Happy Holi!

We've gone and done it again! Holi is one of my favorite holidays in India. If you don't know what it is by now, it's the spring festival of colours. And one day in the country where most people enjoy the chaos of throwing powder color and water on friends, family and neighbors!

We decided to just cruise the neighborhood again this year since we couldn't find any cool parties worth attending! But this year we dragged along Stacie, Janikka, Hayley and two of Janikka's visitors from Portland - Robbie and Juliet!

Here are a few photos of our morning adventure!

gori beware, holi hai

Foreigners Beware - its holi!

The few days before holi tend to be very dangerous on the roads. Kids armed with water balloons are out in full force and bystanders, foreigners especially have to take caution. Every single year since I have been in India I have been hit with these water balloons prior to holi. The first year it freaked me out, and sent me in a rage! Now I am used to it, even though they always get me when i'm least expecting it! Yesterday Stacie got hit as she travelled down Linking Road in a rickshaw.. and today as I passed the same exact spot I got NAILED. Seriously nailed. I was with an Indian friend telling her how I always get hit, but she said she never had that before. As we were just chatting away, i got hit with what felt like a rock on my upper arm, splashing all over me, Nisha and the rickshaw!

The bad thing is that it really really hurts! I'm lucky it was on my arm and not my face. I could have broken my nose with that one. My arm is still red, tender and starting to bruise - 7 hrs after the attack. I've been scared ever since to go out!

I also read in the paper how a boy got hit yesterday and has lost his sight! I've heard stories of vicious kids using acid in the balloons, but thankfully that hasn't happened to me yet!

This has also been a weekend of holidays for so many religions! Thur was Eid, a muslim holiday, Friday - good friday, Sat - Holi (Hindu holiday) and Sunday - Easter. I think as well it's Purim a jewish holiday! Hopefully the world is too busy celebrating to fight these 4 days.

Happy St. Patricks Day!

Since my boyfriend is Irish, I have to celebrate St Paddy's day! He's working as usual, but I am making him his traditional Irish Stew and will have his Guiness waiting at home for him! This year I doubt we'll really do anything - no one seems to really acknowledge this day here. Last year we were in Singapore and it was crazy for the Irish. The year before, we decided to pay a visit to all of the "Irish" bars in Mumbai. Not one of them even knew it was St. Patricks day. Pathetic!

Hope you all have a great day and are wearing green :)

more censorship

In India all films are censored before they get released, foreign and local alike. Basically it is the morality police who go through the films and decide what is and is not appropriate for adults in India to view. Any sex scene, even if it doesn't show anything is usually cut (badly at that!). Often other random things are cut as well -- which I don't typically know since it's cut and I'm seeing it here! But you can usually tell when something is chopped out since there will be a jump in the story or you can actually see where it's been sliced up.

Today I went to see a Romanian film "4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days". First I have to say I am amazed that it even came to India. This is only the 3rd foreign (non English language) film I have seen here. And trust me, I try to see them all as that's all I watched back in the US! Besides it being foreign, it is also very heavy subject matter. It is about a girl getting an illegal abortion in communist Romania. Anyhow.. the point of this whole post is to say that at one point the character walked towards the camera showing her pubic hair -- well that's what it would have been if the censor board didn't scribble over her privates! Seriously, someone got a magic marker and scribbled! In a very serious movie, this was pretty funny.

So there is another job that someone has in India.. scribbling on films!

Government Stamp

We get The Economist by subscription and this week it was several days late. I didn't think anything of it as the mail here is notoriously slow. Nor did I think anything of the plastic covering already being opened or the mailing label addressed to the wrong person. This is India afterall. But as I begin to go through the magazine, I came to a story about India and started reading. As I got half way through the article I noticed a map of India with a blue stamp over it. The stamp says " The external boundries (SIC) of India as depicted are neither correct nor authentic". I am shocked that the Indian government went to all the effort to go through each and every Economist to put this stamp over the India map! I'm shocked, but not really surprised! Crazy the lengths the government will go to make sure no one is confused about how much land is India's!!

cuba ramblings

I was gifted a trip to Cuba for my birthday. I have been frantically trying to research it to figure out what we want to do, what is the best way to get there and how their insane money system works (money for foreigners, money for locals).

I'm starting to feel a bit annoyed with it all and thinking more and more about just going to Japan instead! However, I really do want a chance to practice my spanish again. I have been brushing up on it in the last week. I've not forgotten as much as I thought -- although I tend to do the Indian head waggle even when speaking spanish! hah

Goa Recap

So we were three and then we were two and then we were three and then we were two and finally we ended up being three! J cancelled on Monday as she was summoned to Portland, so then Stacie and I proceeded as two. Then a friend from Mumbai Komal decided to join us - to then cancel at 2:30 a.m. the morning of our flight, to then rejoin us later that day at the last minute! man.. it was so confusing and difficult to go to Goa for a weekend!!

But we made it and had a good time. Stacie and I seem to be able to do just about anything together and have fun. It was nice to spend some good quality time with her and to just chill out, laying in the sun, reading books, taking naps and chatting.

