A trip to Pondicherry

Last Saturday we visited a Pondicherry, a French settlement located around 120 KM south of our home. The town was much bigger than I had envisioned. It actually seemed quite large to me. There are several streets that had French style architecture and was interesting to see. The highlight of the trip was the elephant outside the temple. Now granted there had just been three people killed at a temple by an elephant a few days before on the west coast of India but yet there we stood before this magnificent creature in awe. She (or he) was just beautiful, but then I love animals. I can remember asking my dad for one and he insisted it would outgrow the barn. At this temple entrance the elephant stands and you can put a coin in her nostril and then she will put her trunk on your head as a blessing. Now granted we are not hindu, we do not believe in this blessing but still how often does one get to put a coin in the nostril of an elephant and have it touch your head??? I could have stood and watched her all afternoon. The kids were hoping to hang out and wait for her to sneeze all the coins out! Her trunk just was jiggling with coins. She was adorned with paint, flowers and even bangles on her ankles! Every now and then she would dump them out. People also came and fed her banana's, grass and other tasty treats. We then walked down to the beach and a few of the streets. It was a fun day and once again a great memory maker!

What a headache....

Logan has quite a headache as running full blast into a door should cause. He and Mason were running through the house (and yes they all have been told not to run in the house) when he ran into the door. He got quite the nasty cut, not long but fairly deep. We tried trimming his hair back some to put some butterfly bandages on it but it just wouldn't hold. So off we went to Lifeline Multi Specialty Hospital to have him checked out. The hospital looked very nice from the outside. The emergency room, in which your shoes had to be removed before entering, consisted of about 4 beds and various medical equipment. They say they are a facility for trauma and cardiac care...lets just hope we have no need for more treatment. It just looks so different that the ER in the US. I suspect the rooms here in India are like the US rooms in the 1950's-1960's. The doctor looked at Logan and asked us to leave the room and we said we would not leave him alone. We kept asking if they could use surgical glue, not sutures and he replied yes. It was quite obvious when the suture kit came out that:
-didn't understand what I meant when I requested surgical glue
- he didn't have surgical glue
-thought the cut was too deep or not a good location for surgical glue

Logan had already been given an analgesic for the pain so at this point we let the doctor continue with the sutures...much to Logan's dismay. Logan was pretty ticked off at the doctor! So Logan 2 stitches later is feeling much better and headed back to school today. Now my shopping list for medical supplies consists of tongue depressors, surgical glue and more butterfly bandages!

Ganesh at sea

I was out riding my bike one Saturday and came across these little boys carrying a clay statue of Ganesh (a hindu god) towards the beach. I raced home to grab my camera to capture their photos. They were very proud to be getting photographed. I am assuming this must be a common practice to throw items of worship into the sea. It looked fairly heavy and they had to stop and rest several times. The littlest boy of about 5 yrs was very proud to be carrying a very small statue. As you can see from the photo the elephant statue is adorned with flowers and has colored chalk designs on this. This is a very common thing to see these statues adorned with all sorts of decorations.

Our Log Book

We have a log book, a guard log book. A friend mentioned that every house has a guard log book. What on earth is this you may ask. Every time the guard patrols the grounds he writes down the time and mentions if there were any problems found (I don't believe there ever have been). The really interesting thing is that every time some one enters or leaves our house it is documented. For instance, every time the kids and I return from school they document who was in the van, the drivers name and the model and plate number of the vehicle. It says something like this:

Madam and three children arrived at the property at 4:10 pm on March 18, 2008 in vehicle TNXXXXXX driven by Bhaskar.

We had the guard replace light bulbs the other day and guess what it was noted that they were give 5 light bulbs to replace existing bulbs. I need to see if it is noted every time I take Millie for a walk!

I never had a clue that such detailed information was kept. I am amazed. There really isn't much privacy here.

Camels!

Today we were driving down ECR and there were these camels walking down the road...oh my goodness, camels were on the road. Not in the zoo but on the road! I of course told Sundar to pull over because I have to get some photos of these huge creatures. We stopped and I photographed them walking by. They didn't even spit on me as I was envisioning. After they passed me I saw another van stop and some ladies were getting their photo taken with the camels, so I told Sundar to stop, I am getting my picture with the camel. I am thinking this doesn't get any cooler. But it did as I got to ride on a camel!!! The guy had the camel get down on his knees and I climbed aboard. The the camel started to get up and I admit, it was a bit scary. The way they sit and stand is just unbelievably hard to describe. They kind of tilt back and forth until they are up all the way.... they are very tall animals! The kids were pretty upset that they didn't get to ride on one, but hopefully we will see camels on the street again. Another memory for life! Maybe next time we'll see elephants!

A camel procession

Of course I am on top of the world because I am holding the rope not knowing I would be able to ride one!

How on earth do you get up on this thing?

Yikes, he is trying to stand up and it is scary!


Me on a camel!

