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When the end is not THE END - The Falcon picks the flesh off the dying cardholder

2010-11-19T10:19:00.001+10:00

In my last post I declared it was the end but the Falcon had other ideas. The day we were to depart for India Kato went to use her credit card but alas no luck - continual rejection of the card.

What to do but revisit the Falcon's home to seek information. You will not believe what the Falcon had done. While Kato in Africa and AM in Australia were trying to sort out the continued fiasco of the skimmed/cancelled/reissued/recancelled card and seeking compensation for the X thousand dollars stolen from her card apparently she HAD MISSED THE $10 MINIMUM MONTHLY PAYMENT and without notice the Falcon had cancelled the card again.

So we have Kate in tears talking to the friendly crying Falcon branch manager and being joined by IW in tears as well. They had to put out the large yellow warning signs 'Slippery Floor - Please Take Care' for fear that a customer would slip on the now very wet branch floor and sue them.

To the branch managers credit she resurrected the card and informed Kato to never ring ANZ Card Services again but to please come and see her and she would sort it out. Her best quote was:

Please don't ring Card Services, they don't know what they are doing.

The card is now in Singapore en route to India:

Will the Falcon detect this suspicious movement and again cancel it to save Kato
Will the crying bank manager have the power to stop the Falcon interfering
Will Kato have the courage to stay with the Falcon
Will AM be sued for defamation for the slanderous reporting of this now 10 week epic

Stay tuned for it is NOT the end

The Falcon - The Final Episode

2010-11-14T14:24:00.000+10:00

This is the final act of the Falcon's incredible power to protect you even when you feel safe in his nest.

It is the closing chapter of the story related in this post.

Katie has returned home and applied for a new credit card with the Falcon - it was just way too hard for her to go elsewhere with all the links to this account. She listened intently to her fathers lecture about rewarding bad behaviour but decide that this was the path she would travel.

She visited the branch of the crying manager and checked that the card would go to the correct address, received all the correct assurances and waited......

Well the card arrived, she phoned the number and activated it, went to a shop and used it by signing for the transaction. All seemed good. Since all her accounts were linked she thought she would toddle in to the branch and get the pin reset so that she could then withdraw money from her savings through the miraculous electronic connection of savings and credit account. This was how she has always used the card - only one card but choose savings or credit.

She chose this method because the bank informed her it would take a week for the new pin to arrive by mail.

Into the bank she went armed with her credit card, duly signed on the back, her drivers licence with her photo and signature which matched the signature on the card and the simple request to reset the pin.

Can anyone spot any difficulty with this?

Are you sure this should be a simple straightforward request?

Are you aware of how powerful the Falcon's protective powers are? Remember his incredible ability to cancel a card even when a Branch Manager had identified me.

Well it appears that despite the owner of the card being present and not in Africa, and despite having her signed drivers licence with her, and despite being able to rack up thousands of dollars debt by presenting the card and signing for transactions, the Falcon's assistant could not reset the pin because to do that he required two pieces of identification and Katie only had one. He politely asked Katie if she could go home and return with her passport to support her drivers licence in this incredible process of identification despite being in the branch where the account was opened.

If she did that then he could reset the pin for her.

I am all for the bank protecting me from my own stupidity but the Falcon and his master the mighty ANZ bank have automated things to such a degree and created so many rules that they have completely removed any chance of personal conversation and common sense to come to the fore.

Don't you realise that you issued the card on a person's word and her drivers licence - no worries about doing that.

You would let her run up a debt to the limit of the card on her signature - no worries about that.

But to let her have access to all the things connected to the card THAT YOU GAVE HER on the basis of her photo identification apparently requires something else.

I do not understand - I will never understand why staff in branches are not allowed to exercise basic common sense in dealing with their customers. As Kato would say

the end

The Falcon has Crashed and Burned

2010-10-26T21:02:00.000+10:00

WARNING: This has turned out to be a long story - but it is worth persevering to the end.

Four weeks have elapsed since I first reported Kato's Credit Card fiasco. I will now share with you the conclusion to the story which in Wallis terminology is possibly one of the funniest days of my life. This is also a story of how my life was completely shredded in one 3 hour period.

Anyway - off we go. We duly received the 'Secret Pin" letter so knew that the card was on the way. Two days later the new Credit Card arrived with a letter stating that the new card had the same pin as the one it was replacing. Why the 'Secret Pin' letter then? Ring the Falcon - he will have the answer. Believe it or not but the cancelling of Kato's stolen card coincided with the replacement date of it so we had a card cancelled, a new card issued with the same pin number that was unusable and a new pin number for a card that was not issued because a replacement card was sent because the stolen one was expiring. Everyone keeping up with the story.

Easy I thought, we have a replacement card so the Falcon can enable it and we get it to Kato and everything is OK. WRONG. The Falcon says throw that card away, keep the secret pin number because that will match the new card when it arrives. Well we wait, and wait, and wait. Time is running out so another call to one of the Falcon's assistants to try to find out what was happening.

As much as I trust the Falcon, I am feeling a bit shakey. Despite the replacement for the expired/stolen/cancelled (call it what you like) plus the secret pin letter arriving safely at our postal address it seems that the new card has been posted to an address that Kato stayed at briefly before departing for Africa. How did this happen? The Falcon's assistant quickly pointed out that it was sent to the address on file. When I asked how the expired/stolen/cancelled card had arrived at our address and the secret pin letter had arrived at our address but the matching card didn't the Falcon faltered slightly. He never once admitted there could have been a mistake, just that 'THE SYSTEM' sends these things so it wasn't his fault.

Thank goodness it wasn't his fault.. We arrange to retrieve the letter, I make the phone call and activate the card. This was easy as I did not need to speak to anyone just keyed the card number and Kato's birthdate in (got the right birthdate this time) and 'THE SYSTEM' works with me to achieve the desired result.

Next day I visit the ATM and with the secret pin manage to change the pin to the one Kato uses so when she receives the card it will be ready to go. This change flows perfectly. I notice a pattern - when I can communicate direct to the Falcon's heart without an assistants intervention things seem to work smoothly. Now to get the card to Kato.

I had received an email from Kato suggesting that I send the card by FedEx as it would be safer and they would phone her when it arrived in Livingstone and she would pick it up. Where is FedEx? Where else but near the airport - that is on the way to everywhere!!!! Love of father knows no bounds so off I set to tackle the Airport Roundabout - a fantastic piece of engineering where we have a roundabout with three sets of traffic lights on it. Many people have explained why this is a good idea but I can never see the sense of traffic lights on a roundabout. Follow the directions and a few minutes later I spot the FedEx sign and stop.

Inside I am greeted by a very helpful man who furnishes me with the quadruple copy form and instructs me to 'press very hard' when filling it out. I duly do this - an act more like engraving than writing. Then the helpful man's assistant comes to work out how much it will cost - in a flash I am told $110. They both comment that this seems a bit excessive. Great judgment guys. Anyway after changing categories, sizes and weights they both look at me and say the price is ...... $110. There is nothing they can do.

I pause for a moment, think about the money Kato has spent in phone calls etc, her need to get access to her funds etc and decide to pay the money and get the card on its way. They guarantee delivery in under 5 days. A thought flashes through my mind, "Does the Falcon fly it over?" I immediately come to my senses as a cold shiver runs down my spine. Package delivered, pen broken from filling out the form and a strange feeling of satisfaction floods over me.

Back in the car to negotiate the Airport Roundabout and off to Indooroopilly Shoppingtown on my next errand. It is strange how a feeling of satisfaction can disappear so rapidly. I had just turned on to Milton Road when my phone rang - unknown number but for some reason I answered. It was Jim, my best friend from FedEx - bad news - we can't send the parcel as Federal Laws forbid the transport of credit cards to quite a few places, Zambia and Zimbabwe included. I asked if they could just change the description but apparently Customs will XRay the parcel anyway and stop it. Turn at the Brewery and head back to tackle the Airport Roundabout again.

Jim shows me the big book with the clear message of why they could not send it. Returns the parcel then refunds the money. I head off again through the dreaded roundabout with traffic lights and reach Indooroopilly Shoppingtown. It was here that I had a thought. The Falcon has a branch here, they must send cards to Zambia, they could help me. What a disastrous thought and action.

I walk into the Falcon's Lair an am greeted by the Manager, a delightful lady who listens to my story intently and assures me that they can help. I sit at her desk as she dials a number, identifies herself to the person on the other end with a code number and begins to explain the situation. After a couple of minutes she appears to be agitated as her voice gets ever so slightly louder as she keeps repeating "Do not do that, DO NOT DO THAT". This is followed by statements such as "I am trying to help these people you cannot do that".

The phone is hung up, tears stream down her face. The person at the other end has cancelled the card because someone other than the owner is in possession of it. I try to console the Manager but her rage overflows. All of a sudden I find that I am arguing the Falcon's side of the argument - she is only following procedure - I get shouted down by the Manager as she continues to apologise for the stupidity of the system. The system is stupid and allows for no human intervention. The face to face was good and there was understanding but the tragic result was that the card was cancelled and Kato would have to ring from Africa to order another one.

I thought that was enough so wandered off to buy a paper and sit with a cup of coffee before ringing Katie. She turns her phone off when she sleeps so I send her a text message asking her to text me when she wakes as I have a good story for her.

I head to the Newsagent and just before entering pull out my wallet and realise I have no money. No worries, an ATM for my bank is on the same floor but right at the other end. I stroll down to it trying to relax a bit. As I reach the ATM I see the dreaded words "Temporarily out of Service". Just how long is Temporarily I ask myself. I shove my card in the adjacent machine and withdraw the money including the "Yes I will pay a $2 fee for the extreme pleasure of using your machine".

I trudge back to the Newsagent and as I reach down THERE ARE NO PAPERS - they have sold out. This is the end for me as I head for a coffee. As I sit down my phone beeps with a message from Kate. I phone her and we laugh long and loud about the comical situation we are in. We devise a plan for her to get money, robbing a bank is not that hard is it. I remind her of one of my fathers favourite sayings:

"If you are going to rob a bank then do it yourself because if you get someone to help you they always turn out to be a thief."

She agrees. I drink my coffee and head home to tell IW the next chapter of Wallis folklore.

It Never Rains but it Pours - Part 2

2010-09-27T08:27:00.000+10:00

Continued ....

Kato's latest text to me was:

"Hallelujah!!! I just spoke to someone with a brain!! Will email tonight with an update."

Well the Falcon appears to have risen and taken flight and things are on the rise. AM still has a lot of questions about the lack of understanding displayed by the Falcon's assistants but at last we found a gem. She is the Assistant with a Brain. (Hereafter called AwaB).

She listed the bogus transactions for Kato to fill out the form so that the bank can 'officially consider' refunding the money. AwaB could have posted the card to Zambia but unfortunately the lesser assistant has already posted it to us so we will now have to find a way to get it to Zambia. AwaB could also re-enable internet banking so Kato can access other accounts.

It begs the question as to how many AwaB's does the mighty Falcon have as we have only encountered one on this journey with him?

Anyway, things are on the up. IW has three radiography sessions to go this week and then the treatment is over and we look for the improvement in pain relief and movement. AMandIW expect normal transmission to be resumed shortly. Thanks again for all the support we have received.

It Never Rains but it Pours

2010-09-24T04:04:00.001+10:00

It never rains but it pours. An old saying and a true one. It was the title of the last email I received from daughter 3 presently in Zambia. For me it transports my mind in several areas at once. Firstly that original meaning of "When troubles come they come together" and secondly back to my childhood and one of the few things that I can still recite from my Primary School days the poem My Country by Dorothea Mackellar.

The second verse in particular which transports us from the staid first verse referring to England to the second verse which bursts forth with the vast contrasts of my country.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror—
The wide brown land for me.

It has always puzzled me as to why in our country when people suffer through years of drought it is generally broken by the heartbreak of floods that follow the rains that break the drought. It is a land of excess and I guess our lives are ones of excesses.

IW is halfway through the radiotherapy and going OK. The major obstacles being the constant nausea and general tiredness. Sleep is patchy but all in all we say to each other "Half way now - in a week we will be in a better place".

Back to the "It never rains but it pours" email. It really started with my mobile phone signalling a message Thursday morning at about 5:45 am just as I arrived home from my daily gym session.

The message read:

"Hi. Sorry if this wakes you. I've sent you an email, can you read it asap. I need my credit card cancelled' Leaving my phone on. You can call anytime."

It was from Kato. Didn't bother to read the email but phoned straight away to find that the details of both her credit card and the card of one of her travelling companions had been skimmed while using an ATM in Livingstone. She has had several thousand dollars of transactions run up on the card and could not get through to the bank on her phone from Zambia - could I do something?

I felt comfortable with the situation - I had seen the ad for the ANZ Falcon and knew everything would be OK.

Found the number, rang, waited for the helpful Falcon to swoop to my assistance. Initially there was some success. I managed to get the card cancelled despite giving the wrong birthday for Kato when quizzed by the Falcon's assistant. It still amazes me how easy it was to get a card for a female cancelled when obviously I was a male providing a wrong birthdate. Maybe it was the genuine desperation in my voice.

The Falcon's assistant then switched on super-helpful mode. There was no more I could do, Kato would have to ring them but they have a wonderful toll-free number so she can ring for no cost and get everything sorted out. I jump on the phone and tell her the good news.

The card is cancelled
She is slightly younger that she thinks she is.

Gee the Falcon is pretty good. Last night I received the following text message:

"This is a nightmare! Just spent $30 talking to the most useless person on the face of the planet. Will send you an email tonight."

I guess the Falcon has crashed and burned.

To be continued ....

Session One is complete

2010-09-20T14:33:00.000+10:00

It was indeed a long weekend. Pain from the hips and across the back was not being contained by the medication. IW had not slept well for quite a few days and the lack of sleep and pain was making her life a real misery. A phone call to the Oncologist on Sunday led AMandIW to the Emergency Ward at the Mater Hospital, there we spent about 5 hours being attended to by some great medical people.

IW was put on a drip and it was not long before the pain subsided and she slipped into a deep sleep. They prescribed some stronger medication for pain and sleep and off we went home.

Sunday night saw the best sleep for quite a while and a refreshed and renewed IW ready to face her first session of radiotherapy this morning.

A 40 minute session and we were done and heading home for IW to rest. Another four sessions this week and three next week to complete the course then wait for the signs of healing.

Thanks for all the messages from near and far, from friends of long standing here at home to our extended family in Puyallup and Grand Rapids.

Sorry for our lack of personal replies to you wonderful people

Flattening the Bump

2010-09-18T14:44:00.000+10:00

It has been a long couple of weeks, tests, listening to the experts, long periods of wondering and the amazing presence of God in our lives as expressed by His Saints.

IW starts radiotherapy on Monday. Four sessions this week and four sessions next week. That's it. Then we wait for the signs of healing, relief from pain, regaining energy and a renewed sense of being back on the road again.

Thanks for all the support we have received from close to home and around the world. AMandIW are indeed fortunate people.

gnuspeak

2010-09-11T16:44:00.001+10:00

Since resuming the blog we have picked up quite a few people who don't know some of the abbreviations (or gnuspeak as we refer to it as) that we use so AM thought it would be good to list these and link them to where they are first used. Here they are in no particular order. We hope this helps.

AAPS - Allocated Australian Personal Space
CIC - Check In Clerk
IW - Invisible Woman
BP - Beauty Parlour
TG - Tour Guide
AM - Action Man
GMP - God's Mighty Provision
TIC - Teacher In Charge
AMandIW - the collective noun when AM and IW are together
AwaB - Assistant with a Brain

A Bump in the Road

2010-09-09T13:53:00.000+10:00

It has been a long time but it is time for AM and IW to return to the blogosphere.

A lot of things have happened since our return from India over 12 months ago. We have been exploring a direction for our life with the help of UnitingWorld and arrived at the decision that the next step for AMandIW (this is the new collective term for us) would be Zimbabwe. The basic plan is to resign from our jobs and in late January head off to work with the Uniting Church of Zimbabwe in the area of Orphans and Vulnerable Children.

Well this is still our goal but there has been a 'Bump in the Road'.

