India - part 2

Hello again. Im glad that everyone enjoyed the first post; it's likely all downhill from here.  

Its been a busy few days which started on Wednesday when we decided to go to the cricket.  Australia is here playing India in a series of one day tests, so we thought it would be fun to go check it out.  However in typical Indian fashion we couldn't figure out how to go about buying tickets.  After a few failed phone calls, google searches and a day before trip to the stadium, we decided our best approach was to just turn up on the day and try to buy them at the door.  We were all a bit apprehensive though, as we had no idea whether there were tickets available or at what price (the tourist price of things is usually 3x more than the Indian price).

Things were weird right from arrival at the stadium. Upon entering, we had to walk through metal detectors; men in one line, women in another.  We were then haphazardly  searched, and stripped of miscellaneous possessions for no good reason.  The women opened my bag and my wallet and went through my change purse, but let me keep everything (didn't steal my money as I thought she might).  However another girl was stripped of the 3 one euro coins she had in her wallet, and one of the guys had his headphones and water bottle taken off him. We had to steal the water bottle and headphones back on the way out.

Then there was the matter of actually getting tickets.  Of course there was nothing that resembled a ticket office.... just some gents in uniforms making up various prices.  After speaking to a number of people, we managed to secure tickets at a price which matched the price printed on the ticket. So that was a win.  

The atmosphere in the stadium was pretty strange.  Firstly it was all men.   Not a woman in sight.  Also MIA were any other white people (minus the Australian cricket team) and alcohol of any sorts.  What is wrong with this country? When we sat down, a few of the people around us started asking us where we were from.  Even though most of the group is not Australian, as a group we took the opportunity to say "Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi" really loudly, which literally silenced the crowd and drew hundreds of stares.  I was nervous for a few seconds about how angry Indian cricket fans would react, until everyone burst out laughing and smiling.  Lots of laughter and pictures followed. Throughout the match, there was lots of laughter - we think more at us (dirty jokes about us girls) than with us, but we didn't mind as we had no idea what was being said. Australia lost, but it was good fun.  Afterwards we went for dinner at a "non-veg" restaurant and I broke my 4 day sobriety.

The rest of the week was volunteering in the mornings and shopping/sightseeing in the afternoons.  Now that I've done a week of the volunteering, I know the kids a lot better.  We don't know their real names as the government workers only speak Hindi and don't speak to us (unless it's yelling at us in Hindi to help with something). So we've made some up so that we know amongst the volunteers who is who.  We have Rosie, who is the cutest, neediest child I've met.  If someone isn't hugging her, she stands with a sad look on her face and open arms until someone does.  Then there is cry baby, who literally cries non stop all the time. So annoying.  Sarah and Jack are older and quite smart, but can both be pretty naughty.  If you take Jacks flip flops he screams, so that is his punishment when he is bad.  Then there are the disabled ones; Vinny and Mr Muscle (who has guns and a six pack because he has some physical disability where he tenses his muscles up really tight all the time).  There are other kids too but we haven't named them all yet.  One kid shits himself EVERY day and one will not leave the window and chews up paper.  So some good potential nicknames there.  The work isn't my favourite, I'm glad it's only a few weeks, but it is good work and it's an experience.

On Friday after work 5 of us decided to go to the cinema and see a Bollywood film.  A new one called "Boss" just came out and is advertised everywhere.  One of the girls had been to the cinema before and said that sometimes there are subtitles.  I was apprehensive, as I generally don't even watch English movies, but it turned out to be great fun.

Firstly, when we got to the theater there were two queues for tickets; men and women.  So old fashioned! The men's queue had 50 people in it, and the women's none, so we bought a ticket for the guy in our group.  We splurged and spent $5 on the diamond box seats.  Inside the theatre, it was like a proper stage theatre - very old fashioned (and not renovated since 1980).  The 'diamond box seats' got us into a private lounge area away from the commoners.  The seats were big comfy recliners and we were right in the middle.

The best part was the movie itself though.  People treat it like a sporting event and clap and cheer throughout.  When a new character came in (played by a famous actor or actress), or when a bad guy was beaten up, everyone cheered and went wild. And when "Boss" (played by a very famous Bollywood actor nicknamed "Mr Bollywood") made his first appearance, the place went absolutely nuts.

The movie was hilarious.  There ended up being no subtitles, but that made it even more fun.  The plot was simple enough that we all knew what was going on.  A young boy is disowned by his father after his father thinks he kills someone at school while defending his brother (he didn't).  He then meets 'big boss' when he saves his life and becomes his protege.  Fast forward 15 years and Boss is a badass, working as a successful contractor doing dirty jobs.  He ends up needing to save his little brother and win back his father's love.  The whole thing was soo cheesy and predictable.  At random times, they just break out into song and dance.  And since they can't kiss in Bollywood films, when two people fell in love, it cut to clips of them running on the beach, singing and dancing, sailing, riding in convertibles, and rolling around in the sand together.  And in the big fight scene at the end, Boss and the bad guy both rip their shirts off half way through the fight (to many cheers). The movie ended with the bad guy dead and Boss and some girl at a horse ranch singing and dancing in cowboy hats with a white horse (obviously). 

To cap off the exciting Friday night, we went to McDonald's.  I wanted to see what they served, since there is no beef here.  Turns out its chicken, veggie or paneer burgers (which all taste like chicken).

Saturday was a lot of driving for not much action.  We drove about 4 hours south to get to Rathangore National Park.  It's one of the few places in India where tigers and lepoards still exist in the wild. On Saturday we went to the fort at the national park which used to be a hunting lodge for the king (built about 1,000 years ago).  It was very cool - lots of areas to explore. We had a very very good dinner at a local restaurant, and I managed to get my hands on another beer.  Crazy Saturday night. As much as I joke, alcohol is very rare here in Rajasthan (the state I'm in) as it is quite a conservative state.  It's hard to find places that serve beer, let alone wine or hard liquor.  I've also only eaten meat once so far, and it was a bit dodgy - don't think I would be quick to do it again.

Yesterday morning we were up really early for the tiger safari.  It was a 3.5 hour drive through the national park.  There are about 50 tigers and 60 Lepoards there, but the park is quite large, so not seeing one is more likely than seeing one.  We spent the first few hours driving around without much luck - just saw some gazelles, antilope and boring old deer.  I didn't need to come to India to see deer. I was figuring we were out of luck, but then we spotted a leopard.  We saw him twice.  Both were fairly quick looks as he was moving around quite quickly between tree cover, but we saw him.  I didn't get a photo, but one of the guys did something smart and just took a tonne in the area he was.  After when we zoomed in on his pics, we found he has one shot of the leopard.  The leopards are apparently more rare than the tigers, as they are much shyer, so that was good to see.  The closest we came to a tiger, unfortunately, was a few huge footprints.

This week is another full week of volunteering and then next weekend we go on a 5 day trip to a number of cities in Rajasthan. The following week is the Taj Mahal!

That's all for now

S