Chicken Bike

Yes, you read it right...chicken bike! We were on the way to church Sunday morning and Ted pointed out the chicken bike. Of course this would be the one day I forgot my camera (a definite item to carry at all times) so you will have to use your imagination instead of looking at a photo. Two men and about 40 chickens were riding on an old two wheeler (aka motorcycle). The chickens were alive and were hanging upside down by there feet. There was a big bunch at the front and two bunches at each side of the back, of course the ones on the right side were inhaling all the exhaust. I have never seen such a sight and even thought I don't have a photo to share, just use your imagination. I am on a quest now to capture this image. If not I told our driver Sundar that we could get some chickens and use his bike!

Since we are on the subject of chickens, Sunday evening I went outside and happened by Scooby's kennel (our guard dog...at least he stays awake at night since our guards don't) to see the tasty treat Scooby dined on that night...yummm chicken feet!

The ride home

After landing we cleared customs and headed toward the van. The only problem was that we couldn't ride in our van. Evidently there was squabble between the state we live in (Tamil Nadu) and the state we landed in (Karnataka) so getting from the airport to home was a bit tricky. Bhaskar arranged to have another driver he knew pick us up from the airport in a vehicle with Karnataka plates and take us across the state line since our plates have Tamil Nadu plates. There had been some trouble with people crossing the state line with Tamil Nadu plates so it was safer for us to cross with Karnataka plates. We had planned to go to the Hard Rock Cafe and have a late lunch but the van that we were in was so big it couldn't enter that part of the city. We were really bummed. But we knew there was a TGIFriday's that we could drive to, so off we went. We were so excited to be in an "American" joint and see American food! Wow, they had burgers (and not chicken but actually beef). The excitement soon dwindled when the food arrived and it just wasn't very good. In fact it was terrible. I am quite certain that is what I got so sick from.

After leaving the restaurant we headed towards the state line. We saw Bhaskar waiting beside the road. The luggage got loaded into the van just as an accident occurred right next to us. It appeared a bus ran into the median. There seemed to be some sort of trouble brewing so the van that we rode it took off and Bhaskar pulled on down the road...without us! So there we are walking down the road (just 75 feet or so) past policemen with loaded machine guns. One made some comment about us walking. We were glad to get in our van and head home! The nicest thing about going home was that India finally feels like "home" to us. It was great to get our pets back and sleep in our own beds!

The Maldives Rocked!

We are back from having an absolute wonderful 8 days away from Chennai while visiting the Maldives Islands. Unfortunately as soon as we got back I seemed to have caught a nasty little bug but am finally feeling better.

Before we left on our trip we had to deliver Millie and Cleo to our friends house as they had graciously offered to keep them for us. Of course the kids kept asking, " do they know that Cleo (the kitten) bites? It was wonderful knowing that the pets were well cared for. And I think our friends really enjoyed them as well!

The trip had a bit of a rocky start as Indian Airlines changed the flight times so that our flight arrived to late to catch the sea plane to our resort. We left for the airport early in hopes of eating at the Hard Rock Cafe (they have beef burgers) in Bangalore but traffic was heavy so we ended up at McDonald's (no beef!).

We were able to fly out one day early and spend the night on the island of Male. It was nice to be able to see Male. We were able to walk around town and had a fantastic meal at a Thai restaurant. One very interesting thing about this town is that there are no dogs...none what so ever, well except for the 2 guard dogs at the airport. That was really strange as in India there are dogs everywhere and they all look pretty much the same. It is actually illegal to bring a dog into the country. Early in the morning we took the first plane out (around 6:45) and had a ride of about 45 minutes. I have never flown on a sea plane and Ted has always dreamed of flying on sea plane (now the dream to actually fly one remains). I was a bit skeptical as I don't like flying but I can honestly say the sea plane ride was great!


The Royal Island Resort & Spa let us check in to our rooms early which was wonderful of them. We were poolside by 10 am!

The island that we went to wasn't very big (none of them are very big), it was maybe 1/2 mile long and 1/4 mile wide. For one week we heard no horns (just boats and sea planes), saw no cows (just bats and crows), saw no vehicles of any sort (no bikes, motorbikes, cars, etc). We had hot water without turning on a heater and had hot water at the bathroom faucet! We swam in the pool, read books, snorkeled in the ocean, jet skied and para sailed (just Mason and Ted). It was very relaxing. We didn't have to worry about things breaking and trying to get them fixed, scheduling drivers, hearing about what the staff are bickering about, our guards sleep at night or trying to get the landscaping completed. I see why our company encourages us to get away every three months, Ted is very much refreshed and was ready to go back to work!

The bats...very interesting and very big. They must have a wing span of at least 1 1/2 ft, although at time they seemed much bigger. They were not like traditional insect eating bats that swoop right above your head but fruit eating bats. We would be walking along the beach or sitting by the pool and see these huge things fly over us. I really liked watching them hanging from the trees and feasting on their bounty of fruit.