AMandIW have been working hard on our health the past few months, changed our eating patterns, joined a Gym and have lost a combined total of about 26 kg. Pretty impressive we thought. About a month ago IW got a sore hip - overdone the exercise was the popular opinion so off to the local chiropractor for a bit of relief.

After a session or so it was suggested that we should get some XRay's. This was followed by a trip to the GP, some bone scans, some CT scans an MRI a trip to IW's Oncologist and a diagnosis that there was cancer present in the left pelvis and right femur plus various spots on the shoulders/back. We were both in disbelief. How could this happen when our plans were set and everything seemed so straight forward.

Everything was put on hold as we plotted a new way forward with the help of some very good medical practitioners. The end result is that IW will soon begin a regime of Radiotherapy to the left pelvis and right femur plus some to the right chest area where there is some suspicious 'thickening'.

We have been encouraged by the advice that we should be able to continue our adventure to Zimbabwe next year but will wait a couple of months to test the effectiveness of the treatment being given.

Stay tuned as AMandIW deal with the 'Bump in the Road' and see where the next adventure is.

On the Road (Plane) Again

2010-02-20T15:02:00.003+10:00

Well here we sit at Kuala Lumpur waiting for our connecting flight back to Chennai.

What are we doing here? - well a small window of opportunity opened up that allowed us to see the 12 Std girls (aka Year 12 girls in Oz) before their final Public Exams and then their disappearance back to their villages or hopefully for some, tertiary studies.

When the window opened both IW and AM grabbed it and ripped it wide open. After consultation with the Principal and Uniting World it was agreed that we would come back for a couple of weeks.

We hope it has been kept a secret from our Hostel girls so we can surprise them. We don't know how successful this has been as we received an email from one of the day students from the Orchestra telling us that when they were practicing on Tuesday (in the house where we stayed) the groundsman came in and told them to leave as they had to get the house ready for the return of Uncle and Aunty (AM and IW).

They have assured us that they won't tell the Hostel girls so we will wait and see.

We will arrive at the school at about 11:00 Saturday night and hopefully slip in unnoticed (by the girls). Then we will just walk down and meet them when they are boarding the bus to go to Church on Sunday morning.

Well that's the plan, so stay tuned to see how it works out.

Bye for now.

AM and his editorial assistant IW.

Back at Work

2009-09-02T15:44:00.002+10:00

IW and AM have returned to work so expect details of the departure from Jessie Moses and the resumption of responses to agr's questions shortly.

We did get through all the questions so only have to write them up now so expect them to come at a rapid pace. AM just has to get IW's hands back on the keyboard to complete her answers.

Thanks for your patience.

Blog pause

2009-08-13T12:05:00.002+10:00

Sorry for the delay in posting.

Last few days have been very hectic. We fly out of India tomorrow morning for a three day break in Singapore before arriving back in BrisVegas on Friday morning.

May be able to answer a few more of agr's questions from Singapore but no promises.

Questions 21-27 have been submitted by agr so stay tuned for the answers plus some news about our many farewell parties we had.

Question 20

2009-08-13T12:03:00.002+10:00

agr's question: "What is your view of the Madras Diocese of the Church of South India?"

I have been encouraged by what I have seen. The range of services they provide is extensive. Their focus on Mission and Evangelism is quite incredible and the way they send missionaries into the villages to live with and help the people is a great model.

The sacrifice that is made to meet the needs of others has challenged me.

Question 19

2009-08-13T12:02:00.000+10:00

agr's question: "Some advice for me and my community?"

A community seems to be made up of people headed in the same direction but not necessarily all thinking the same so what direction do you and the Hostel want to go?

agr and I have spoken about the force of 91 girls wanting to head in the same direction and the impact that would have on the greater school community at CSI Jessie Moses.

Most girls here know what they want but at the moment they are individuals. The Hostel community needs leaders to focus the group but not to take control. Community is a gentle moving of people as they see what they have to offer each other and those outside their particular community.

The next question for agr and the Hostel girls is how do they as individuals influence each other to focus on the common community good rather than on the individual good.

Question 18

2009-08-12T11:57:00.003+10:00

agr's question: "Who is the most highly regarded person in your life other than IW and God"

The short answer is there is no definitive answer.

There have been many people in my life that I look up to and regard highly, who because of their actions have helped me to grow in my understanding of who I am.

I guess I should stop sitting on the fence as I know in my mind there is one person who has exhibited God's grace to me and taught me more about grace than anyone else.

To find out the name just click and drag the mouse between the two asterisks below.

* Ken Neill *

agr away

2009-08-12T11:50:00.003+10:00

Sorry for the delay in questions from agr but she returned home for her sister's wedding. She arrived back last night with a sheet of paper with 11 questions on it for us. We will try to get them up as soon as possible, so expect a bundle of new posts over the next few days.

We only have four days left so it is one of those happy/sad occasions. A bit like seeing your mother-in-law drive off a cliff in your brand new Mercedes.

Thursday night we are having a party for the girls. They are busy preparing all sorts of entertainment that they will not tell us about so it should be a fun night. AM might have to do some action songs for them.

Question 17

2009-08-06T11:31:00.003+10:00

agr's question: "Having worked through the de-briefing process with most girls now how do you think it will be for us after you leave?"

Life will go on but will be different. I do not believe the Principal or the teachers have a good understanding of our journey together over the last six months. Most girls are aware of the change that is happening but I think some are denying it.

It is hard on both sides but the similarities between us leaving and a death in the family are very similar. The big difference is that we know when the death is going to occur so we need to make sure that we have said and done all that we want to before that date.

Now that we have been through the process with all of you we are trying to get time with the Principal so that the teachers are made aware of it.

Everyone in the Hostel needs to look after each other and watch out for behaviour changes and help each other through it. We will have exactly the same problems as we leave.

Question 16

2009-08-05T11:29:00.001+10:00

agr's question: "What is the importance of Community living in Australia and how well has that been achieved?"

I think it is becoming less and less important as the years roll on. Nowdays people seem to live more for themselves and don't care about their neighbour.

Increased population, more unit living, lack of contact erodes relationships. People seem to be too busy with their own pursuits and do not want to invest time in others.

Question 15

2009-08-04T11:27:00.001+10:00

agr's question: "What places in Indian do you love?"

My knowledge is limited as apart from two weeks touring North India the rest of the time has been spent at the famous CSI Jessie Moses Matriculation and Senior Secondary School.

Jessie Moses has nice dirt that I walk in daily and has become my home so I am familiar with it and love it. I also love the Cafe Coffee Day on 3rd Avenue which has been the scene of daily ventures for good coffee.

As mentioned before you cannot go past the Taj Mahal for a truly spectacular historical place. A truly breathtaking place.

Question 14

2009-08-03T11:25:00.002+10:00

agr's question: "How are Worship Services conducted in Australia?"

I first gave the traditional Australian answer "Very badly". The answer gave me that warm inner glow that I had missed for six months.

After spending 10 minutes with agr explaining sarcasm we got back to the question.

agr is used to the Church of South India service so with that as a base we looked at the elements contained in it and could see those same elements of worship being present in other churches in different forms.

It does not matter which continent you are on when you go to worship you have to remember it is not about you but about God.

Question 13

2009-08-02T11:56:00.002+10:00

agr's question: "Why doesn't God stop bad things from happening to us?"

I still struggle to answer this without using what I consider glib religious jargon. I remember when Lynn was suffering and my starting point was "Why us" and at times even more selfishly "Why me" as if my life and relationship with God was some sort of guarantee against anything bad ever happening to me/us.

For me, now, I just don't see it in God's job description. His greatest desire is to bless us but we are too clever and find a myriad of ways to ignore His call to live in unity.

For me the question is more "Why don't I stop doing bad things to others and myself?"

Question 12

2009-08-01T12:03:00.009+10:00

agr's question: "Comparison and difference between Indian and Australian Education?"

Not being an education expert I have asked special guest Anna to respond.

Anna teaches at a High School.

I think the main difference is that there is more focus in Australia on the journey of education - learning for enjoyment, finding out about yourself and social interaction, whereas in India, the focus is on the outcome - learning for exams and assessment. There is a lot more assessment in Indian education and a lot more focus on learning things off by heart. In Australia, the assessment is not really about what you can remember, but what you can do with the information you have learnt.

And a response from John from a tertiary perspective.
I know little about higher education in India; what I do know of Australain higher ed is that reputation of the institution you choose to attend is important.
Secondly,the focus is very much on how to think, not what to think; certainly in the areas in which I work. There is a lot of attention given to written and spoken communication.

From Kindergarten Singer to Music Maestro

2009-07-30T17:48:00.008+10:00

Night two - the final performance

Previously you read about IW and AM's exciting adventures in teaching songs to Kindergarten children. About 5 weeks ago IW was approached by the teacher in charge of the orchestra (Hereafter known as TIC) who has absolutely no musical knowledge, to assist in the preparation of the orchestra for the school Awards Night on 28 July. IW accepted this offer not really knowing what it involved.

We will now relate how this kind offer from TIC turned into an immense challenge for IW. You see in India, assist means - you do all the work, but TIC steps in when she wants to and arbitrarily changes things. The basic request was for 30 minutes (or 6 songs) singing prior to the commencement of the evening program and 2 items during the program.

TIC sent 2 of the "orchestra" girls to work with IW to select the songs for the evening. At this point in time perhaps we should define the word "orchestra". In actual fact this was a group of 16 girls, ranging in age from 12 - 16, with minimal musical experience. There were 3 keyboard players. 2 violinists, 2 guitarists, 2 drummers (but only one drum set) and 5 vocalists. It was what we in Oz would call a school band.

IW worked with the 2 girls and sorted out a range of songs that would be suitable and relatively easy to perform given the short time available to practice before the performance. The girls took this list to TIC to inform her of what the orchestra would be performing.

As stated above TIC decided that she didn't like our selection and suggested some others. Most of you know IW fairly well and can imagine her "frustration" at this point, having spent a couple of hours in the selection process with the girls. IW was fairly outspoken in her objections to TIC's request. It was at this point that we think TIC realised that IW was a force to be reckoned with.

IW, the girls and TIC resolved the song list and practice began. At our first practice it became obvious that we needed to separate singers from instrumentalists as there was a lot of work to be done with both groups. Another interesting point surfaced at our first practice - TIC informed us that the Awards Night would be on the 22nd not the 28th and that we would also being doing a dress rehearsal on the 21st which was a minor presentation evening.

WOW! With a short statement from TIC, one week of practice just vanished before our eyes. This left us two weeks preparation to learn 8 songs with children with minimal singing and instrumental experience. Fortunately, "nothing is impossible for God" which is what IW kept reinforcing to the girls.

The first part of God's provision was the presence of IW's sister Kath (Hereafter known as GMP - God's Magnificent Provision). The decision was made that GMP would work with the singers which she did brilliantly and IW would use all of her "orchestra experience" to turn the novices into a well oiled machine.

The orchestra

Practice continued with GMP working with the singers and IW with the musos for the first half of the practice, then all coming together for the second half. For the first week we practiced every afternoon for about 3 hours and in the week prior to the performance about 4 -5 hours (mostly during school time). As there was no place on the school premises for them to practice our lounge room was transformed into the orchestra "pit".

Another thing to note about Indian schools is that the Principal is the final arbiter on all things that occur. This is especially important to note when talking about Awards Night which is the premier event in the school calendar. What we discovered was that every item that was to be performed on the night had to be critiqued and approved by the Principal beforehand.

For the orchestra this meant that she visited the orchestra pit (AKA our lounge room) to listen to the two item songs. She approved them and "encouraged" the girls with the words "I'm sure you'll be better on the night" and then left. IW was flabbergasted!! but the girls didn't seem to mind so we just went with the flow.

Having thought we were over the critiquing hurdle we continued to practice. Much to our surprise TIC informed us that we had to be critiqued, along with all the other items, by the Principal, on the stage that was constructed in the dirt, for the Awards Night. This was an ordeal! We had to carry, 3 keyboards and stands, 1 drum kit, 2 guitars, 2 violins down to set up on the stage in the midday sun and stand for at least an hour being berated by the Principal for taking so long to set up when in actual fact the sound people were holding up the proceeds because they were still sorting out microphones.

The result of this "practice" was demoralising for the girls, with the Principal telling them their performance was substandard. IW was very angry. The sound quality was pathetic - all sound unbalanced - singers were made to stand behind the band because there is an unwritten requirement in India that all girls' parents must be able to see their children.

Did we say before that IW was angry! Yes she was! and made it very clear that it was impossible for the singers to stand behind the band as they couldn't hear any music. Drr! The Deputy Principal who was running the "show" knew by one look at IW's face that this was not going to be an acceptable solution to the "girls not being seen" problem and promptly suggested that we put desks on the dirt in front of the stage for the singers to stand on, which is what we did.

However, one of the things this practice did highlight for IW was that a couple of the singers couldn't sing in tune and as each of the singers had a microphone this was highlighted fairly badly. This was another problem IW had to think about. She decided that although GMP had taught harmony parts to these girls, in the open air with individual microphones, this would not work and tactfully suggested this to the girls involved. They understood the wisdom of this and we think were a little relieved. Their only concern was that GMP would be disappointed but IW pointed out that GMP would understand.

Needless to say we regrouped in the orchestra pit and went about rectifying the damage done to the girls' self-esteem. IW worked hard to try to remain positive and focussed.

We have noticed that all events staged in the school grounds (ie capping, weddings, etc) the rule of sound is that everything is turned up as loud as possible. We had a hurdle to overcome with the sound people to enable the individual instruments and vocalists to be balanced. IW worked hard with them to help them understand the needs of the orchestra and by the time of the second performce the sound was reasonable and the girls did a great job. However even on this night there was no foldback for the singers no matter how many times IW explained how difficult this was for them.

The girls at prayer before night one

There were a lot of positive comments from the hostel girls and parents and Bishop gave IW the "thumbs up". The girls were all happy and we celebrated with them on the following Sunday at our favourite coffee haunt.

Again it was reinforced to IW and AM that delegation is non-existent in India and when you think you are asked to manage a task, you need to understand that the person who delegates the task still exercises their right to change things as they see fit.

The grounds after the event - but this is another story!

Question 11

2009-07-29T11:01:00.005+10:00

agr's question: "What is the nicest thing we have seen in Australia?"

This is a repeat of Question 9 but referring to Australia rather than India.

For the first part, the beaches and the bush. It is a very relaxing place and very easy to get away and find space to think.

The second part is the opportunity there is to discover what to do with the riches that we have been given. If you put your mind to it you can do whatever you want. Mixing that opportunity into your life is a fantastic thing.

Question 10

2009-07-28T11:00:00.003+10:00

agr's question: "Describe your life before you accepted Jesus and after - what changed?"

Before I accepted Jesus I was rich, famous, had lots of friends and could do what I wanted. Now I am living in the dirt in India a million miles from my friends.

OOPS sorry, mind wandered - getting ready to come home in a few weeks.

From my perspective the change has been in my thoughts and understanding of my purpose. I think of others a lot more now. I try to see how I fit into the bigger picture of life rather than think about my own situation alone.

In a nutshell, I still do much the same things but it is the reason that I do things now that is different.

Discoveries in Sport

2009-07-27T20:30:00.006+10:00

Being a keen sports observer only now days AM is always on the lookout for new sports to watch. During our time here we have discovered three worth commenting on. They are

AM will leave it up to you to discover video footage of these games but will offer some of his thoughts. The first two games are played with no equipment except the players and a marked court and the third is played with rackets and a small woollen ball. We saw all three games played in actual competition over the last two days at the Zone Sports.

Seeing them played in competition stirred all sorts of emotions in AM as he saw the 'real Indian parent' in action plus a magnificent performance by a 'cheating coach'.

Kho Kho

We first saw this being played by the girls of the hostel and all three age group teams of the school are made up exclusively by hostel girls. It is basically a tag and chase game and our girls are exceptional at it and AM loves it. You must be fit and be able to think strategically to be good at it. Basically it is a game of two halves with your team having to chase and catch for one and be chased in the other.

