air and feel so… so alive? Well, Bangalore is exactly the opposite. I dug up a study (PDF, page 10) on the city’s pollution levels and found out how bad the situation really is. Those who are interested enough to read the study may want to skip the next two paragraphs, but I’m guessing there are many who would rather read it here:

In the study the general ranges for air quality index (AQI) levels are as follows: AQI 0-25 is clean air, 26-50 is light pollution, 51-75 moderate, 75+ is heavy and 100+ is severe pollution. The index is calculated from various components and should give a reasonably accurate description of how clean or polluted the air in the area is.

I tried to find statistics for my home town of Oulu, but I’m not sure if these (in Finnish) are on the exactly same scale. Looks like the verbal descriptions match loosely, so I’ll use them as reference: the average index on suburban area of Pyykösjärvi seems to average somewhere around 9, and even the peak in the central area of the town hardly reaches 40. This is generally accepted as a no pollution zone, and this is where I come from.

Bangalore, however, is a teeny weeny bit different.

The study collects samples from 16 different stations around the central area of Bangalore (around which I move 90% of my time right now), with a whopping average AQI of  202 and only one station reaching levels below 100.

No wonder I find it hard to drag myself to the gym or a swimming pool. I really hope my future home area is a bit better.

And whad’ya know…

I got the SIM card I had been waiting for, so now I can make calls again.

And halfway through the heap I found my pay slip for May. 5 figures.

After a nice lunch, some meetings with people and a good afternoon rest I went downstairs for dinner. I was prepared to wait forever, especially since I ordered a steak, but the chef was fast as lightning today and the whole visit took me less than 40 minutes. Seems like the universe knows when things should go smoothly since I found myself chuckling uncontrollably under my beard.

What the hell just happened?

The reason came up – along with my lunch – just before I went to bed. I checked out the symptoms of malaria just in case, but it seems like it was just a regular case of food poisoning.  These things happen quite a lot in here, but this was my first one here. I thought it was all over and went to bed, hoping to wake up safe and sound.

As you probably have guessed already, it didn’t go that well.

I fell asleep relatively quickly, but woke up somewhere in the wee hours of the night with a biblically sore hip bone. It felt like the outermost parts of the bone (the ones on the sides) had been in a screw clamp, pressed inwards by some kilotons of force. The reason turned out to be the rock hard matress in the new bed, combined with my tendency to sleep on my side 90% of the time. I usually sleep on a soft matress that gives way for the protruding bones and distributes my weight more evenly, but these futons and straw thingies just don’t do the trick for me.

So I spent the rest of the night rolling around, sleeping on the couch, lying awake, wandering around the house, trying to sleep, looking for anything soft to sleep on, and missing my loved ones in the dark, hopeless hours of Indian night. What would I have given for being with my wife at that moment!

Eventually morning came, I gave a call to our agent, and he promised to arrange me a softer matress before end of the day. It came in around two o’clock (on a rikshaw), but looks suspiciously similar to the previous one. The coming night will tell if it’s any better.

I had already forgotten how things can suck sometimes.

I arrived at the airport a little over two hours before departure, only to again find out that I’m early. The security staff on the entrace looks really scary with their AK-47s and commando-style headwear, especially when some of them take shelter against the cold by wrapping scarves over their heads. Add in the sand bag bunker on the roadside and you could imagine arriving on a terrorist training camp of some sort.

During check-in I found out that I had been hauling a total of 34 kilograms of luggage with me all the way from the hotel. No wonder I feel a little fatigued and my muscles ache. I think I succeeded in distributing the weight pretty well, since my hand bag with its two extra kilograms was accepted without scrutiny (is that the correct word in here? Maybe it is now). Finally I was charged 60 euros for two kilograms, although my check-in overweight was more that double of that. Thanks to the friendly airline worker for that.

— (Some 10 hours later in the German airspace)

Ah, the bloody air travel organizations and their overenthusiastic security paranoia. I have to admire the amount of irrational and completely useless rules they have introduced since 9/11. The goddamn Germans nicked my whiskey bottle in Frankfurt, even though it was properly sealed and bought from a certified tax free shop. The problem? It was sold, certified and sealed outside EU.

The bottle is exactly the same, the sealed container is exactly the same, the price is at least almost the same, but still Ms. Sauerkraut-Nussbaum could not allow me to take it with me in the cabin. Being in a hurry already, I couldn’t check it in, so I had to leave it there. Another 50 dollars well spent, goddammit.

