Sunday, September 12, 2010

Wayanad in the north-east of Kerala, India

I went for a trekking trip with my buddy Chadha and some of his friends to the green hills of Wayanad.
I was pretty excited before because I never went to trekking before. So, I went out and bought some stable shoes to be prepared for every possible terrain, which was a bit too much, but I like the shoes.
I was pretty keen one being on time, so I slept by a friend in whitefield. Actually, the trip should start at 7am in the morning. But as I called my Indian friend around 7 he sounds quiet sleepy. Nevertheless, they handle to pick me up after some time. We rent a private cab for our trip, we were around 12 people so quiet good for a cab. Just after entering the cab a felt asleep as everybody else. After 2-3 hours we reached our first stop at an highway restaurant, where we had typical Indian breakfast with dosa, igly and chai. Then we continued driving and reached a hill near the border of Kerala. One could see an amazing green landscape with one small temple on the top. At that time there was something like a public lunce where everybody get's some food at the temple. My friends and I didn't attend instead we made lot's of nice pictures and explored the surrounding by small tracks. One guy brought a cowboy head which made quiet descent pictures possible.
Short before we left there came a very dense fog, which restricted the view to less than 50m. Due to this, the ride back down the hill became a quiet big adventure for me, although the driver felt appearently pretty comfortable.
The next stop was at the border of Kerala where we have to pay some route tax and stopped for a nice chai. There was a nice rice field in an amazing clear green and more over a huge rickshaw transporter carrying a bunch of brand new tuc tucs.
After we stopped for some lunch, we arrived at Wayanad after sunset and searched for a stay. We found a stay by talking to some locals which are looking after the house of rich families and rent it during their absence. We got a quiet descent house with two stages, shower out of the bucket and a TV, so more than needed for a two day stay. After fixing the location we searched a bit for boose and watched a cricket game at the house.
The next day we stand up quiet early to get around Wayanad. We visited a small lake with some even smaller boats and a nice waterfall, which was quiet a challenge to reach. So a pretty hard track at least for an untrained German guy, but one get some pretty nice pictures of the mass of falling water.
After this exhausting trip, we get back into on the street cruising around. Than we saw some tea fields, and stopped for making some nice green pictures. Afterwards, we went to Asia's second biggest dam with the biggest human created lake. The funny thing about it, was that we went for a boat trip around the lake, with an speedy boat and I recognized that most of the Indian guys are not used to so much of water. As difference in Berlin you go for a swim or a boat ride whenever you like.
 The next day we went back to Bengalore on the way we stopped in Mysore checking out the zoo. Man, this was so crowded unbelievable, only comparable with the so in Berlin while this small polar bear baby was around. Despite from the funny warning on every cage and fence (like "These who throw objects at the crocodiles will be asked to retrieve them!!"), it was a bit sad, because most of the animal looked not ill or unhappy.
Nevertheless, after a short look at the closed palace we finally left to BLR.
To sum up, a wonderful trip around green nature. Thanks a lot guys

Thursday, September 9, 2010

India: daily life

The last post is longtime ago, so one short sum up from my life since the move to Koramangala.

My roommates are awesome. Currently, one french guy, one South-African guy, two Spanish ladies, one polish lady and my Swiss land lord. A very good mix. 2 weeks Sandra, a German student, left to France. Totally crazy girl, bargained with the rickshaw driver over each single rupee.
Via Sandra, I met Jo, one really cool Bavarian guy, who lives in Whitefield and works near by SAP.

As one can imagine, already well before Sandra left, we began to make countless farewell parties. Went to different places in the centre of Bangalore and has some line breaking house parties.
Where I met so many cool Indian guys, not only from Bangalore's IT industry, but also from different colleges and universities. Really crazy people.

Nevertheless my daily life in Bangalore is quite the same during the last few weeks. In principle, I stand up at 6.30, take a shower, and run for the SAP shuttle, which is always a really tight time plan for the morning, because the shuttle leaves at 7.20 and I like the snooze function of my alarm.

40min later, I arrive at SAP Labs India, and goes to my working place. Here I normally check mails and read some news till 9 o'clock. Afterwards is breakfast time combined with a short walk. Than the real working time starts for 4 hours, afterwards lunch break with throughout good, but sometime boring, Indian food. It depends on the daily workload and mainly one the daily effectiveness of mine, when I will leave. My leaving times in the office vary from 17 o'clock to 9.30. Another influence factor is, whether there are any leisure time activities scheduled, like hanging out in the city centre, make some TV watching season at Jo's apartment or cool dinners at my place.
On Tuesday, I helped the French guy to prepare crepes for the whole house. Delicious!!!
And Coni (Swiss land lord) was not so excited about the bunch of dishes lying around in the kitchen.
So, all in all, I'm totally into chillin' after a hard working day and finally, I go to sleep approximately 1 o'clock. But one can never predict what happens next in Bangalore so stay tuned.

By the way, I am still trying to buy a bike or a bicycle..., but on searching half-assed one will not find any cool offer. So I have to hurry up.