The strategies involved are great so watching is most enjoyable. Naturally it is played on dirt so blisters and gravel rash are predominant for the participants. AM likes it because when you get your strategies right you can completely frustrate the opposition.

Our Senior team was so dominant that in the final they chased first and caught all twelve girls on the opposition team then when they ran they used up all the allotted time with not one runner being caught.

Our Intermediate team was 'robbed' by the opposing cheating coach. We chased first and caught four, then they chased and also caught four. I have no idea what the tie breaker is as 'the cheat' engaged in an angry debate with the umpire saying that we only caught three. We all knew we caught four, his girls knew that four were caught, the score book (a piece of paper filled out by two independent scorers) confirmed that we caught four but his 15 minute tirade of shouting somehow convinced all umpires to award his team the match. Our girls were devastated and so was AM who told 'the cheat' so in his best Aussie accent.

Our poor teacher tried to engage in some sensible discussion referring to the score sheet but 'the cheat' was not letting any facts get in the way. I believe that in true Indian fashion the umpire just gave in to stop his outburst.

Kabaddi

AM had heard about this game in our first week here but could not understand it until yesterday when we witnessed our first game. It can be best described as a brutal version of 'murder ball' surrounded by a small scaffold of rules. It is great. AM saw girls playing it and it was vicious. Cannot possibly imagine what it would be like to witness a game involving grown men. We do not play it at Jessie Moses and even our hostel girls say it is too rough.

Basically it involves two teams of seven facing each other on a dirt (of course) court. One team sends a raider down the court who attempts to tag one of the seven opponents and get back to their half while the team of seven try to 'capture' the raider.

A few definitions to give you an idea:

Tag - means tag. This can be by touching, hitting, kicking, slapping etc
Capture - means bring the raider to ground by tackling them, grabbing their hair, scratching and generally involves the whole seven ending up on top of the raider inflicting as much pain as possible. Catching by the hair was a feature of the game AM witnessed.

You get a point for a tag and return and a point for a capture and people are eliminated as they are tagged or captured and it is also played to a time limit.

It is simple but there is also a lot of strategy involved and was very enjoyable to watch especially as the seven 'capture' girls climbed off the poor girl they had nearly trampled to death, dusted her off, all smiled and returned to their lines to try again.

Ball Badminton

You might wonder how this fits in with the other two sports. AM would like to state quite categorically that it does not fit at all.

We went today to the Ball Badminton. Our girls, being last year's champions had a first round bye. It was a three team competition (because only three appeared) so a first round bye means that you are playing in the grand final later in the day - good start.

We settled in to watch the game to see who our opposition were. After 1.5 hours had elapsed AM suggested to IW that they should do something exciting like go to the dentist and get some teeth pulled without any anaesthetic.

It was terrible - mainly because the girls were not very good. The game dragged on to three sets and 2 hours and ten minutes. To give them a rest before the grand final our Junior team played another team.

Ball Badminton is best of three sets with each set the first to 29 points. Five players in each team. When you serve if you win the point you keep serving. If you lose the serve passes to your number 2 player and proceeds until all 5 players have lost a serve. You can only win points when you are serving so all the time the opposition is winning points on your serve they get no points until they have won on all five players then they get to win the right to serve and win points. Understand?

Our Juniors lost the toss so received - with no chance of winning a point until all five opposition players had served. AM settled back to 'enjoy' the spectacle. Well wham bam and five serves occurred and we won all five and with it the serve and the score still nil all.

Our player number one served, it was quite a spectacle, 29 serves, about 10 minutes, we won 29 points and the first set was over. Unfortunately the opposition refused to play the second set and so conceded the game.

So with about 20 minutes rest the poor opponents of the Seniors returned to play our girls. Now I want to say that our girls were very good and our opponents, at very best, were poor. Unfortunately for them we won the toss and elected to serve.

Did we mention that our girls were very very good. They did concede a couple of points along the way but won two sets to nil. It would be good to see two good teams play but at this point in time Ball Badminton has been crossed off AM's list of sports.

Ground Conditions

The story would not be complete without a comment and some pictures of the ground staff preparing the Ball Badminton court. Our bus arrived at about 9:00 am and we were shown where the game was to occur. From a distance it looked promising with two men marking out the boundary of the court with rope.

As we got nearer it seemed that the court was not very flat. AM's initial comment was that it looked more like a moto-cross venue - it was bad. AM has played on a lot of bad football fields in his youth but what we witnessed over the next thirty minutes was priceless.

As usual because our skin is white we have an inability to stand so chairs were found and positioned on the side line. We dutifully sat and watched the final stages of the line marking with the rope being secured by four tent pegs being banged in by rocks at the four corners of the court. Looked good, the tent pegs sticking up about four inches in the air might be a problem for players in Australia but in India all was OK.

As the clock crawled on to 10:00 am we were assured that the game would start soon. Have I mentioned the undulations on the field - they are severe. One near us is so big it could be used to hide in and no one would ever find you. The ground is rough, uneven and of course dirt with a splattering of dead grass in places. Our girls are tough though so they will cope.

What happened next even made AM's jaw drop. All of a sudden a small Indian man appears with a crow-bar and starts digging. As he digs, four young school girls kneel at his feet, perilously close to the flailing crow-bar and start scratching in the holes that he is digging. AM goes for the camera to record this. The girls are actually pulling out large stones, half bricks, boulders etc from the holes being dug and carrying them to the side line. This is doing nothing for the already uneven field. AM claims he saw the girls pull a motor bike out of one of the holes but IW disputes this.

After fifteen minutes of digging and stamping another amazing thing happened. The girls started digging a hole in the dirt about 20 metres from the side line and transported that dirt and rock and sticks to the court and threw it randomly over the court. By 10:20 am the court was somehow declared fit for play and the start of the marathon Ball Badminton game mentioned above began.

Another small anecdote from the dullest game in the world. This occurred after the two teams had waited over an hour for the game to start, the court to be 'levelled" etc.

After the serving team won the first point and in doing so leaping to a commanding 1-0 lead, one of their girls raced to the umpire for a conversation. All of a sudden the game is stopped and off she races across the paddock. We see her stop where their team bags were about 200 metres from where the game is. AM grabs his binoculars and sees that from her bag she has pulled a white skirt. She then asks a question to someone standing nearby who points to a building even further away.

She emerges a few minutes later with her white skirt on and runs back to the game and it resumes. We have no idea why this was important as the rest of the team are clad in skirts, track suit bottoms, shorts etc all of different colours but she for some reason wanted to have her white skirt on to look the part.

AM had a serious memory flashback to a conversation he had with his father some 51 years ago. On a Friday night in the Wallis household during football season you sat and cleaned your boots, put clean, starched, white laces in them and packed your bag making sure that everything was there that you needed for the game.

As a six year old AM asked why it was necessary to have everything clean. The reply was a swift, even if you cannot play football you can at least look like a footballer - you will fool some of the opposition. AM does not know if this was true for this girl or why she decided to change after waiting for 1 1/2 hours while the ground was being "prepared".

Rocks removed from the field prior to start of play

An 'action shot' of our neatly uniformed girls

plus the ground staff hard at work

Question 9

2009-07-27T11:09:00.004+10:00

agr's question: "What is the nicest thing we have seen in India?"

Two answers, thing as in place or object and thing as in event.

During our two weeks off in May we visited the north of India and were eagerly looking forward to seeing the Taj Mahal. It did not dissapoint us. It rekindled our memory of our visit to the Grand Canyon in America in 2000. We had seen lots of photos but when the actual thing burst into sight it took your breath away.

The Taj Mahal was magnificent and we sat for quite a while just looking - as it is often said - impossible to describe.

The second part of the answer for us is the people. Wherever you go they stop you and want to talk to you. They express a genuine interest in where you are from and what you are doing and what you think of their country. They have an immense pride in their country and want to make sure everything is OK.

Question 8

2009-07-26T11:08:00.003+10:00

agr's question: "What is one thing you would change in India?"

The thing that first springs to mind is the way people dispose of rubbish. Although the grounds of the Jessie Moses school are just dirt, when it is raked it looks quite nice.

At the end of a school day and particularly after a function the ground is just covered with garbage. People here do not even make an attempt to put rubbish in a bin it is just dropped where you are.

For me, it gives the appearance that no one cares and with a little bit of effort it could look nice all the time.

This is not a major issue but with a tiny amount of effort it would change the way people perceived things.

Question 7

2009-07-25T13:59:00.002+10:00

agr's question: "According to you, what would defile my soul?"

We chatted about our soul and spirit but eventually the real meaning of agr's question was "What is the most horrible thing I can do that God could not possibly forgive?"

When we reached this point it was clear to me that the thought was that we had to try and avoid doing things just in case we stumbled across something that was unforgivable. This is not a very helpful way to live - it is living in fear whereas God calls us to live a life of victory.

God's forgiveness is unconditional, I seek His forgiveness, repent and He forgives. God is in the forgiveness business, dispensing it with joy when we come to Him. That does not mean that we go through life doing what we like but instead our life is that journey of being Christ-like to those we meet.

So what happens if in this journey I stumble on this act that is unforgivable? Have I already committed it so my cause is lost?

It seems to me that I have a free will to do whatever I want so I can choose to seek forgiveness or I can reject God's forgiveness. Therefore for me the unforgivable thing is to reject God's offer of forgiveness. If I do that then there is nothing God can do about it as I have free will and He cannot forgive me unless I want to be forgiven.

Seeking God's forgiveness also means that I have to seek the forgiveness of those I have wronged. For me the God bit is so much easier than confessing to another person.

Question 6

2009-07-24T19:12:00.003+10:00

agr's question: "What is your point of view on fasting?"

Fasting is a personal voluntary experience. It is a private thing not a secret thing.

For me it changes the focus from self to God and is mentioned in the Bible as an aid to my prayer life.

Fasting is abstaining from something, it is physical self-denial and preparation - time apart to let God exercise His way. We should fast sacrificially - it should cost us something.

Fasting and prayer went together in the early church. Guidance, power and authority were expected after prayer and fasting.

Jesus said WHEN you fast - it was a normal part of His life.

Question 5

2009-07-23T11:19:00.002+10:00

agr's question: "What is the most successful moment in your life?"

This question begs another - "What is success?"

After our discussion on that question my response was along the line that what I consider successful will look completely different from other people's perspectives.

On pondering further I would consider my major success was learning to love those around me a bit better. To move the focus from me to others. This is very much two steps forward, one step back. This is also the title of a blog that I follow written by a friend of mine. It is well worth reading.

Success is not something that I strive for but a label that others might bestow sometimes on some of my actions that makes me feel good about myself. I do not do things to be successful, I do things because I believe that is what I should do.

Living is not an exact science but an ongoing experience that at times I do better at than other times. What has been the most successful moment in my life? I pray that lots of people will tell me lots of different things because success is generally noticed by those watching the game rather than those participating in the game.

Question 4

2009-07-22T11:00:00.002+10:00

agr's question: "What do I think about atheists?"

My answer was the same as I think about Christians or Muslims or Jews or an Indian auto driver.

Please Note: Indian auto driver is a fictitious position and is not meant to refer to any Indian auto driver in particular, living or dead.

We are all people on a journey searching for meaning and purpose and to be loved and to love. I encounter all sorts of people in my life, some I like and others that I don't, some that care for me and others that seem to ignore me.

My faith journey is one of seeking to follow Jesus so those I love I need to love better, those I don't like I need to discover how Jesus would have loved them and then attempt to move in that direction. So for me the question of an atheist or a Muslim or a Jew or an Indian auto driver (see note above re Indian auto driver) is irrelevant. The real question is about people who are on a journey and how I, on my journey can also become part of theirs.

Just as there are some people who call themselves Muslims or Jews and commit terrible deeds that I would not want to associate with there are also some people who call themselves Christians who commit acts that I would not like to identify with either.

(Please insert your own Indian auto driver story here)

The label is not really that important and in my life I have found it more of a hinderance. Lets get to know people then see what God would have us do through the relationship that develops.

I crave for people to forgive me when I do the wrong thing so what right do I have to withhold my forgiveness from anyone.

Question 3

2009-07-21T11:59:00.000+10:00

agr's question: "Who is the Holy Spirit and have you ever experienced Him?"

Suffice to say agr and AM spent a considerable time talking about this question. agr's main point was how does she know the Holy Spirit. We talked about how does she know God the father and Jesus. We shared some experiences and how the Holy Spirit manifests himself in people's lives.

As usual the best help I could give her was to refer her to a book I had just finished. Just up the road there is a Catholic Church with a bookstore attached. Books are so cheap here that we do not know how we will bring all our purchases home.

Rush out and buy 'The Mystery of Pentecost' by Raniero Cantalamessa O.F.M.Cap. It is a series of four meditations starting with the interpretation given the mystery of Pentecost by Luke in Acts, John in his Gospel, and Paul in his letters (to quote the back page). I found it very enlightening and now agr is reading it. In Chennai it sells for 40 Rupees (AU$1.10). It is 80 pages and great reading. If you cannot get it let me know and I will bring a few extra copies home.

My apology for this short answer on such a great question but I don't want to turn these answers into long involved blogs. Get the book and read it - it is great.

Question 2

2009-07-20T04:54:00.000+10:00

agr's question: "What is the thing in your life that you have been most afraid of?"

Another tough one. I don't know about the word afraid. In my life I don't want to be afraid and as I look back on what we would call major incidents like IW's breast cancer 'afraid' was not a word we used. We were angry (AM), frustrated, confused but not afraid.

We are called to live life as best we can and to play with the cards we are dealt. Like in most card games I do not like the cards I get sometimes and want to change them or sometimes wonder why others seem to get all the good cards.

None of this changes the cards in my hand so I have learnt (sometimes better than others) to play the cards I have and to do the best I can with them.

Question 1

2009-07-19T04:27:00.000+10:00

This question comes from my many comments about Indian time and how things here happen 'when they do'.

agr's question: "Why is it so important for you to be on time and for things to start on time?"

Good first question agr. Can I pass and wait for question 2?

It is well documented that I like to be on time, actually I like to be early. IW can recount many stories about my efforts to get the family to things on time. Even when our three girls were very little we still managed to get to events prior to the starting time.

There were exceptions of course, caused by things out of our control and also when there were unexpected emergencies to assist with.

The main point of my response to agr was that, for me, being on time was a sign of respect for the person hosting the event. If they say they want to start at 7:30 pm then why should I turn up when I like. If I am delayed I would offer my apologies.

I must admit that, 'when things happen in India', is still a mystery to me. I am not frustrated anymore and just go with the flow. The 'It is cultural' answer has for me as many holes as a well used Indian mosquito net. One of the puzzling things at CSI Jessie Moses School is that school starts at 8:25 am and out of the 2000+ students there are less than ten on average who are late. They have obviously learnt through experience that school starts on time and that they should be there before that time. When lunch is over they return promptly to their classes.

Alongside respect is the thought that if the event is something that is important to me I don't want to be late and risk missing something.

Questions - An Introduction

2009-07-18T04:04:00.000+10:00

Anne Grace Ruth and her Grandmother on a visit last Sunday

We have four weeks to go and last Sunday night at Prayer we introduced the countdown to help the Hostel girls understand the reality of our leaving. We plan to use Sunday nights as a focal point to help with the parting.

At the end of prayer I was approached by Anne Grace Ruth. In true Australian fashion I call her agr as her name is far too long to use in conversation. agr is the top Year 12 student in the Hostel and one of the top girls in the school. She is a delightful girl, very diligent and organised, and has offered great insight to us about the workings of the Hostel. She is also a good sounding board for us in our struggle with Indian culture and habits.

agr's request was a simple one. At the end of prayer every night she wants to ask me a question. She assured me that she could come up with 28 questions that would help her. I was not as sure I could come up with 28 answers that would help but agreed to her request.

I hope to publish her questions and my attempted answers. I have also told her that I will get IW to help me answer as there is much more wisdom when we both answer.

Stay tuned for Question 1.

