Weekend trips and Republic Day

We have not had too much internet access the first week, but here is an update of the last two weekends, and a glimpse of Repuclic Day in India.

Kodai Kanal

Beautiful!

Last weekend Projects Abroad arranged a trip for their voluteers in Tamil Nadu. Destination: Kodai Kanal, a small mountaintown ca. 2100 m.o.h. We came from many different places, and think maybe were aropund 30 all together. So quite a big group! Anja and her to fellow voulunteers started the journey with an hour busride to get to Batlagundu, where we would pick up Sebastien and the two he works with. And I have to inform you who have never done a public busride in India - it's not at all like Norway! It is very very crowded (luckily we got a seat, maybe since we looked western), and people were pretty much hanging out the doors. The music is blasting (we had to scream to talk), the driver is hooting all the time - for reasons I didn't always understand - and the conductor is constantly blowing his whistle everytime someone wants to get on or of the bus. I have to admit is was an experience, but having fever and a headache might have ruined the good parts of the experience a bit. But it i s nice to have seen it, and this hour ride costed ut only Rs 7 (ca 1 NOK), so it was OK ;) After running between buses, we got on the last bus  to Kodai Kanal. I don't know excatly how ot explain this ride, except to say that is was interesting, on the verge of scary. Very narrow roads, practically no shoulders on the road and drivers that just "sat on the horn" before and throuhgout the bends, hoping that no one would come towards us ;) I chose just to close my eyes at one point, thinking about everyone that had got up there in good health before us... It worked!

Kodai Kanal is a very nice place, but when the Indians warned us that it would be cold, we just told them that cold is normal to us. Coming from 30 - 35 degrees to maybe 20 - 25 at daytime, maybe 15 at nighttime proved us wrong. We vere freeezing like crazy, and I guess we all came back coughing...
But the good thing was that the view also was as spectacular as we had been forseen - it was so nice, and really worth it the next day when the temperature rose and we got to see around us. Being at level of the clouds was also really fascinating :)
Still, the nature around there, that they made us sit a long time in buses for, was so similar to norwegian nature, that we just had to laugh. The small lake we went to eat lunch with, looked excatly like a small farm area in Norway :) But it was nice and quiet, and for once- no other people!
Another nice part of the weekend was to get to know some new people. Hopefully we will get more time to do that on later weekend trips too :)

Norwegian nature in India ;)

Republic day

Wednesday 26th of January is India's national day, or republic day. We were all interested to see how this is celebrated here - we had a hard time seeing it beeing the same kind as the norwegian 17th of May - celebration.. For Sebastien it meant the day off work, which he spent in the city of Batlagundu next to his town. Not much action there, unfortunatly... Anja, on the other hand, were asked to attend a seremony at 7.30 AM. The three girls got sarees, and eventually managed to get them on. Apparently we must have looked ok, because the comment from the kids was: "Wow. you look like a real Indian now!"

Anja, Marie and MeHee in sarees

The seremony was at the university property, and the teenagers from the Gandhigram Trust College, University and High School was attending. It was rising of the flag, singing the national song and then some speeches. It was really nice to have seen this, even if that was it. After we hoped we had the time of, but Madan Neela simply added as a small comment that we just had some time for breakfast before we had to go to the adoption centre.. A little bit disappointed, but we were more than welcome there, so it weighted up for it :) I guess every day is the same there... The children at the orphanage, on the other han, had the day off, and the biggest attracion this day was them beeing able to watch TV - a real Bollywood gangster movie. No Disney Channel here... ;) We also attended a big lunch where everybode was sitting outside in the memorial hall, that was nice :)  The rest of the day we played with the small kids and got to bed early after a long day with many new impressions.

Madurai 
This weekend (28-30 th of January) is the last weekend the two of us know for sure we will be able too meet, since everyone at the CARE - programmes from now on will be working during the weekend (moving the weekend to the weekdays). We therefor decided to go to the city of Madurai for the weekend. The two volunteers from Anja's place (Marie and MeHee) also joined for the first night. It is about an hour by bus down here for the both of us, so not too long. Last night we just walked around the city together with Marie, wathcing the famous Sri Menakshi from the outside (we were not properly dressed..) and just feeling the city. I think we need these small breaks now and then, just to get the inspiration to go back and do our work. Afterwards we spent the evening at the roof top restaurant at the hotel, with a view of the whole city  - really nice:) But the best part has so far been (except for actually seeing eachother again!) to have shower, and not just any shower, but a WARM shower! ;) Seb actually has a shower, I have a bucket. but we see now how much the warm water is appreciated. I guarantee I will take as many showers as possible before leaving tomorrow morning ;) Today we have just walked around, done some shopping and just enjoyed our time off. Tomorrow it's back to our placement's again!

The two of us in front of one the largest temple in the world!

You should never underestimate women and maps! We go along very well ;)