Karnataka Tabbies: August 2009

It's been cool here in ol'B'lore town for quite some time. The monsoon should soon abate to hot sunny weather, but I surely have enjoyed the cooler weather. Having said that, kindly note Alli's post of me in a blanket at Chikmagalur - I don't know what chill came over me, but it did consume me. The Thorne's In India enjoyed some visitors in August. Our friends from LA, the Sweet's (Janice, Doug, Tyler, Cody), became the SweetsInIndia for two weeks, and we tried to provide them with a flavor of India to take home. Also, we have been on a couple of train rides to Karnataka destinations just to see if India rail is similar to Italian rail. So, first, the travels and a few travails...

Blame it on Hampi, which is a must see destination as world heritage site of ancient Indian temples, ruins, etc. Hampi is about 400 km north of ol'B town, and Alli and Alex conspired to suggest the trip be made by overnight train - not a bad suggestion as 100km trip will take three hours, and air service is not available. However, before we embarked on an overnight train trip with three families, it was decided that we needed train training - during the daytime as a warm up for the Hampi trip. The Thornes and the Heihns did the trial train trip to Chikmagalur - a 3 hour trip one way (think "three hour tour") to work out

the kinks. After exhaustive research, requiring four separate web sites that are in no way intuitively obvious, Alex was able to book the train tickets, and we were off to rails unknown.

The train to Chikmagalur started and ended at the Yesvantpur train station in NW Bengaluru, which made inital start and final stop easy. All other stops were either short in duration (1-2 minutes) or rolling stops. Once train behavior was understood, our developing main issue and major paranoia with becoming rail hobos was a general lack of information regarding your immediate where abouts, and whether or not you have the immediacy of need to get on or off the train. Also, when you have 2 minutes to board the train, proper positioning on the platform when the train stops is crucial, or you are going to get into a car that may or may not allow you to get to your assigned car.

Arriving at Chikmagalur, a two minute stop, which we

all executed flawlessly, we stood on the platform while the train departed. We looked around and thought, OK, now what. It was a conscious thought by all the adults - the kids were still thinking "what were you thinking, bringing us here?". We were to have a vehicle from the resort pick us up, so we followed the crowd to see if we got lucky with plans made vs. plans ad-hoc. Upon walking out of the train station onto terra firma (no tar, no concrete, just bare dirt) we spotted the driver of said transportation. Yes, plans made did prevail. It was about another hour to the resort over one of the roughest roads we have endured. The driver indicated it was a "British" road, which after 62 years of independence you woulda thought qualified it for rejouvination; oh, well.

The resort at Chikmagalur was very nice, and they catered to our immediate needs of spiritual reinforcement (food and drink). An interesting anecdote about this trip was the frogs in the pool at night. It would seem that once the pools closes to human habitation it open to amphibians. I don't know if this is Darwin at work, or just another scheduled class of Indian society. The kids swam and had a good time chasing frogs after dark. We only stayed one night (this was a train training, not a traveling destination), and it was quite cool (did I mention that already?) , and I think the resort bar was depleted by the time of departure.

The next day, upon returning to the train station, we encountered our first "get on the train" exercise. Not much fun due to sick, grumpy kids and stressed parents. So, needless to say, our initial train training exercise was stressful. Needless to say, we all survived, and we learned about train travel in India. Knowledge that would be put to good use when we all (Thornes and Heihns) escorted the Sweets to Hampi.

The train to Hampi did not originate at our embarkation station (again Yesvantpur); so, we got to practice our two minute train embarkation drill. We all made it. This would be an overnight trip, and we embarked at 11pm; so, we got the kids to bed straight away. I, however, did not sleep much as you did not know when to get off the train. The little voice in my head was concerned with missing the stop, and I was awake all night with minimal rest. We did get off the train at the appropriate place, and the driver was waiting for us - all good news. We spent two nights in Hospete (the place with a hotel in the Hampi area), and the kids enjoyed the pool, climbing on rocks, and other kid friendly activities - monkeys, calves, and corricle rides. We managed to catch the train with another two minute drill, and to get off at the appropriate time.

Upon to return to B;loire, we were extremely happy to see our driver, Imtiaz, waiting for us as it was 5:30 am, and kids needed to get to school.

A couple of days after Hampi, I was taking Janice and Doug (Sweet's) to Commercial Street, which is one of the major retail market areas in

Bengaluru. We had just dropped Alli off at work, and we were stuck in traffic awaiting a right hand turn to get to the road to take us towards the Commercial Street area. The traffic lights were changing, and the traffic constable had quiesced the traffic in the intersection when a herd (10-15 head) of water buffalo entered from the south going north. The lights cycled once waiting for them to clear out of the way, and then the rodeo began. Three straggler buffalo entered the intersection and proceeded to butt head and push each other around. They were all over the intersection, and it was all the constable could do to keep out of the way. Needless to say, traffic could not move until the rambo buffaloes cleared out of the way. It was 4-6 traffic light cycles before we could move, and then the constable would not let us make our right turn [a right turn in India is a bad as a left turn in USA]; so, we had to go down the street aways, do a u-turn, and backtrack to the road we wanted so we could turn left onto it.

We have acquired a tandoori oven pot, and this coming weekend will be the trial run of the pot to see if we can actually cook something in it. Imtiaz and I picked up the tandooris (yes, plural as Alex and Stacy wanted one), and our next stop was the mall to get tickets to Harry Potter six - movie seats here are numbered and sold as specific seats, prepurchase is almost mandatory to gain entry to the movie. At any rate, with the two tandooris in the back of the van we rolled into the security check at the mall. The security guys opened up the van, and were shocked to find two 50 gallon drums in the back. This all required a fair amount of discussion before we were allowed to park in the ramp. Imtiaz and I were quite amused by it all as this was probably the first time these guys had even noticed anything.

Alli's folks are coming for a visit next week. Jessi is glad to know that Gramma and Grampa will be around for a bit. We plan to tour northern India with them (a future post to the Tabbies). So, August has been busy and eventful. I think our train traveling days are over, and I will try to remember to report on the tandoori trials. Oh, and it has been almost a year for the Thornes In India - will someone please send us decent braut?