A Day at an Indian Theme Park

2009-07-11T11:45:00.022+10:00

Welcome to Queens Land the 'best amusement park in Chennai'. This was the venue for the Year 10 excursion. It was an all day affair, leaving by bus from the school at 8:30 am and arriving back at 6:30 pm. In true Indian style we finally departed at 9:25 am and arrived back at the school at 7:10 pm. It was a day full of fun, disappointments and new adventures for IW and AM that left us both exhausted. We will attempt to give you the highlights of this day.

The Year 10 girls had been talking about this for ages and were so happy. The event was supposed to be a few weeks ago but was cancelled when one of the former teachers at the school died and the school was closed for the original day of the excursion. The girls thought it was going to be cancelled again as two days prior to our going the owner of Queens Land died.

This did not happen so IW, AM and the 12 intrepid girls eagerly looked forward to spending the day together with the rest of the Year 10 day girls plus four teachers.

Despite strong protests from IW, AM made sure we were outside on the dirt at 8:25. Much to our surprise the girls started to come over from their classrooms ready to assemble for the bus boarding. When they were about halfway across the dirt, Mrs Wesley, the Deputy Principal, with the loudest voice and gentlest heart in the world, sprang into action.

"You girls get back to your classrooms" she bellowed across the dirt. Apparently they had committed the most heinous (my favourite word) sin of walking in a group rather than in two ordered lines. We do not know what happened in the classrooms but we stood there for another twenty minutes until the ordered lines of children we have come to know and love proceeded out the door and across the dirt, accompanied by their teachers.

When they reached us they stood in their lines and were again counted. AM wondered why - how many children had been lost previously walking across the dirt quadrangle? After counting was complete, Mrs Wesley appeared from her Office and noticed that a lot of girls did not have the required maroon ribbons in their hair and instead had secured their long hair with elastic or even worse, different coloured ribbon.

I don't know if Mrs Wesley is a part owner of the little shop over the road but girls were ordered to go and purchase maroon ribbon to tie their hair back. No one was moving until the hair ribbons were correct. This was a sllooowwww process but eventually Mrs Wesley was happy. She did not seem to care about the variety of socks and shoes that were not part of the school uniform but those ribbons were important. Another count was done then the Principal was summonsed to wish the girls well and prayed for the day out.

We were not using the school buses as they would be required in the afternoon for transport so the school had hired transport for us. One of the things we have learned over the years when organising excursions is to know how many people you are transporting and then order the buses with enough seats for everyone.

This does not happen in India as they have an incredible ability to travel long distances with three or four people in a normal bus seat designed for two. We had 124 people all up and two buses with a capacity of 40 seats in each. Is this a problem? Not at all! We were allocated the front seat, as is usual, and then the amazing metamorphosis from individual people to clumps of Indian humanity occurred. It was an incredible experience - not a whine or a whinge just the sight of laughing four headed, eight armed contorted bodies enjoying the trip.

As soon as the bus departed, most girls removed the mandatory maroon hair ribbons. None of the teachers on board seemed to worry so neither did we. The trip took about 40 minutes and we arrived at Queens Land to an empty car park.

When any mass transport system (plane, bus etc) here stops, there is no orderly departure of the people in the front getting off first. This was no different and it took all of AM's old football skills to block the aisle to allow IW to alight before the mass exodus occurred. Once outside the girls gathered in two lines to be counted, yet again. As we were all counted getting on, I can only assume this was in case someone jumped out the window or the de-morphing process did not work for some girls.

We stood and waited while the four teachers met and discussed something. This discussion took about twenty minutes while the girls waited patiently. We decided to move through the entry portal and see what laid ahead of us. There were ticket booths and the entry turnstiles and inside we could see the obligatory 'greeting creatures'.

We were soon issued with our 'wrist band' entry passes and proceeded through the gates to make friends with our new pals. I got the bull/pig cross and IW took the indescribable moving Garden Gnomes.

Overall the place was nice and clean on the paths but again the Indian penchant for throwing everything they don't want away was evident behind the shrubs and fences that lined the paths. Beside us the only ones present were a small group of boys from a local Engineering College so movement was easy and there was no waiting. As we strolled down the path from the entrance we saw the 'Free Fall Tower' rise before us.

A number of the girls were terrified so IW and AM felt they had to show the way and strode forward taking several fearful girls with them. We were soon locked in and being hoisted skyward. At the half-way point, the ride drops to the bottom and then goes all the way to the top for the big fall. We knew this by watching the ride before but the girls in their excitement missed this small point so the halfway drop caused quite a few problems for them.

There were multiple cries of 'Sthothiram, Sthothiram' (pronounced "soltrum") from the girls when we reached the bottom. This is Tamil for 'Praise the Lord'. AM muttered a few things as well but 'Sthothiram' was not one of them.

The entrance wrist band serves to record which rides you have been on. One of the disappointing things about the park was that everyone is only allowed on a ride once. This really limits what you can do as not all rides are open at once and there is often announcements as to what is open. i.e. Wave Pool will open at 3:00 pm for 30 minutes. We found this really useless.

We believe it is used to limit the number of staff required, because as the crowd passes from one ride to the next they close the ride and move the staff on to a different one. So if you think you are smart and skip a couple of rides to avoid waiting at all, you will find either no one at the ride two down the line to operate it or when you double back to get the one you bypassed there will be no one there to operate it.

Under the raining umbrella

We proceeded through the rides with IW leading the girls. Unfortunately AM could not go on a lot of the rides as he had to guard the backpack and take the photos - great reason!! AM also withstood the strong pressure to go on several wildly spinning, gyrating, back-breaking rides because he was sure he would have caused some breach of cross-cultural etiquette.

By 2:30 pm we were finished all the rides and were hoping that it would mean an early departure. This thought process was heightened by the physical exhaustion suffered by both IW and AM in trying to keep up with 14 yo girls. Perhaps we are getting old??!!

This was not to be the case and we wandered back and forward looking at the empty rides but not being able to go on them because we had already partaken of our 'one ride'. One of our girls had not gone on the 'Dark House' ride (aka in OZ as the Ghost Train). She now wanted to go but not by herself. There was no one on the ride and no line up so we confidently approached the operator and explained the situation and asked if IW could accompany her. This was met with a stern refusal and it was quickly pointed out that IW had already ridden. No amount of pleading would change his mind so we moved on.

At about 4:00 pm a loudspeaker announcement called us to assemble at the train station. When we got there we were informed that the teachers were going to buy everyone an ice cream and we were to meet back at the station at 5:00 pm to catch the train to the entrance to go home.

Unfortunately the ice cream station was a 10 minute walk from the train station. We walked, had our ice creams then came the announcement that the chair lift was open. Great excitement - enquiries were made. Two answers came back with one teacher saying yes go and another saying no stay.

Mass confusion reigned. Some of the girls headed off and others stayed. IW and AM went with some of the girls towards the Chair Lift which was a good 20 minute walk away. We knew it was about a 20 minute ride so a quick bit of maths involving walk time plus ride time plus walk back to the meeting point would have had us at the 5:00 pm meeting time at about 5:40 pm.

At this moment there was a complete role reversal for IW and AM. For AM this was not a problem as he was in India and that seemed close enough. IW had reverted to all the good time principles about being on time that AM had taught her so was in great distress. When we finally reached the Chair Lift two very exhausted girls caught us and informed us that we did not have time for the ride and had to return to the station immediately.

IW took off at a cracking pace leading the breakaway while the peleton followed. AM used his team skills and dropped back to help those who were caught napping by the sudden change of pace. IW scored maximum points for the hill climb and also won the sprint finish with AM losing over 5 minutes on this stage.

We assembled at the station about 5 minutes late and surprisingly no one else was there. After a few minutes some girls arrived telling us we were to assemble at the place where we had ice creams. This made no sense as we would then have to turn around and walk back. IW took control of the peleton and we headed off. Eight minutes into the 10 minute stage we met the other group plus teachers walking back to the station. We wheeled around joined the pack and returned to where we started.

A few things were obvious at this stage (this was apart from IW's extreme frustration at the lack of order).

How were 124 people plus the general public that was there going to fit on the 60 seater train. AM immediately thought of the bus trip and could not see any reason to be concerned.
It was ages since a count was done - was everyone here?

We assembled in the 'cattle grid' to board the train. This was the girls, the general public, a couple of the 'stuffed people' from the entrance and a stuffed IW and AM. Soon afterwards the call went out for all girls to exit the 'cattle grid' and get into their classes in two lines to be counted. Once the count was done it was identified that about ten girls were missing.

At this point several major events collided in time. The train pulled into the station, the missing girls came running into view and about five girls realised they had left their bags back at the ice cream station and started to run off to collect them. The only peaceful thing that happened was IW and AM standing in 'the grid' ready to board.

Although the Station Master(hereafter known as SM) looked Indian he had this strange desire to only allow 60 people on the train. Most of the general public plus IW and AM were on board when the charge of the school girls occured. The 'cattle grid' stood no chance as the girls climbed over, under and through it. The teachers stood politely outside as the sight of the SM being overrun by the girls bought a wry smile to AM's face.

As SM picked himself up from the platform and dusted himself off there was no panic in his eyes or his actions. He gently retrieved his whistle which was dangling from its cord and placed it in his mouth. It should be noted here that in India the whistle is the 'chosen weapon' of people in power. AM had seen its skilful use by the Police, Traffic Wardens and School Teachers and now SM is added to the list of adept whistle users.

A few shrill blasts and the girls not already on the train froze in their place and with some deft hand movements SM ushered them back to the 'cattle grid'. He then proceeded to check the seating and remove any overcrowding - how unIndian!! As our train pulled out, the ejected children and teachers stood quietly and were rejoined by the five who had run to retrieve their bags.

We proceeded back to the entrance, alighted and waited for the train to return with the rest of the group. While we waited we were entertained by the resident 'stuffed things'.

The bus ride home involved the usual morphing of bodies but was considerably quieter. IW slept and AM pondered how tired the girls were. Perhaps he was not getting old after all.

Electricity

2009-07-07T19:14:00.013+10:00

We live in the Principal's residence. When the new principal started in 2008 she decided to live off site so the residence was vacant. It is on the first floor above a classroom. The photo above is in the corner of the classroom and our electricity is delivered via the black cable in the top left of the photo.

The electricity supply to the school is reasonably stable - generally one to two outages a day, but from the photo above up the black cable to our house magical things happen. We have many outages where the switch on our board upstairs 'trips' due to low or high voltage.

The problem with our switchboard when we arrived was that it had 250 chairs, a full drum kit an electric rhythm and a bass guitar stacked in front of it so when the power went off AM morphs into Spiderman and clambers over the top of everything to reset the switch. It did not take AM too long to realise that this was hazardous to his health so the chairs were restacked to enable a passage to the switchboard (photo above).

There are times when the power goes off in our house but is on everywhere else and no matter how many resets we do the electrician inevitably needs to come. When you call for the electrician you always get two people. The leader comes and looks wisely at things but never does anything and his offsider always carries a pair of pliers and a screwdriver. These are the only tools required apart from your teeth when wires are required to be stripped.

I have witnessed all their work and now cannot work out why my father-in-law (a retired electrician) requires so many tools when he visits to repair things although I must admit his teeth are not what they used to be.

The general reason given for loss of power is "There was a loose wire". How the wires work their way loose I do not know. The last major outage was caused by 'something missing from the switchboard in the classroom'. Nobody could explain how the power was working then. If something was missing how could it have worked in the first place? It remains an Indian mystery that we live with.

In our wanderings around the streets we marvel at the state of the wires hanging, threaded through trees, exposed to the weather - yet things still work. Below is a small collection of photos from our neighbourhood.

The feeder for our house from the classroom below

Although I'm not an electrician, I fail to understand the continued loss of power in our house after about 10 electrician call-ins, when everything else in the school and surrounding areas work.

Singing with the Nursery Children

2009-07-01T17:55:00.015+10:00

IW and Action Man

It’s been some time now since the beginning of this school year but we would like to share with you our first week of singing with the nursery and upper nursery classes. We never imagined that singing would be such an exhausting exercise.

Most of you know that the Principal asked us if we would be happy to help out in the school this year. Naturally we were delighted to accept. She asked if I would do singing with the nursery classes, if Gary would do some computer skills with 8s and 9s and if both of us would teach a sort of “Life Skills” class to the Year 12s.

On Thursday morning at 9:00 am (day 1), armed with Gary (hereafter known as Action Man) and my guitar, we were taken to the first of four nursery classes (about 50 kids under 5 in each class) only to discover that we were in fact the distraction to keep the children occupied while parents slipped out the back door.

50% of the kids were crying, 5% were screaming, 35% were sitting there like stunned mullets, and the other 10% were actually relatively pleased to see us. We racked our brains to think up nursery rhymes and songs for littlies and ‘Praise the Lord!’ - “Twinkle Twinkle”, “Mary had a little lamb” and “Baa Baa Black Sheep” sprang quickly to mind.

After that we wowed them with “The Wheels on the Bus” where 4 kids joined in with the actions, the little ones who were crying stopped in amazement at our antics but started again after we had finished and the screamers just kept screaming. Next, we found that we could stretch “If you’re happy and you know it” out for about 10 verses with lots of actions with the same 4 kids joining in and the same kids crying and screaming. You would be surprised how handy Action Man has become at doing actions while nursing a crying child and trying to fix a play telephone for another little boy. “Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes” worked a treat (for the 4 kids anyway) and after that we went off to the next class.

It was pretty much the same with all four classes. We were exhausted at the end of an hour and were thankful that they said we could go because we thought we could go and have a rest. WRONG! The Deputy saw us coming out of the last room and said “now I will take you to the upper nursery class.” We went to the other side of the playground and were taken into a small classroom crammed with about 150 kids under the age of 6.

Mmm!! What to do here! At least there were only a couple crying. We were told that they all understood English but either they didn’t understand my accent or most of them don’t understand English. This makes things a tad more difficult when you’re trying to teach songs. Well we didn’t think we could go wrong with “The wheels on the bus” so that is what we started with. At 10:30 am after 90 minutes of full on singing and action we retreated to our house for a well earned rest.

After a few days it was apparent that IW's voice could not handle this pace although Action Man was going from strength to strength because of the daily 90 minute aerobic sessions. Times were renegotiated and we have settled into a good three day pattern with all classes.

...........

It is now four weeks into term and the singing continues with very positive feedback from parents and teachers. The littlies greet us enthusiastically in the playground and eagerly introduce us to their parents which is very nice.

Here are some photos of the kids.

None of the other classroom opportunities have eventuated as they rely entirely on the Principal organising the times. We have spoken to her on several occasions and now have left it to her.

Photos by AM, Sam and Makarla

Year 12 Camp - Heading Home

2009-06-25T11:14:00.007+10:00

Beninal, Lynn and the bricks - a matching set

Our last day was full of expectations. There was the trip home, including the 85 km descent that was still very much in some of the travellers' minds. This morning following Devotions and Breakfast there was a three hour shopping excursion planned. We were to visit the usual haunts of the TG's mates where we were assured we would get the cheapest and the best of everything, plus several places in the township of Kodaikanal before returning to the hotel for lunch and packing for a 3:00 pm departure down the mountain.

There were several stops planned along the way which would break the trip into smaller sections. Our train did not depart until 9:25 pm but Mrs Wesley wanted us to be there in plenty of time as the train only stops for one minute so we had to be ready to find our carriage and get on.

The scheduled stops were the Shenbaganur Museum, the Silver Cascade Falls (with plenty of water assured) and the aptly named Dum Dum Rock View Point.

Things went as planned but I really struggled with the four hour shopping extravaganza where we had about 70 kids from very well off families buying everything in sight and our hostel girls who walked and looked. They had some money and some of the hostel girls who did not come had given them small amounts of money to bring a small gift back.

It was more my problem than theirs as the day students walked around laden with gifts our hostel girls seemed just as happy visiting and looking. We walked and chatted and they seemed OK but I still felt uneasy about the whole thing.

We arrived back for lunch and packing which brought our next surprise. In packing I noticed that my Diabetes Testing Meter was not in its case and the testing strips were on the bench. IW thought I had just put it somewhere but we packed and it was nowhere. IW then noticed that her portable reading light was missing. The strange thing was that the Computer was still on the desk.

