Would you like to see more Sari's? WTF? Pull up pull up!

Today was shopping day. I needed to head out and see if I could find a few things to bring back to Canada with me. I headed down to Lakshmi road where all the traditional Indian wares are. There are soooo many beautiful fabrics here that it is amazing. I was at this one store looking at fabrics for their sari's when a sales woman came up and asked if she could show me some more. I said "Yes that sounds great".

So she takes me to the side of the store down the alley, through a door, then through another door. At this point I'm thinking, "Oh she has her own shop of clothing she wants to show me". So we are in her "store" where she asks me to sit down. The first thing I notice is that there are no sari's here. In fact there is no fabric. She closes the door we just came in then closes the curtain behind her and kneels in front of me. All of a sudden my "this ain't right" radar starts to go off. She looks me in the eyes, touches her breasts and says 100 Rs (rupees). By now I'm thinking "Oh crap. You are not selling sari's! How am I gonna get outta this".

So I stand up and say "Sorry, this is not what I was expecting. I've gotta go." I make it through the door but not much further when this woman and two of her friends block me from getting back to the street. They insist on getting me some "service" and now up the ante. Now they are offering me a 13 or 14 yr old girl! What the hell! Now I've really gotta get the hell outta here. I'm trying to get back to the street but they are blocking my way. The woman who initially asked if I'd like to see more sari's is pretty strong. She's wedged herself in a doorway and I'd pretty much have to punch her in the face to get by her. As most of you know this is not something I'm known for doing.

I keep saying "No no no" and finally I get the hell outta there. The woman is cursing me pretty harsh but I'm just glad I'm out of that situation.

The lesson to be learned here is:
1. Don't go into an alley shop to find a sari.
2. Don't leave the hotel without Jonathan.

Let the razzing begin!

The PST shift in IST is rough

Yesterday was my first taste of the PST shift in the India time zone. For those of you who don't know the time difference, we are 12.5 hrs ahead of you in Vancouver. So when an 8 am shift starts in Vancouver it is 8:30 pm here and we work until 5:30 am. This my friends; is rough. I go to work when it is dark and I come home when the sun is rising.

The really cool thing about this is that I get to see how people in India start their day. I'm not talking about the middle class people. I'm talking about the poor people who live on the sides of the road in shanty shacks. So far I've seen people relieving themselves, getting their clothes ready, collecting water, carrying things on their head, etc. I will bring my camera tomorrow and take some "snaps" of all the happenings.

The other nice thing about coming back to the hotel at 6:30 am is that we get the buffet breakfast FRESH! I used to think the croissants were hard as a rock just because they came from all over the world. It turns out they are quite soft and tasty first thing at 7 am.

Only one and a half more shifts of this then I am off to Ealing. When I'm there I'll be working a normal shift, I hope.

Cheers

Random Photo's

Just some random photo's for you. (click on each one for a better quality image)

or you can check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/tagdonut/

Holy Cow!

I thought I had seen everything that had to do with transportation but yesterday had proved me wrong. You all know stories about the rules of the road here. There are none. They tend to pack as many people as possible into one vehicle. It is much like watching a circus every day but instead of clowns in a moto-rickshaw you have Indians. One moto-rickshaw usually designed to hold 2 people in the back and 2 people up front, including the driver. But they manage to cram in anywhere from 7 to 10 people into these things.

I've also seen some amazing things with Jeeps. They tend to cram so many people in here that the back door is open with a man hanging out, plus 2 or 3 people ON TOP OF THE JEEP! Yeah, they ride on top of the damn thing. If you hit a bump I'm sure those people go flying. No idea of they duck and roll to recover LOL

Now on to what really surprised me yesterday. During our drive to Ellora I was sleeping once in a while. I woke up and looked beside us as we were passing a moto-rickshaw. It was crammed with people as they normally would be, I think I counted 5 or 6 people. But what really stuck out was the COW! They had a freaking cow in a moto-rickshaw. It was lying down on the floor of the richshaw looking happy as can be. I wish I had my camera ready to take a photo because it would have been priceless. I still have no idea how they would have gotten a cow into one of those things. I think I'd be able to make some money if I got a shot of that.

I just know that "now I've seen everything" means that I'm going to see something even more messed up in the next few days. Or that nothing will phase me anymore. I know that when I get back to Canada I'll see something and think "Bah that is nothing. This one time I was in India and I saw a *blank* in a rickshaw..."

Ajanta and Ellora caves

We had another great weekend of being tacky tourists. We hired a driver to take us to Ellora and Ajanata caves. These caves are about 350 kms from Pune so the drive was long and exhausting. Thankfully we just had to sit there! I was told a little about these caves but I was not prepared for what I was about to see.

The caves in Ellora emphasized carvings rather than paintings like Ajanta. The main cave here is #16 and it blew my mind. The thing is absolutely huge and the detail is out of this world. It is all carved out of the mountain so it is one piece. They don't bring stones in to complete work. Everything is carved out by Bhuddist monks. To top it off these caves were created about 1500 years ago!

At Ajanta the caves are carved into this mountain overtop of what was once a lush river. The story goes that these, like the Ellora caves, were created 1500 years ago. The monks worked on these caves over a period of 900 yrs as a tribute to Buddha. At sometime during the completion of the work Buddhism was abandoned and all the monks were forced out of the area. Over 1000 years the forest and nature reclaimed the caves as their own and hid them from humans. In the late 1800's they were rediscovered by a foreign traveller. Since then the government has been restoring and preserving them so they can be appreciated by everyone on the planet.

The pictures from these sites are still on my cam. I will be posting them once I get them downloaded from Jonathan (yes I forgot my USB cable).