I hadn't been to Palolem in 3 years, so I wasn't sure what to expect after so much time away. This time, we stayed at the north end of Palolem which seems to be much more mellow than the southern end, where I stayed previously. The north end is quiet and asleep by 10:30 pm and is filled with people my own age - some single, some with their families. But being mellow did not stop the women from going topless. Stacie and I were shocked by this... This is India after all - a very conservative country! We were also very happy with the hotel we ended up with - Alessandros. The staff were very nice and went out of their way to help us entertain ourselves! Stacie and I even made our own breakfast on the last day. She wanted french toast and I wanted eggs my way! Our rooms were right on the beach which was great as well. Except the waves at night were insanely loud! But we got used to it and fell asleep nicely listening to the quiet and the sea moving back and forth. It was pretty hot during the day, but at night it was still cooling down quite a bit which I loved but made Stacie cold with the fan on! hah.

Here's the view from our 'hut' on the beach!

I stayed out of the sun completely the first day -- reading under the umbrella, taking naps and just being lazy. The following few days I ventured into the sun briefly - mostly to play in the sea! Just a little amount of time in the sun creates disaster for my skin. I am apparently allergic to the sun and no matter how much SPF lotion I put on, I still end up with sun poisoning. :(

To help deal with the sun burn/poisoning, I had a nice cucumber body wrap which was nice. Otherwise we just chilled out, enjoyed our time and chatted with others at our hotel. we met some interesting Israeli's, a Canadian who lives in Mexico and watched lots of families enjoying their holiday.

Some observations -- the police really are enforcing the no hawking policy on the beach, so we had much fewer people hassling us while laying out, very few locals coming to stare at us, etc. So all in all it was a much more enjoyable beach experience than I've had previously at Goa. And also.. the water was much better looking than in the past. So given all of that, I think I will look forward to going back to Goa again in the near future.

rickshaw run names

for now..our team name is karma kab.
we were under immense pressure to come up with a name quickly before providing our deposit. some other names we are still considering:
karma initiative
fast around the kormas
paan & curry
goodbye mumbai
bangladashing

Please give your feedback and thoughts! I'm not sure if we can even change our name at this point, but if we can, we might. we aren't creative on the cuff like this!

goa girls weekend

It really shouldn't be that difficult to plan a weekend trip to Goa. People go all the time. It's only a 50 minute flight. There are trains, buses, and flights that go around the clock! But somehow getting the three of us blondes out of bombay for 4 days has been a monumental task!

First trying to decide whether we should fly or train it down, took ages. We decided to train it down there and fly back. But of course India doesn't always agree with your plans. The trains were booked solid. Over 50 people on the waiting list for first class. And even when looking at the option of tourist quota tickets it said unavailable. What is going on.. its not supposed to be high season anymore! Too many tourists in India I guess --- and all heading to Goa the same day apparently!

So we go to plan 2 - fly both ways. Some history - a return to goa last year would cost 2000 INR (50 USD), but now on EVERY flight, there are 2000 rupees worth of taxes alone. So the cheapest you could even hope for is 2001 rupees. not a chance that you can get that at the last minute. We agree on the flight and the price of 5,086 INR - more than we hoped, but decent enough. Oh, nope.. not gonna happen! As soon as we click to book, we see the return flight has increased by over 1,000. pwwww. So now we have no idea what to do. We figure perhaps we will just have to take the train back - at least it would be one way and would reduce our costs a bit. Check the trains again... still waitlisted, but not so bad with only 3 on the waitlist. There might be a chance of getting on....

For now, we decide lets just book the flight there and we'll figure out how to get back home later! One step at a time. I booked mine. J booked hers. S.... not so lucky. See, previously there was this issue with booking flights/trains with an international credit card. Some young 'ens working at Indian call centers thought it would be cool to steal foreign credit card numbers from their job and sell to other people. There was a big scandel and instead of dealing with the root of the problem, merchants here just decided that the best thing to do was to stop accepting ALL foreign credit cards. One website has finally stopped this - cleartrip - with whom we booked our tickets. Well.. apparently in all of this credit card business, they forgot about local Indians and people with Indian accounts. Of all of us - S the one with a local account couldn't book her ticket --- through 3 different websites!

In the meantime, I decided to go ahead and book our train tickets even if they are waitlisted... oh but guess what?!?! the Indian railway WEBSITE closes at 11:30 pm!!!! LOL have you ever heard of a website closing?! Ok. so no luck there. Back to see what S is managing. Still no luck on her end, so I just buy it with my foreign credit card. Sad isn't it that you have to resort to using a foreign credit card in India when you can't use your own INDIAN account!

So for now, our flights are booked to Goa. We still have no idea how we will get home. But that will come later. We need to get ahold of someone's passport so we can book tourist quota tickets - S is out of town until wed so we need a replacement passport for hers! one thing at a time.. one step then the next. this is what you have to remember in India.

Well J's motto as of late is "India always wins"... and perhaps she does!

I guess the good of all this... we will get good and stressed out, so we can fully enjoy the relaxation of the beach!