I went to get the Hotel Manager and he was quick to respond. He arrived with the Housekeeping Manager and they noticed that the window was unlocked. The most likely scenario was that one of the cleaning staff saw the computer etc and unlocked the window while cleaning the room. We also arrived back to the hotel 40 minutes early and I think we disturbed whoever it was and they left with things they could put in their pockets.

The Hotel staff was very good in their investigation but I don't think we will hear anymore about it. We had our bags out the door at the scheduled 3:00 departure time and found a group of girls sitting talking. They had not packed and were just enjoying the afternoon. We suggested they go and pack and got the famous 'Indian smile and head nod'. They set off in the direction of their rooms.

NOTE: For some unexplained reason our camera was packed in the port so we have no photos for the following part of the story.

At 4:00 pm there were a few kids and teachers there and the TG arrived. No one was worried so neither was I. By 4:30 pm we were in the buses, ports tied to the roof, for the famous Hill Station descent. All gir)ls (including Hostel girls) who wanted them, were administered motion sickness tablets. We had changed buses into a smaller one which made us more cramped with IW and I sharing a two-seater sideways seat at the front of the bus with one of our Hostel girls.

First stop was the Museum which was for us a disappointment. It was old and looked very unloved. There were a number of stuffed animals on display that were named incorrectly and overall it did not measure up to what had been written about it.

We proceeded on to the Silver Cascade Falls which were right on a dangerous bend of the highway down the mountain. This did not stop about fifty stall owners setting up stalls selling all sorts of eats and trinkets. It also did not stop buses, cars, motor bikes and trucks from stopping and the occupants alighting to view the waterfall. The waterfall is the overflow from Kodaikanal Lake. It was nice to see and the kids roamed up and down the stalls looking for that last elusive bargain.

After a while we reboarded the bus and proceeded to Dum Dum Rock View. Everyone seemed to be handling the downward trip a lot better that the one up - except me. We were sitting right next to the engine and the smell of the engine and sitting sideways was slowly turning my stomach into a major gymnastics meeting.

I jumped out at Dum Dum Rock to get some air and respite from the engine smell. The legend behind the name is the mythical belief that Lord Muruga used to visit the Rock on his entourage to Palani. Local people still have rituals corresponding to this belief and regularly offer prayers at this rock, and create drum-noise during the prayers, hence the name 'Dum Dum Rock'.

After ten minutes in the open I was feeling OK so we returned to our seats and continued - for a very short time. I turned to IW and said I had to get out of this so proceeded to the back of the bus and asked three day girls there if they could swap places as I was feeling quite ill. To my suprise two of them looked up and said "No, we want to stay here". I said nothing and turned to return to my seat. I had just reached the front when all three appeared behind me saying they would swap.

So off we went to the back seat where the gymnastics competition almost immediately ceased. It was a great relief to me and an even greater one for those around me even though they were not aware of it. Soon after we were at the bottom of the hill and pulled in for a 'toilet stop'.

The toilet block was a nice new, clean block but with about 70 of the 75 girls and the staff wanting to use the facilities it was an interesting experience. IW was fortunate enough to get fairly close to the beginning of the line and when she finally got to the door wondered why the middle toilet (there were only 3 cubicles) was not being used. She was informed that it was a western toilet and was dirty. Presumably that meant that someone hadn't flushed and they were happy to use the two toilets because none of them would flush it.

IW was about to go in and flush it when one of the "bossy" teachers came shuffling in, shouting and pushing girls (who had been waiting patiently) out the door and getting them into an orderly line (which IW thought was okay before) and she pushed IW into the first cubicle, ahead of all the girls. IW proceeded into the cubicle only to discover that it was in actual fact a shower room which the girls had been using for toilet purposes. Needless to say IW needed to use the facilities so did, though was fairly uncomfortable about it. It certainly didn't bother any of the girls and they probably didn't even realise it was a shower room. The usual jug sat on the floor for "flushing" purposes.

We were on the way again and soon arrived at the Railway Station. Mrs Wesley soon determined the platform and where each carriage would stop and had the girls in position. Because this was not the origin of the train there was no carriage swapping and we were in a separate cariage from the teachers and girls. We both had top bunks so would have to climb.

Mrs Wesley was worried there could be someone already asleep in our bunks so got two of the bus drivers to stand with us and carry our bags on and make sure all was OK. The train stopped, we got on, bunks were free and off we set for the 8 hour trip home.

We got our bags stored under the seat, scaled the side and laid down. We were exhausted and hoped that some sleep would occur. Again we got some sporadic 'rests' and arrived back at Egmore station at 5:45 am Sunday. Upon alighting we were met by the school bus drivers, gathered the hostel girls and set off for the 30 minute drive back to school and a good sleep.

Year 12 Camp - Life at the Top (Part 2)

2009-06-22T19:10:00.014+10:00

The girls at Upper Lake View

Today it was planned to start with devotions at 8:30 am followed by breakfast at 9:00 am. We would then depart for our morning sightseeing, return to the hotel for lunch and a rest (great custom) then another tourist venture in the afternoon. The evening activities are to be the cultural activities that did not happen last night (I thought our Oz cultural activities then were very good though) followed by an 8:00 pm dinner and bed.

Nice Indian plan to start with but it went off the rails at 8:30 am - yes, the very first planned event. IW and I were ready at 8:30 but there were no signs of life from anybody except the breakfast staff. At 8:50 a couple of kids straggled in and we chatted and shortly after some of the teachers arrived and said we would have breakfast first. I did make a cheeky enquiry about how kids got to school on time (which they do) and this was greeted by a nice smile and the traditional Indian sideways head shake. Enough was said in this non-verbal statement.

Breakfast was had and then we sang and did devotions. It was about 10:00 am when we departed for some more sightseeing. Pillar Rock, Guna Caves, Silent Valley the Pine Forest and Upper Lake View were on the itinerary. For some reason not many of these eventuated and the ones that did were so covered by mist that we affectionately called the morning journey 'Mistifying'.

We did get to the Pine Forest where a lot of Tamil Song Clips are made. It is a nice place and the start of the walk to the Upper Lake View. Another feature of this forest is that it is full of monkeys that are so used to human company and being fed by them. There were vendors there selling carrots that were purchased by one species and consumed by both species.

We got back to the hotel at around 2:00 pm for our lunch and a short rest. After lunch IW decided to stay at the hotel and rest as her throat was quite sore.

At about 3:30 pm we set off for Chettiar Park and Bear Shola Falls. Chettair Park was a nice green spot on the side of the mountain which featured manicured hedges cut into animal shapes. It did not take long to see all there was to be seen but for some reason we had 90 minutes here. After sitting for a while most girls were getting restless so I decided to introduce them to some great Australian pastimes.

I tried my best to explain how much fun rolling down a hill was but no one could understand the fun in it. The only thing to do was to demonstrate something I had not done for at least 35 years. I went halfway up the hill laid down and let gravity take its course. It was not exactly as I remembered when I was young, or the hill was steeper, or the increased weight caused a much faster roll. Needless to say the hedge at the bottom took quite a battering as I staggered to my feet to the applause of all.

It was not too long before we had girls rolling and squealing everywhere as they discovered the delights of 'hill rolling'. After 15 minutes of giddyness and crashes I was surrounded and asked what was next. At this stage I was appointed chief activities organiser. We had about another 30 minutes so I decided that seeing we had a ball that they were not very good at throwing. catching or kicking, we would engage in a bit of human ten pin bowling.

If you thought hill rolling was hard to explain, try explaining how to be a human ten pin that has to fall when hit by a ball or another falling human pin. Again I resorted to the human demonstration as I found one of the girls who understood the concept of rolling the ball.

I carefully positioned myself at the three pin position with nine girls filling the other positions and got the ball rolled at us. By an act of God it hit me and I threw myself in the air taking seven girls to the ground with my fall. There were no major injuries but a few did retire to the sideline.

The plus side was that they immediately got the idea and I could retire to the sideline thus saving any major injuries through having to demonstrate again. We gathered quite a crowd of onlookers as we proceeded to have a revolving 30 minutes of human ten pin bowling. As our time elapsed we heard the shrill call of the whistle of the Tour Guide (TG) calling us back to the bus.

I was very dubious about our next stop as it was listed as Bear Shola Falls (subject to availability of water). It looked like it hadn't rained in decades but these Indians are people of faith so we set off. After a short trip we pulled up at the bottom of a suburban hill and proceeded to walk up the hill, through a gap in the fence then off into the scrub. "Hasn't rained in a long time" I thought to myself as we tramped through the dry, dead undergrowth.

Some of the girls asked if there would be water and the TG assured them there would be. The cynic in me could not see how but I was soon amazed by Indian ingenuity. As the falls came into sight, there was a large rock face about 20 metres high, but they were as dry as a dead dingo's tongue. The girls protested loudly but TG stood defiantly and held his hands high, much like Charlton Heston in 'The Ten Commandments'.

A hush fell over the crowd as water started to trickle over the edge. TG had sent the bus drivers on ahead and they climbed to the top and emptied about six buckets of water over the top of the rock. It was not the most spectacular water fall I have ever seen but the girls seemed to be happy with it.

We returned to the bus and headed back to the hotel for the evening 'Cultural Activities' which were due to start at 7:00 pm. I was looking forward to the evening but soon found out that my understanding of 'Cultural Activities' was way off the mark. At about 7:40 pm the man brought in to run the evening sprang into action. He explained the evening. It would comprise the group being split into four teams and then contesting three rounds of competition comprising a quiz, a tug-of-war, and a dance contest. This was my signal to morph into the official photographer for the evening.

IW ended up in group 3 and at the end of Round 1 were joint leaders with group 4. Round 2 was a knock-out Tug-of-War. I immediately appointed myself as coach of IW's team and issued the tactical instructions of ToW. They seemed to grasp the idea well and easily won their first match against group 1. We watched the second match and it was obvious that we were up against a bigger, stronger team. The only way to win was to outlast them so we talked about not pulling but just holding them until their energy was spent.

What followed had to be seen to be believed. The other team pulled and pulled, they had our team within 10cm of defeat when the call went out to pull. They were taken by surprise and our team pulled them over the line for a great victory. Maximum points for the victory before round 3 - the Dance contest.

The dance comprised three parts, modern, traditional and free-form. IW was not feeling at all comfortable as all had to participate or the team got no points. After some quick instruction in traditional Indian dance IW entered the fray with her team. They finished second and thus assured themselves of the prize of first place.

The one hour 'Cultural Activity' finished at 9:15 pm and we were asked to sing some songs and lead the group in prayer before we moved off to dinner.

The victorious Team 3 (with IW hiding)

Year 12 Camp - Life at the Top (Part 1)

2009-06-22T14:17:00.012+10:00

Ice Creams at Bryant Park

... continued from Year 12 Camp - Getting to the Top.

The horrendous Bus ride finished at about 9:30 am. we arrived at Sterling Resort. The girls were shown to their rooms and breakfast was available for those who wanted it. The girls could rest until 1:30 when we had lunch and boarded the bus for some sight seeing.

The weather was nice and cool - quite comfortable for us but the girls were quite cold so some put their 'one jumper' on. There was a lot of low cloud around and it was quite misty.

Our first stop was Coakers Walk. This is a short walk along a man-made path on the rim of the steep slopes. It affords magnificent views 'when the mist clears'. Unfortunately for us, the mist was as thick as a xxx yyy speech (Please substitute your favourite politician's name here). We took the ten minute walk looking down on a thick blanket of fog. It was quite disappointing when we reached the end where there was a large billboard displaying the magnificent views.

One of our drivers told us that it was always like this at this time of year as it was the wet season in Kerala (the coastal state to the west of us) and the prevaling winds drove the mist and rain over the mountain.

The highlight for us was the small stand at the end selling home-made chocolate. We invested wisely and thoroughly enjoyed our purchase.

Our next stop was Bryants Park and Lake. Our hostel girls love flowers so this was a highlight for them. The flowers were lovely although most of the garden beds were overgrown with weeds as well. This did not stop our girls from gasping at every turn. It was only the large 'Do not pluck the Flowers' sign that saved this place from being denuded in a matter of minutes.

We spent a considerable time roaming through the gardens and sitting on the grassed area talking. It was a great time as it let us meet a lot of Year 12 day scholars as well. For 20 rupees (70 Aust cents) you could buy small posies of dried flowers. This was a hit with all the girls and most availed themselves of this opportunity to have flowers that would last a long time for them.

As we were at the park the mist began to roll in which brought that eerie, mysterious feel to the place. All these sensations were new to the girls and fascinated them. Of course I offered a detailed scientific explanation as to why this occurred.

We returned to the hotel about 5:30 pm for a rest before the program resumed at 7:00 pm with what was listed as 'Campfire and Cultural Activities'. No one could offer much explanation except that some of the girls would dance. Being fore-thinking people IW and I immediately put our minds to some Australian Cultural activities we could share.

IW immediately discarded my suggestions of a selection of 'Bawdy Football Ballads' and 'National Beer Drinking songs'. After the pain of rejection subsided we made sure we knew the words of the National Anthem, Waltzing Matilda and that old favourite of mine from Rolf Harris 'Tie me kangaroo down sport'. We headed to the campfire for the evening entertainment.

We arrived at about 6:59 pm (Well actually it was not about that time but exactly 6:59 pm). IW did not want to arrive that early for an Indian 7:00 pm start but once again my judgment was right. Not that there was anyone there then but about five minutes later the Tour Organiser (I use that term very loosely) walked up and told us that the person organising the night got, not only the time mixed up, but also the date. He was coming tomorrow night.

We were politely asked if we could lead the night's entertainment. Why not - freezing weather with girls who had never experienced anything below 24 degrees, should be easy! We did have a bonfire, song books, guitar and years of experience in impromptu events. Organisation was easy, IW would sing around the fire then I would be unleashed on them to play mayhem with their minds by playing meaningless games with rules that changed every couple of minutes.

Would these tender almost naive Indian girls survive? Most did with minimal emotional scarring as we engaged in Animal noises, Maze making, People Tangles and finishing with some dancing to the amazing sound system with extra distortion from the resident Indian AV man. He got more indecipherable noise out of a sound system that anyone I know.

At 8:40 pm we finally overpowered the Indian AV man and pulled the plug on his system. We regather the girls, pray with them and send them off to an 'early' dinner at 8:50 pm.

It has been a long day that started at 7:30 pm the previous day, but a typical Indian day with minimal planning and a lot of changing schedules on the way but ending up with everyone very tired and happy. The perfect ending to a first day at school camp.

.... to be continued

Year 12 Camp - Getting to the Top

2009-06-21T12:42:00.009+10:00

This is not a picture of one of the Year 12's nor is it Yoda visiting us to offer words of wisdom. It is from day 2 of our adventure that we will get to a bit later.

Anyway here we go with the three day adventure to Kodaikanal. Sitting back at the school on Sunday morning it seems more like an ordeal that an adventure. The time spent there was great but getting there saps you of all energy to really enjoy it and then you know you are faced with the journey home again.

To get there the plan was to leave the school by school bus, with the 12 Hostel girls who were attending, by 7:30 pm on Wednesday night to get us to the train station for a 9:30 pm departure. Bit early we thought as it is only 20 minutes to the station and who wants a 90+ minute wait with 85 excited sixteen year old girls on the platform with all their families plus the other 100,000 people who appeared to be travelling with us on the 'Pandyan Express'.

Of course the 7:30 departure did not occur. We had the kids ready but what we did not know was that four teachers were coming on the bus as well and they certainly did not want to spend 90+ minutes more than they had to with the girls.

So in Indian fashion we sat and waited for the teachers. Everyone was quite relaxed, there were no frantic phone calls just a calm air of expectancy. I wanted to start running 'a book' on what time we would depart but none of the kids could understand the concept. We departed at about 8:15 pm, arrived at Egmore Station at 8:45, in plenty of time to get to the platform and wait for all the day scholars and their families to arrive.

Happy Hostel Girls at the start of the adventure

It is a fully ticketed train with compartments of eights seats that convert to two triple decker bunks and a double decker. I am not a specialist on trains, but this has got to be the longest passenger train in the world. I assume this because by the time I had reached S7 (my carriage) I had consumed all my overnight water and had to have two rest breaks.