I took everything out of my generous 45-minute transit time and bought a new one. I’m still pissed.

— (Just now)

So I’m back in Finland and trying to adjust to the cold again. It seems like I won’t be here for long since the top management has already approved the resources for my expat contract and the guys in Bangalore are already working on the arrangements. It may be that I will be celebrating my birthday in India already.

I have known for a while that arranged marriages are common in India, but only today it really struck me. I was skipping over some classified ads in the Sunday Times, since I don’t feel the need to buy a house or anything like that. After three pages I happened to take a closer look, only to realize that there wasn’t a single ad about real estate or goods, but boys and girls of all ages.

At first I thought these were personals, but none of the ads included anything… personal. Instead I could find detailed descriptions of education, work and family background, classified by religion, caste and profession. People looking for other people. And the page title?

“Matrimonials”.

I had just returned to the apartment from a walk when the doorbell rang. It was the man who introduced me to the maid on my first day here, so I presume he is working for the company that rented this place to me. He asked to come in and sat to the table right in front of me. He was carrying some motorcycle brochures, so I thought he might have had something to do with my humble request of getting to ride a Bullet. When he opened his mouth, it turned out to be something completely different.

What I understood of his bad English was that he was aging (yes, around 55 maybe) and was having prostate problems. This of course would require medical attention, but less surprisingly he was short on money and wanted me to help him.  He didn’t have anything specific to offer in return, so it would be pure charity from me. The whole time he was smiling widely, like he was telling me about a newborn baby or asking something from an old friend. I turned him down and walked him to the door, giving him a vague promise to not bring the whole incident to public. He left without any drama and left me puzzled with my thoughts.

On the other hand it would be humane to forget it all, but my sense of justice says something else. I have always tried to be honest, open and dignified, so I am tempted to let the manager of the company know what his employees are doing behind his back. I think it would be beneficial for everyone to try and reduce corruption from this country, bit by bit. Also it would give a better image to the outworld and encourage future expats to come here if these kinds of things were addressed properly.

It is easy to see the motives of the guy – bad financial situation, easy access wealthy western people, not much to lose – but there is still one fundamental difference I find disturbing. I am fine with beggars facing me on the street and asking for money, since that’s all they have. I can easily ignore them knowing that I don’t have to have anything to do with them if I don’t want to. With an employee of the housing company things are a little different: he has access to my apartment, he knows where I live and in the worst case I will have to do business with him in the future. In other words, I can’t just ignore him and go on with my life.

So I am facing a guy with nothing more than his job to lose, and I can make that loss happen. In my opinion it would be a healthy thing for the country to happen, but on the other hand I can’t be sure of my safety if I do the thing I consider right. I don’t want enemies with nothing to lose, especially in a country like this.

This whole thing has really gotten me thinking of my basic values. If this was a question in a survey, I would definitely and without second thoughts bring out the whole incident, but in real life it is not that simple. I want to set things straight, but I don’t want to compromise my own safety. I’m also thinking of bringing this out just before I leave, which would pretty much eliminate the safety hazard.

I am really puzzled. What should I do?

For dinner I went to Bombay Post on the other side of Airport Road, right next to TGI Friday’s. The place was really tidy, well-maintained and even classy, with nice waiter uniforms and stylish interior design. The menu was really long and choices were plenty, but I went for Sheek Kabab this time. It was like long, spicy meatballs made of lamb and fried well. I had mine with rice, Butter Naan and a pint of Kingfisher. The term pint is not exactly what I expected it to be, even though it is a former colony of Britain. The usual serving of beer is actually 650 millilitres, while a pint refers to a bottle of 330 milliliters. This is good to keep in mind if the servings seem too big.

The food in Bombay Post  was excellent and the whole experience was… intense. Not a single moment went by without a waiter being close by, ready to fill my glass or serve some more lamb to my plate. If I ran out of some side dish, it didn’t take more than a minute before I had a new portion on my table. The service was really good, but the price policy had some undocumented extras hidden inside. First of all, the list prices didn’t include taxes, and second, they charged a service percentage of everything. Looking at the list, the dish was less than 300 rupees, so I estimated the total to be somewhere around 700 with drinks, rice and bread. I was in for a surprise when I got the bill with a total of 1067 rupees with everything included. Although the food was good, I think it was not worth that much.

Next time in that district I’ll try the third place, Indijoe. It should be a chain restaurant, so the possibilities are there.