We were then informed by The Deputy Principal (Mrs Wesley) that we would not be sitting in S7 but should come to S10 with them. What seemed like an eternity later we arrived at S10 and followed the teachers in and sat where we were instructed to. It was an Indian train, very old, very dirty and now with our girls on board very loud.

The train was as full as .... I was going to say as full as an Indian train can get but I do not believe that the exact number that constitutes a full Indian train will ever be found. Somehow Mrs Wesley convinced two people that they should walk all the way to S7 and sit in our seats so that we could all sit together.

We are hopping off this train at a small station called Kodai Road at 5:06 am the next morning. Mrs Wesley informs us that the train only stops for 1 minute so it is a major exercise to get all the girls off the train.

I sit and ponder at this statement. If Mrs Wesley can get two people who are already sitting on a train to pick up their bags and walk two kilometres to another carriage surely she can get the train to stop a bit longer at the station. I mean, punctuality and Indian Rail are not usually mentioned in the same sentence.

After some chat Lynn and I are offered the double decker which Lynn is ecstatic about. The thought of having to scale the side to the top of a triple decker (which is what our original berth in S7 would have been) with no safety harness was quite scary. Although the carriage was not air-conditioned there was quite a breeze from the continual procession of girls running back and forward followed by Mrs Wesley yelling at them to be quiet (the three ceiling-mounted fans and the 60 mile an hour wind blowing through the window also helped but did nothing for the hairstyle).

I again sat and pondered at how you get someone to be quiet by making more noise than four of them together could possibly make. The girls laughed, Mrs Wesley laughed, the game continued and IW and I "slept" sporadically.

Twenty minutes before our arrival at Kodai Road Station Mrs Wesley sprang into action. She was up barking orders to the girls who responded magnificently. The train arrived, all alighted safely, and the train departed on its journey.

Kodaikanal is one of the Hill Stations of India. A Hill Station is a high-altitude town, used especially by European colonialists, as a place of refuge from the Indian summer heat and tropical diseases.

We knew we were being transported by bus from the Station to the Hotel. The one minor fact missed in this message was that it was an 85 kilometer trip that went from 250 metres above sea level (820 feet) to 2133 metres (6998 feet). The buses were 21 seaters with the luggage tied on the roof. On our bus were our hostel girls plus day scholars to fill it to capacity.

So the scenario is an 85 kilometre winding mountain road rising 1883 metres (6178 feet) and a group of girls who had rarely seen a hill let alone drive up one. It all adds up to 2.5 hours of unimaginable excitement. The Wallis travel experience had us with a backpack that had a plastic bag with some fruit in it, a plastic bag with a wet washer, a plastic bag for scraps and a plastic bag with spare plastic bags.

Some would say we had an excess of plastic bags and on most occasions you would be correct but by the 30 minute stage of the trip, with the Indian music video blaring full blast, the first plastic bag was used. A lot of my friends would say that I am prone to exaggeration, but as I sit at home with a calm mind I can quite comfortably say that the bus trip up the mountain was one of the most trying things I have experienced.

We used all our plastic bags, we used the washer, we used all our water and the biggest miracle of all was that we managed to retain the contents of our stomachs. Not all girls got sick but those who did (about seven) were quite ill.

All in all it is a great recipe:

Overnight train ride +
No sleep +
Plenty of junk food +
Overcrowded bus +
Inexperienced travellers
= TECHNICOLOUR PLASTIC BAGS

As the four buses reached the top we found out there were only a couple of cases of slight sickness on the other buses because the teachers had given those girls motion sickness tablets before the climb began. We're not sure why our bus was missed.

Not so happy girls at the top

And don't get IW started on the Indian Rail toilets!!

.... to be continued

A Great Day

2009-06-14T15:49:00.012+10:00

We have just had a great day. It is Saturday after a week of tests for Yr 10 and 12 girls and they just wanted to relax. We had a constant stream of visitors wanting to talk (and enjoy our air-conditioned room) about the week.

There was a mix of year levels coming and going. There were several Tamil "teacher" instructing IW. Makarla had brought her a book about 'How to learn Tamil in 4 Weeks' and the kids found it and were determined to help her.

I headed out the front door at the invitation of a few girls to play with them 'at the circus'. This is the small area of the ground that has two double slippery slides, a couple of trees, some bouncy tyres and plenty of DIRT.

They call it 'The Circus' because at the circus you have fun and can see the world. We climbed the stairs of the slippery slide and sat at the top. As we sat there talking I was told to look around and see the world I realised what they were talking about.

It was quite sad for me as I realised that from the top of the slide you can see over the wall that encloses the school and their world. From here they can see out of the school ground and see the shop over the road, the cars and all the activity of life. For the girls of the Hostel, this is the world. As I think I mentioned in a previous post, the only time they get to see the other side of the wall is when they hop on the bus on Sunday morning to go to Church or at the end of Term when their families come to get them to take them home.

So while IW was learning the intracacies of the Tamil language I was bouncing on the tyres and engaging in mass slippery sliding. We had a lot of fun and laughed a lot. I drew the line when they invited me to climb the tree with them. I would have liked to but fortunately I realised my real age and knew there were large danger signs there for me.

After lunch the visitors continued to come and we had time and space with a lot of kids that had not availed themselves of that opportunity. We spent the early afternoon talking and laughing and learnt the intricacies of the Tamil language. Eventually we cleared the room and had an opportunity to rest for a while.

At 6:00 pm we walked to the Hostel where we participated in Evening Prayer. IW played the guitar and we sang, listened to a Bible reading, then prayed. At the completion of Hostel prayer all the Year 10 girls came back to our place for their prayer time. This was instigated by them and we are invited to participate. This finishes at about 7:30 pm.

After they leave we had dinner and then settled down to watch an old war movie to get us back in touch with the reality of life, although I prefer the reality of the Hostel a lot more.

Guest Blogger - Makarla Craig

2009-06-09T00:18:00.008+10:00

Makarla at work in her new 'Indian Nightie'

Our first Guest Blogger and Visitor is Makarla Craig. Makarla works with Gary and last year did the 'Alpha in the Workplace' Course with him. She is at the end of a seven week European Holiday.

Makarla arrived in India early Sunday morning and leaves Friday night to return home and back to work on Monday.

Day 1 India:

I have never felt so at home, welcomed and at the same time a little out of place. My thoughts were with so many people today, not to mention the girls in the school and their families as well as Gary and Lynn. I had De-ja-vous this morning when I arrived and it made me think of Monica. We kept saying (on our cruise ship tour) that we must have had a past life and known each other in Greece and Turkey and that’s why we were having so much fun and met lots of nice locals.

This morning we went to church which was nice, until it went on for 2 ½ hours but it was good to pray and worship with Gary and Lynn again as I haven’t done so for a long time. I have made a promise to go to church more regularly when I get back home.

Around the school is a good and mostly clean area, Lynn has said she feels safe walking along by herself, even at night time. We hopped into an Auto today that took us through a part of the slums before going to a western café. For some reason I did not feel disjointed when I was seeing their “housing” which is mostly rubbish which they have formed rooms out of. Some are natural products and some are concrete but all are dirty and weathered.

There are a lot of scraps and waste on the ground which is from so many people living in such a small area. I have not seen too many beggars including children but I am sure I will. Lynn has mentioned that they do not really hassle people passing by which was a relief to hear, after the stories Tess (a friend from work) told me before coming over.

India so far is not what I imagined, although I was definitely out of my comfort zone when I arrived in Bahrain and then the Chennai airports. I was wearing black pants and a singlet top and everyone was watching me. I had someone tell me that the flights to India are terrible because of the smell of the people who don’t wear deodorant but my flights were ok. I am very interested in coming back in the future and spending some time living here and learning more about the culture, as well as simply enjoying the atmosphere. I would love to come back to see some of these girls again as well. They have stimulated my spirituality, something I have lacked over the past couple of weeks.

Tonight, as like every other night, prayer took place at 6pm. The girls sung hymns and songs in both Tamil and English and Gary and Lynn coordinated the musical sway. It is peaceful to listen to them sing and they are so passionate about their faith and prayer time.

This vocal prayer time was followed by the 10th form girls coming back to Lynn and Gary’s place to pray a little more in-depth. I was floating, for me this was the best prayer time I have ever experienced and I really felt connected to God and everyone in the room. I prayed for so much; friends, family, events that have occurred or are coming up and Jim. It was certainly an overwhelming experience, a sense of completeness and I can’t wait for tomorrow night.

It is enlightening and uplifting to be here and around these young girls, they have mostly come from disjointed homes and their families suffer from many forms of abusive behaviors but they are full of joy and positive outlooks which put my outlook on life to shame, if I may say so. Their faith and beliefs are what guide them, they are learning in order to provide for their families. An education is highly sought after and the girls are embracing every moment of their schooling career. I don’t believe that one could come here and not be moved by such passion and love that these girls show each other and you as a guest in the school.

The school itself is run by the church and the some of girls are sponsored to be here by people like you and me. The cost of a year of schooling at Jesse Mosses is only $500 per student which I would think everyone I know can afford over a year - money well spent in my eyes and I will definitely be a part of one of these girl's lives when I get home.

God has definitely been with me on my holidays and I will go into more detail about it soon but for now I am going to bed and I will update you with my further experiences in India soon.

Love Always Makarla

Hope you enjoyed Makarla's comments. We will have a few more guest bloggers over the next month as Anna then Kath and Sam arrive.

Tower Park

2009-06-06T12:53:00.016+10:00

When you arrive in Chennai you are greeted by a huge flourescent sign 'Anna International Airport', and as you travel around you come across many things, places etc that begin with 'Anna'

My extensive reseach (2 minutes on Google) reveals that 'Anna' comes from the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (this is the State that Chennai is the capital of), Dr. CN Annadurai.

He is remembered as a person who served the people with extreme honesty and dedication. He had such a mesmerizing and gripping impact on the people that they affectionately began to greet him with the name 'Anna', meaning elder brother.

We live in Anna Nagar (Nagar meaning 'area or locality'). Part of our suburb is Tower Park (or to give it its oficial name Visweswaraya Tower Park), a delightful place that we walk through daily on our way to coffee and also a place we sometimes visit in the early evening when we can, as it is then that it comes alive with people. The tower is referred to by locals as Chennai's Eifel Tower.

In one way it is beautiful and in another very sad, because like most things we have seen, it is in great need of repair. Since we have been here the actual tower has been closed. To get to the top there is a circular ramp that you walk up but it has been locked. The Hostel girls have been to the top and tell us that there are spectacular views from there.

When you enter the park from our place you go through a delightful playground with all the normal equipment. This is where we took the girls on Easter Saturday. The park contains extensive fountains that are very rarely turned on and so are filled with all sorts of garbage.

On our daily walk in the morning the park is pretty deserted. The odd couple sitting and talking but not much else. If you visit after 5:00 pm the place really comes alive. There are vendors everywhere selling all the things we don't want but lots of things little kids love from balloons and fairy floss to toys with flashing lights.

There are families everywhere enjoying the warm Indian evenings. The playground is packed with kids enjoying the swings, seesaws and climbing frames. All with no warning signs, no rubber matting underneath and some with dangerous, sharp metal protrusions. Yes, a playground that would be condemned in Australia, but here it is an utter delight to everyone who comes.

Another great part of the park is the roller skating rink where in the afternoon there is coaching and races for the kids. The cones are laid out to form a makeshift track and adults are there to organise it and away they go. It is great to sit and watch as the kids are encouraged to go harder and faster. We only spotted one 'over competetive' coach who wanted to whip his charges with a length of cord attached to his whistle as they passed him on the corner.

The kids and the parents seem to enjoy themselves and the 'over competetive' coach just gets more frustrated as the evening wears on.

Another evening feature is the groups of people sitting talking. It is like the Indians are suffering from 'Aussie BBQ' syndrome. On one side of the fountain there were groups of 10 - 15 women sitting talking while the males are in the same configuration on the other side.

There are families everywhere and as usual everyone wants to talk to us and have their photo taken with us. We spent quite a bit of time with a Muslim family who befriended us. They enquired about what we were doing, wanted us to tell them all about educational opportunities in Australia and express their opinions on how good the Indian cricket team was and asked us to pray a blessing on their children (which is a very common occurrence in India).

In the interest of cross-cultural unity IW confined me to just a few comments on the absurdity of the cricket statements being made. We had the family photos taken, exchanged email addresses and that night sent off the photos and have since received a delightful reply thanking us.

At a time in the evening when most Australian families would be home putting their children to bed, Indian families are out in evening enjoying the cool weather and 'tiffin' (snacks). This fits into their evening time frame as dinner (for everyone including children) is not until 8:30 pm at the earliest and for some not until 10:00 pm.

The park is a great meeting place and is full of wonderful features. There is a lot of work going on that we will cover in our next story. Here are a few more pictures from Tower Park.

Slow News Week

2009-06-02T02:21:00.005+10:00

It has been a slow restful week prior to the girls returning tomorrow but just to keep your interest we are publishing the rare photos of THE FIRST INDIAN HAIRCUT.

It is also my first visit to a Beauty Parlour (hereafter known as 'BP'). Down the road from the school is Groomz Men Gents 'BP'. The hair was getting a bit unkempt and we had seen hairdressers in our travels but it was one of those moments where the shop was there and I was there so IW and I burst through the door to see what was offered in the men's beauty stakes.

The store was in semi-darkness as is the custom here when there are no customers inside. Soon after entering a couple of men appeared and the lights and a/c were switched on. Strangely enough they did not ask me what beauty treatment I had come for instead I got the "Do you want a haircut?" to which I replied in the affirmative and asked what it would cost.

The reply shocked me a bit. It would cost 90 rupees (not quite $3). I was expecting more being in a 'BP', so gratefully accepted and climbed into the chair. I received my haircut, which I was quite pleased with, then got the added bonus that goes with the haircut in a 'BP'.

Included in the princely sum of 90 rupees is not only a haircut but a five minute scalp massage.

It took them a while to wake me at the completion of the massage and I groggily got out of the chair, handed over a 100 rupee note, took IW's hand and left the shop.

Haircut after long sweaty walk

(outside our front door)

PS: IW is in desperate need of a haircut as well but as she has promised the girls that she won't have her hair cut before she leaves India, she is resisting the temptation to enter the Ladies 'BP'.

Bridging Course

2009-05-22T17:05:00.011+10:00

The Bridging Course is the way the Church of South India selects children from Year 5 for entry into the Hostels for the commencement of Year 6. There was great confusion this year as to whether the course would be held or not. We were told that it wouldn't be happening and were duly advised to have our two week break in early May. This was planned, booked and paid for when we found out that the course was not only on, but would be held at our school.

The course was to run from Friday 1st May to Friday 22nd May and we were leaving on our break on the 5th and returning on the 19th. We were quite sad at missing the bulk of this but there was nothing we could do about it.

The thing that struck us most about the course was the seeming lack of planning and organisation around such an important event. A lot has been written about 'The Indian Way' and we still struggle with the poor communication and planning of events such as these.

So the 1st arrived and in the afternoon we saw the familiar sight of children and parents arriving and heading for the hostel. There was no apparent registration process, no collection of address or phone details, just a handing over of children and a tearful farewell by some and a wave and goodbye from others. It was at this stage that we learnt that there would also be boys attending this course.

Most of the children were quiet and some were quite afraid but there was no one around to help them settle in and understand where things were, so we decided to go up to the hostel (which already looked like a bomb had hit it, with biscuit wrappers and all sorts of paper all over the floor - not sure what from).

We gathered a few and sat on the floor and sang songs, while the others sat on the double decker bunks and watched cautiously. Eventually more came and joined in. When the songs ran out, we danced (Mexican Hat Dance, Hokey Pokey, Macarina) and even delved into the back of our minds for a few square dance moves. Gary drew the line at Line Dancing though.

Eventually it was time for dinner and bed so we departed as the wardens got them organised. We had a lot of fun and by bedtime we felt had helped them just a little to feel more at home here.

On Saturday we mingled with the camera and took some photos. Indian children love to have their photos taken so it is a good way to gather a crowd. We continued to chat with them and IW learnt a lot of their names.

Eventually there were kids running everywhere and still no program or direction for them - a great recipe for chaos and that is what we got. We were not sure of the numbers, but knew there were in excess of 100 ten year old boys and girls who had never been away from home.

It was a long, hard period of time where we realised how great a problem the language barrier was. Most of these kids had no English at all and those who spoke it had little comprehension. This caused huge problems as they were full of energy and getting them quiet was almost impossible.

Our greatest memory of this was when we tried to get them into two circles for a game we wanted to play. Simple exercise:

get them all to hold hands
get the last one to stay where he/she was and not move
take the hand of the first one and move off
form the circle by walking in a circle and joining with the last one

WRONG! What you get is a group of boys/girls following you. We tried all sorts of signs to stay still, even standing and holding the last one, but they were desperate to follow where everyone else was going and we ended in a big mess. IW was in stitches.

We were informed by our Warden (the lady in charge of the Hostel) that the Director of Hostels would be arriving at 9:00 am to talk to the children so she asked if we could sing with them - no problems!

Imagine this: The room we were working in was about 10 metres x 6 metres. There was a small space at the front (6 x 3) where the 'entertainment' took place, a space in the middle which was full of desks and chairs and a small space at the end (6 x 3) which was in fact the boys 'dormitory' where 51 of them slept on the cement floor (no mat, no pillow). With 110 energetic children and 2 non-tamil speaking adults, it was not a pretty sight???

Nine o'clock came and went and eventually the Warden told us that the Director had been delayed (drrr!). So we continued to sing and dance and do silly things until eventually at 11:00 am the Director arrived. All the other wardens who were there to supervise magically appeared and we limped back to our place for a rest.

Next morning we went for morning prayer with them and as usual as soon as we arrived the wardens from the other hostels disappeared. Even though we were not expected to be there, every time we appeared the wardens disappeared and left us in charge.

We still do not understand why the children had to arrive on Thursday night when classes did not start until Monday. On Friday afternoon we rang Paul Quigley, an Australian who has been here for 18 months. He had informed us previously that he was doing some teaching in the course and we had arranged for him to stay with us. He could not throw any light on the situation or timing except the old 'Indian Way' theory.

Paul arrived on Saturday afternoon and settled into our spare bedroom. Saturday and Sunday played out much the same. As soon as we poked our heads out all the wardens disappeared and left us with the kids. It was a riot taking them to Church on Sunday. IW was sick so stayed at home which left Paul, our Warden, me and two of our Year 9 girls (who slept overnight and were going to a music camp on Monday), to supervise. The Church is quite large and has hundreds of places for them to explore. Their favourite was a water dispenser at the front door which all 110 of them had to try at regular intervals because they 'were thirsty'.

The teaching at this course is done by volunteers from schools but there was no timetable evident and apparently would be worked out when they arrived on Monday. There would be classes of fifty being taught Science, English and Abacus (mental arithmetic).

The sad thing about the weekend was that there were no organised games or organised anything for that matter and because of the language barrier and the absence of the wardens when we appeared, it was impossible for us to actually do much to help. The children spent a large part of Sunday afternoon sitting quietly on the dirt in the school quadrangle, with a warden (holding a large stick) watching them. Apparently this is supposed to teach them self-discipline???

Monday came and went with us doing morning and evening prayers and devotions and singing. Not much teaching was done as they were still organising themselves. Early Tuesday morning we departed on our holiday feeling very sad at the apparent lack of care being shown for the kids.

Fast forward to Tuesday 19th and we arrive back at the gates of the school at about 10:30 am. What followed was a time of pure delight. Children came running from everywhere, laughing and yelling our names. We felt we had really arrived home by the greetings we were given. IW had children hanging off her everywhere. She could not move as they clung to her and asked her to repeat their names. (Luckily she wrote a lot of the more difficult ones down before she left).

We resumed our evening and morning prayer as well as sitting in on Paul's English class on Wednesday afternoon to help him. Thursday was exam day so all children were worried about that and constantly asking us to pray for them.

We were given our official invitation to go to the Bridging Course Valedictory Function to be held in the grounds at 10:00 am on Friday morning. Between Thursday night and Friday morning a transformation occurred. The children went from village children dressed in their own fairly shabby clothes to school children with crisp clothes - white shirts, grey skirts for the girls/shorts for the boys and black shoes with long white socks. Apparently local churches and individuals sponsor these items.

The Valedictory function was an extravaganza of special guests, speeches, dance, song and dramatisation. We were joined by thirty students, from a music camp run at a different campus, who sang accompanied by keyboard and drums.

A lot of parents showed up although there was a glitch with the dates with parents being advised that the function would be on the 23rd. Wardens spent a lot of time phoning parents (the night before) to advise them that the course finished on the 22nd and they needed to take the children home with them at the conclusion of the function where the favourite 'mutton briyani' was provided for all.

One unfortunate side effect of this was that one family had provided the wrong phone number so their daughter was left alone overnight at the hostel with the warden until they arrived on Saturday afternoon.

The one thing that struck us about these beautiful children was that they all wanted us to pray for them so they would be blessed for their future. Waves of children (and parents) came up to us after the valedictory service to be prayed for. We were overwhelmed and felt privileged to be a part of this time.

We are still waiting to find out which girls will be in our hostel.

The boys doing their dance

Special appearance by Jesus and his disciples

North India Tour - Days 11 - 14 - The Goa Experience

2009-05-20T13:04:00.023+10:00

Hot and Sweaty at Miramar Beach

We were picked up after breakfast and transported to Mumbai Airport for our flight to Goa. Goa gets a lot of press over here being referred to as 'The Westerners' Paradise' and the 'Loveliest Place on Earth'. We wondered how those two titles went together.

A number of people at school told us how much we would enjoy it so we were being suffocated by other people's expectations. We were flying Jet Airways, another budget airline in India. The Airport experience, spoken about at length in other blogs, was as smooth as a Kevin Rudd pre-election speech.

The big surprise came when we boarded the plane. It was fitted with personal entertainment systems offering Movies, Videos etc. The choice of movies was up to date and quite extensive, the disappointment was that the flight was only one hour. I used the time profitably catching up with some Jethro Tull greats followed up with Vince Gill - what a combination.

We landed, collected our luggage and were greeted by the representative from the 'Whispering Palms Resort' - boy, doesn't that sound good! Our image of Goa was beaches, shops and flat coastal strip. We imagined being able to drive from beach to beach (there are in excess of 25 beaches) viewing the beautiful water.

In truth it is one of the most mountainous regions we have seen, especially so close to the water. It reminded us a lot of the coastline of the Italian Riviera where you go up the mountain then down the mountain to get to the next beach. Goa was not as bad as this but getting from place to place was time consuming and generally involved a car being driven by a would-be rally driver who owns the road.

Our drive to 'The Whispering Palms' involved a lot of whispering - prayers actually, that we would not crash head on with a bus as our driver chose to pass other buses on blind corners. It was 60 minutes of white knuckle adventure. There was a lot of horn blowing, a lot of brakes, and a lot of drivers who did not know half as much about driving as our man. He got us there and we did appreciate stepping out of the car into the Hotel foyer.

It is a lovely place and will be our home for the next four days. Our plan is to rest and relax - not get involved with too much sightseeing etc. The package we booked under gives us a half day tour of Goa tomorrow (Saturday) so we will see what that reveals. We are given breakfast and dinner vouchers (you can exchange dinner for lunch if you like). Meals run on Indian time so lunch doesn't begin until 1:00 pm (our friend Jenny Guyatt would be right at home here) and dinner starts from 8:00 pm.

The place is pretty self contained with a swimming pool, sauna, gym, and organised things on most days for all ages to participate in. We have Dinner - it is a buffet every night which is pretty much exclusively Indian food or you can order a-la-carte (which provides a variety of Chinese and Continental dishes) and pay. We are in India so we go the buffet and find a variety of things that are acceptable to our ever-changing palate.

We awake refreshed and head off down the track to the beach. No togs today just a bit of exploration to see what is around but we do expect to have a swim in the Arabian Sea at some stage of our stay here. IW had a sleep in so it was a bit later than normal and the temperature was high and the sand was very hot. Prior to getting onto the beach you have to cross a tract of red sand and judging by its temperature it is full of sun hungry minerals.

I desperately try to be Australian and walk barefooted but before long turn into a pommy tourist with my footwear on. NOTE TO DAUGHTERS - No, I was not wearing socks with my sandals. We make the sand on the beach which is actually yellow, and eventually the water's edge, where footwear is removed and we paddle as we walk up the beach. The water is incredibly warm (yes, that did surprise us). The biggest surprise however was the presence of Life Guards in the biggest Life Guard beach station we had ever seen.

Not sure why this surprised us but it did. They had their red and yellow flags and their 'danger signs'. It was almost like being back home. We walked for about 40 minutes up the beach encountering small groups of people swimming (in their clothes) and eventually encountering the Goa water vendors peddling everything from para-sailing to jet-ski rides.

We retraced our steps and returned to 'Whispering Palms' for a sit around the pool a light lunch before commencing our tour at 2:00 pm.

We gathered in the foyer and enquired when we would be back. The reply was a quick "You will be back for tea." The alarm bells went off and further questioning revealed that we would be back for tea - at 9:00 pm. The tour departed promptly and for the next seven hours we visited:

A Temple (drr!)
A couple of Churches
The obligatory shops that were sponsoring the afternoon
Miramar beach to watch the sunset with 20,000 of our close friends
And finished with a one hour boat cruise up the river.

It was a delightful time. There were nine other people with us - a mum and dad with their daughter and three young couples on their honeymoon. We had some great conversation with them and they shared with us about their marriages - all arranged by their parents. This was something we had heard about but to have time to talk to three couples about how it worked for them and to see their commitment to each other was quite refreshing.

We arrived home almost on the dot of 9:00 pm and headed to the dining room with a couple of our new friends. We spent a pleasant hour at the Indian Buffet with Ankur and Zunkhnu then headed off for a well earned sleep.

Talk about Sunday being a day of rest! We only left the room for meals and spent the day sleeping, watching movies, playing computer games and writing stories. Didn't see anyone, didn't talk to anyone.

Monday dawned and we knew this was the day for the Arabian Sea swim. We had breakfast and headed to the beach. Much to our shock, as we crossed the red sand we saw red flags. How can the beach be closed on such a great day? We surveyed up and down and couldn't see any signs of danger but no-one was swimming.

We walked down the beach in the opposite direction to Saturday and about 200 metres down the beach passed another red flag. We then saw people swimming in front of a group of three lifesavers who were sitting under their palm leaf shelter with the red and yellow flags on the sand in front of them. We kept going to finish our walk and on the way back IW went to ask why the beach was closed.

"Oh no, it is fine to swim here but it is very dangerous where the red flag is." The red flag was 10 metres away. We did not ask why the flags for swimming were not up. We were quickly in the water and had a good time avoiding the viscious shore dumpers. The water was quite warm so it was not a super refreshing swim but we had done it.

We emerged and continued home where we showered all the sand off at the pool shower and dived in for a cool down. The pool was a little warmer than the ocean so we were soon out, towelled off and headed back to the room for a rest.

We had arranged to meet some Indian people we met in Brisbane before we left. The husband is studying for a PhD in Oz and after a 7 month stint in Oz, his wife and children have now returned to their home in Goa. We caught a taxi to their house and spent several hours chatting and eating the delicious Indian tiffen (snacks) she had for us.

It was then back to our hotel for dinner where IW managed to get in a spot of Karaoke singing at the evening entertainment. After the standing ovation we returned to our room to pack and make ready for a 6:00 am departure to the airport with the driver from hell. We would be back 'home' at CSI Jessie Moses Matriculation and Senior Secondary School by 10:00 am tomorrow morning.

All in all it was a great, relaxing time. Goa did not live up to the expectations we had prior to going. It was quite dirty, which was surprising with the incredible number of tourists who visit it every year. It is time consuming to get anywhere and this was the low season. We would really hate to see it in high season. The roads are extremely narrow and quite dangerous in places when vehicles pass. Even though people say it is 'The Westerners' Paradise' and the 'Loveliest Place on Earth', we probably would not put it on a list of places we would want to return to.

North India Tour - Day 10

2009-05-17T22:32:00.039+10:00

Today we were to visit the Elephanta Caves. What are the Elephanta Caves? Good question. We had never heard of them but once Mumbai was added to the itinerary apparently Elephanta Caves became a must. According to the official blurb :

"Hewn out of solid rock, the Elephanta Caves date back to 600 AD, and attract more visitors each year than the entire city of Mumbai."

The caves are located on Elephant Island about 11 km north-east of the Gate of India (GoI). The island was named after a colossal elephant sculpture found on the island. This sculpture is now housed at Jijamata Garden in the heart of Mumbai.

Shahbaz was to pick us up at 7:30 - we did not know why as on our walk last night we passed all the ticket stands at GoI which stated that the first boat left at 9:00 am. Seeing that we walked here following Shahbaz's simple 'down the road turn right then left' and got here by foot in 10 minutes, now it was going to take 90 minutes in a car sounded a bit over the top even for India.

Who were we to argue with the expert so we were up early, had a good breakfast then received the 7:25 message that he would not get us until 8:30. That was OK, still going to take him 30 minutes to drive our 10 minute walk.

We were picked up, driven to the GoI and personally escorted to the stone steps where the thirty boats were tied up. There were a further 130 anchored about 30 metres away from GoI. Luckily it was low season.

The boat was a charmer. We boarded and went to go upstairs but there was a small Indian man guarding the steps demanding more money if we wanted to go up. We declined, not because of the money, more because we are sick of having extra charges put on everything we do. The seating downstairs offered four options:

Wooden benches around the outside
Cloth-covered seats down the middle for half the length of the boat, which wouldn't fit half a Wallis backside on them
A row of free-standing plastic chairs directly over the diesel exhaust output from the engine
A further row of free-standing plastic chairs connected to (2)

We discounted (3) due to IW's inability to handle the smell of diesel and the sea in the same journey. (2) went out because when we tried them we found they slanted forward and when we sat on them we slowly started to slip toward the deck. That left (1) and (4). Being thrillseekers we chose (4) because we thought it would be fun to slide backward and forward on the chairs that were not attached to the deck. Oh for a good Workplace Health and Safety Officer.

We watched people board, head to the stairs, be confronted by the Stair Guard and turn away to find a seat downstairs. Strangely, our decision making process was followed by most people. We had a great ride sliding ever so gently back and forward - the only ones who didn't either throw up on the voyage or continually pick themselves up off the deck after slipping off the cloth covered seats.

It was a one hour trip to the Island which passed fairly quickly especially with the on-board entertainment provided by the seats. When we arrived at the island we moored at the end of a long stone causeway that was about 300 metres long.

Upon alighting we ran the gauntlet of the vendors and paid our 5 rupee tax charge. There waiting for us was a 'free' train to transport us to the end of the causeway. It was only 'free' one way as they charged 25 rupees to take you back to the boat. After the vendors was an incredibly long, steep, uphill climb which along the way also required the scaling of over 120 steps. This is where words such as:

advance warning steep stairs
those with a heart problem
if you recently had a hip replacement

come to mind. Then we saw 'THE SIGN'. 'Chair Lift available - 400 rupees ($12) up and 300 rupees ($9) down. Could be worth it as IW's knees are not that good. Then we rounded the corner and there they were, the chair lifts. As we glanced up, not being able to see the top for fear of damaging our vertebrae we christened what lay ahead as the 'Climb of Hell (CoH)'.

We declined these also as the memory of 'Lance' pushing us up the hill at the Taj mahal still lived in our memory. We were not ready to put the Indians to another test just yet.

The climb is lined with vendors selling jewellery, cloth, carved elephants etc. If only there was a Snow Cone Taj Mahal my wallet would be out in a flash. We kept a steady pace with the Wallis competitive spirit simmering just below the surface. IW was finding it difficult on the steps but there was a couple in their 80's in front of us so I urged her on with some great Wallis encouragement.

We could not stop as the vendors perched like giant carniverous birds ready to swoop on the first sign of fatigue in the passing tourists. Fifty steps, wow that was easy (if you were an athlete in his prime). My clothes changed from crisp and nicely ironed to sort of damp (well wringing wet) cloth clinging to my back and legs. It must be noted that I was penalised early and had to do the CoH carrying a 20kg backpack.

We reached the top with no great injury. IW was a champion - we left those 80 year olds in our wake.

At the top were the ticket booth and the monkeys. We paid our money and followed the signs. There were five caves of varying sizes. All had been carved out of the rock. Some surfaces were highly polished and others quite rough. There were various Hindu gods inside but most had been badly damaged by the Portugese army using them as target practice. This gave the appearance of a quite sad, uncared for place. There was rubbish everywhere which added to the confusion for us as to why this was the most popular tourist destination in Mumbai.

We headed down to meet the boat. IW engaged in her usual banter with the vendors when she inadvertantly stopped and picked up some stone necklaces. The bartering began and she ended up buying two for 100 rupees ($3). Who knows what they are made of or what their real worth is. IW is happy, the vendor is happy and I am happy as my wallet is a bit lighter.

We had plenty of time for the boat, so declined the 25 rupee 'free' train ride and walked back to the boat. The trip home took 90 minutes as there was a pretty fierce head wind that bounced us, the chairs and the people sitting next to the diesel outlet around. We had negotiated with the driver that we would walk the arduous 10 minutes home and he was to pick us up at 3:00 pm to continue on our tour of Mumbai.

Promptly at 3:00 pm Shahbaz arrives wanting to take us to this temple and that temple etc. I leaned over and said "Shahbaz we have seen enough old things, how about we change the itinerary and tour the great sporting arenas of Mumbai". This threw him a bit as the first thing he showed us was a local cricket field. There was a game going on so it was good. He then explained that the 'big' cricket field was two hours drive away (for me, I immediately translated that into about 20km).

We did get to the Royal Western India Turf Club which I knew would be of interest to several of the Wallis Clan. Unfortunately we could not get in so had to resort to the old 'over the back straight fence' shots.

We were then asked if we would like to see the Dhoby Ghaut. The only thing I know of this name is a subway station in Singapore. When we asked what it was, Shahbaz just replied "I think you will like it." Shortly after he pulls up on a bridge and tells us to get out and have a look over the stone wall at the Dhoby Ghaut.

A bit of research revealed the following:

Dhoby Ghaut literally means washing place in Hindi,

from Dhobi - literally meaning washerman or one who does laundry and

Ghaut - meaning a large open space.

Dhobis call on regular clients, collect their dirty clothes and then take them to the Dhobi Ghauts. The famous Dhobi Ghat of Mumbai, India, has rows of wash pens, each with its own flogging stone. The Dhobi sloshes dirty linen into a soapy water mixture, thrashing it with the flogging stones, and then puts the linen into huge vats of starch. After it is dried, it is ironed and delivered to the owners. This is however not a standard practice of dhobis in general. In a large number of areas in the country, dhobis have migrated to washing machines and dryers, using the modern detergents. The people live in these slumlike dwellings right next to a huge railway station. Very depressing actually.

After departing the largest outdoor laundry in the world we were taken to a hill overlooking the bay where the Botanical Gardens are situated.

It is a spectacular site and although the flowers were not in bloom, there were plenty of families taking in the Gardens and the view.

We were soon back in our hotel and heading for the rooftop restaurant to watch some cricket and have something to eat overlooking the beautiful Mumbai coastline.

That was Mumbai. a great city surrounded by water, relatively clean, easy to get around. Well worth a few days' visit. Tomorrow we head to Goa for our final four days.

North India Tour - Day 9

2009-05-16T11:59:00.015+10:00

Today is a sad day. We say good bye to Ram. We are flying to Mumbai where we will pick up a new driver and Ram will do the big 670 km solo drive from Udaipur airport back to his family in Delhi.

We don't know how he will survive without us feeding him and offering him good quality Australian humour that he doesn't understand. He anticipates it will take him two days to get home.

The Udaipur airport is 25 km from our hotel so is a one hour drive. When we arrive we are shocked. Here on the outskirts of this small (by Indian standards) town is a brand new shining, glistening, clean airport. Not many people here so we stay together and head to where the check in baggage is scanned. We are flying with Kingfisher Airlines which is the Indian version of Virgin Air in Australia. We don't know which came first but the colour schemes and the employees uniforms are almost identical.

There is one scanning machine and approximately six different airlines that fly out of this airport. Small Indian point here - rather that have one scanning team, every airline has its own team to scan the luggage for their customers. We identify that we are flying with Kingfisher and are told we have to wait as Air India guys are using the machine and Kingfisher scanner-man is not there.

Before long they grab our bag and place it on the conveyor belt. We walk to the other end where the tape machine is being rethreaded, from Indian Air tape to Kingfisher tape. The pain of the check in at Chennai just eight days ago has almost faded but we grip each other's hand as we retrieve our bag and head off to see the Udaipur CIC.

No line, a very pleasant lady kingfisher attends to us and we have our boarding passes at breakneck speed. Find a comfy seat to relax while we wait. There are a couple of shops so IW is off to explore. She has purchased some potato chips and ordered coffee. The coffee is delivered by the shop keeper. What great service!

We open the laptop to check email and do some work on the blog then IW engages is a few games of Majong to pass the time. IW has taken to Windows Vista Majong ever since I forgot to pack her books when we left nine days ago.

We are only 40 minutes late in our departure, have a good flight and by the time we collect our bags at Mumbai are about one hour behind our schedule but dead on time Indian wise. We exit and begin the scan of the fifty men holding up scraps of paper with names on them. Again the white faces work as he spots us long before we see him. There he stands, arms waving frantically. We wave back and head off to the car.

We are soon on the road. Mumbai traffic is different. We pass several large signs urging drivers not to blow their horns and reminding them that it is illegal to use a mobile phone while driving and that seat belts must be used - not that they paid too much attention to the last two. They seem to understand part of the message as although the traffic is thick, there is a quietness about it that we haven't 'heard' in the rest of India. There is still the occasional blast as they persist with the habit of forming extra lanes whenever the traffic stops.

Our new driver's name is Shahbaz. He is younger and does not talk as much as Ram so we have to enquire about things we are passing. We ask him to find a Post Office as we have some mail to post. As usual the drive to the Hotel via the Post Office is slow and full of stops but Shahbaz double parks at the PO allowing IW to scamper (maybe an over exaggeration of description there) inside.

By the time we get to our hotel it is late afternoon. It is a very pleasant hotel in the Muslim quarter, a short walk from the water's edge. We settle in, then decide to explore the neighbourhood before dinner.

Down the road, turn right then left and presto, before us unfolds of the picture postcard scene of the harbour.

Glancing up to the left along the path that follows the shoreline are crowds of people enjoying the sunshine and the view. Further up we see one of the sights of Mumbai, the Gate of India.

This famous monument is the starting point for most tourists who want to explore the city. It was built as a triumphal arch to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary, complete with four turrets and intricate latticework carved into the yellow basalt stone. Ironically, when the Raj ended in 1947, this colonial symbol also became a sort of epitaph: the last of the British ships that set sail for England left from the Gateway. Today this symbol of colonialism has got Indianised, drawing droves of local tourists and citizens. Behind the arch, there are steps leading down to the water. Here, you can get onto one of the bobbing little motor launches, for a short cruise through Mumbai's splendid natural harbour.

We continue our walk along the foreshore where the air is thick with chatter, laughter and the cries of assorted vendors peddling their wares. You can snack on anything from fruit chaat (fruit salad with hot, spicy dressing), through bhelpuri (a snack of puffed rice, spices and hot, sweet and sour chutney), chana jor garam (spicy chickpeas), dal ka pakodas (fried lentil-flour dumplings), potato chips to ice cream, candy floss and aerated drinks.

There are fancy horse-drawn carrriages to take a short ride in but the most impressive thing is the people. There is a mixture of tourists like us that can be picked out but the majority are Indian families strolling around the gate enjoying the sights, the coolish breeze and the clear weather.

When approached now I reply with my one standard French phrase of "Parlez vous Francais". This seems to slow them down as they seem to be conditioned to reply in English so I just shrug my shoulders in an arrogant French way and move on. I guess one day I will encounter an Indian who speaks French but then my plan will be to morph into an Italian.

A touch of Monty Python appeared here for me. If you are a fan of Monty Python's 'Life of Brian' you will remember the 'People's Front of Judea' and the 'Judean People's Front'. You see in Mumbai you have 'The Gate of India' and in Delhi there is 'The India Gate'. I guess it is OK for a country to have two gates.

After circumnavigating the Gate we head off down the road to explore. We have a rough idea where our Hotel is and have the address so if we get hopelessly lost we will jump in a cab for the trip home. After a few turns we encounter 'one of those streets'. Packed with shops and people - a pick pocket's dream and a tourist's delight.

We spend an hour or so strolling and looking, me perfecting my French shrug and IW daring to stop and talk and be inundated with new friends. We eventually find a small eatery that seems to have a good menu and a few people inside. We go in and sit down then all the others sitting jump to their feet. Seems they are the staff and we are their first customers of the night - not a good sign.

We wonder if we should leave but they are friendly and are personal friends of Ricky Ponting (as is half of India when they find out you are Australian), so we stay. The food was good and so was the price. We stroll back to the Hotel for a good night's rest and look forward to a day of exploring Mumbai with Shahbaz tomorrow.

The Gateway of India - Mumbai

North India Tour - Day 7,8

2009-05-13T17:36:00.019+10:00

We are combining two days into this one story. This is another two night stay in a place called Udaipur the City of Lakes. We drove from Jodhpur to Udaipur which was another 300+ km day (with a/c all day) visited the Ranakpur Jain Temple along the way arriving in Udaipur late in the afternoon. Next day we were scheduled to visit the sites of Udaipur in the morning and have a cruise on Lake Pichola in the afternoon visiting the Palace built on an island in the lake. Here is how it all unfolded.

For some reason Ram did not want to depart until 9:30 today. This was a bit confusing considering the distance to travel. We trusted him so had a relaxing morning then on the dot of 9:30 we jumped into the cocoon and headed out of Jodhpur.

Once again Ram used 4th gear magnificently in the city traffic. It was the usual cars, trucks, autos everywhere with horns blaring but with many shudders we 'glided' effortlessly out of the city.

Roads here are really quite horrendous with huge craters everywhere. I was going to use the word pothole there (as we do in Oz for a hole in the road) but it is just the wrong word for Indian roads. Small cars have been lost for days in these craters. This is one of the reasons for slow travel. Another is that to reduce speeding on the open road the Indian Transport Department has come up with this great idea of putting speed bumps on the highway.

These are laid in a series of three about 50 cm apart. They are well disguised and have no warning. THEY ARE EFFECTIVE! You either pay attention and slow to a crawl to get over them or you manoeuvre your car to the side of the road and the tow truck comes to get you after you have broken your axle. There are lots of cars on the side of the road as you drive past these incredibly devised traffic calmers.

Sometimes you are even lucky enough to get the combined traffic calmer/crater combination which is a real treat and adds to the excitement. I am amazed at the skill of Ram and how he can negotiate these obstacles in 4th. You don't have to change down as you don't actually stop.

India fact: Every 400 miles you travel there is a new language to learn. The diversification of language here is incredible. There are 15 major languages and over 100 minor ones. The few words and phrases (Tamil) that Lynn has mastered are useless here. Although Hindi is India's official language, English is also enshrined in the constitution for a wide range of official purposes, notably communication between Hindi and non-Hindi states. All of these languages also have their own scripts. It plays havoc with National Broadcasting.

It was a long drive to Ranakpur, no stopping Ram today - with the a/c fixed and a late start he was a man on a mission. We had a supply of biscuits, bananas and Tic Tac's which we continued to feed him as he relentlessly pushed on to our goal. We arrived at about 1:15 pm and received our instructions.

No entry fee but a 50 rupee fee for a camera or 200 rupees for a movie camera. This is standard across every place you visit with some policing it more than others. Seeing that most cameras take both still and video and every phone takes both, it becomes a bit of a joke for a lot of people. We continue to try to do the right thing except here when we are nearly at the entrance and I remember I have the movie camera in my pocket.

They have the electronic wand out and there are beeps everywhere as they detect people's phones and take them away. When they 'wand' me I go off like the 1812 overture. Indian mobile in one pocket, Aust mobile in another with the movie camera. Will IW ever see me again? What does the Jain sect say about forgiveness - if only I had done more reading in comparative religions.

I immediately pulled out my Indian phone and could show it was so cheap that it did not have a camera. Then the guard pointed to my other pocket and inspiration came from somewhere beyond me as I blurted out "My Australian phone - doesn't work here". I don't know if the guard could speak English but he just waved me through.

I looked around for IW but at this stage she had distanced herself from me and was mixing with a group of Italians using her twenty words of Italian. Unfortunately none of the Italians wanted to sell her any ham, cheese or bread.

She claims it was a deliberate ploy in case I got arrested and threatened with deportation. It has happened before to the Wallis name. Of course I believed her, was reunited and off we went to view the temple.

This is one of the five main holy places of the Jain sect. Though over 500 years old, the temple here is very well preserved and is in good condition. The temple has twenty-nine halls which contain 1,444 marble pillars of which no two are alike. I was personally unable to prove this point as in searching, they all looked alike and I kept losing where I was up to.

One of the problems inside was that there were signs that you could take photos of anything except Jain gods. Now this place was full of strange and interesting sculptures and as previously mentioned, I would not at this point of the tour class either IW or I as a Jain expert. We do our best and as we swing around a corner there are all these niches in the wall with barred gates. I immediately became an expert in what a Jain god looks like.

Unfortunately a young Indian guy in front of me was not as clever and was happily snapping away when the whistles began to blow and the camera police started to run from everywhere. The young Indian started to run as well.

Question: Where do you hide in a Jain temple that you have been inside for ten minutes when being chased by people who live there?

Answer: Not behind one of the 1,444 columns that look different from each other. Especially if the columns are thinner than you.

The young Indian was given a good talking to then taken off somewhere, probably to have the photos deleted and be evicted from the site. I thought of many other options but the editor thought that we should go with that one. Shame really as the one about .... sorry, can't tell you.

After we rejoined Ram we had 50 km to go to reach Udaipur. Once again I would like to point out that these were 50 Indian kms on Indian roads. Enough said, it took us two hours to reach our hotel.

I cannot remember if I have delivered this piece of advice to anyone thinking of travelling to India, but if I have, I will tell you again as it is good to know. Never, never, never ask an Indian how far it is to somewhere but instead ask them how long it will take to get there. They are very good at knowing travelling times but are appallingly bad at knowing how far it is.

We arrived at the Ram Pratap Palace at about 4:30 pm. It has been a great day and we have laughed a lot, fed Ram a lot, and arrived safely. Three big pluses.

We dined that night at the restaurant across the road from our hotel. It is a delightful garden restaurant with tables in the open air right on Lake Pichola and is a beautiful setting and the food was great and the famous Indian exfoliation breezes has been replaced by a gentle warm breeze off the lake.

Dinner by Lake Pichola

After breakfast we visited the small shop in the Hotel and again heard the story about how we were visiting in the wrong season as it was too hot and we related back to him the story about it was this time or never.

He thanked us for coming to have a look and then went into the standard story about how in low season they get no visitors so if we would only buy something it would bring him luck. We had to meet Ram for our day's tour so we said we would visit again tomorrow morning when we (ie IW) had time.

Today we had scheduled the normal tour of major city sites then in the afternoon a motor launch ride to see the Palace on the lake. This was the palace used in the James Bond movie "Octopussy" and we were looking forward to seeing it.

We were disappointed when Ram picked us up and said there would be no launch ride as they had been cancelled due to the low water levels in the lake.
We spent the morning looking at the City Palace which was nice, but passed on the Temples. We then visited the botanical gardens which again would be magnificent after the monsoon season but we had a pleasant walk around and once again were inundated by touts at the gate and also Indian families who wanted to have their photo taken with us. We are going to miss this celebrity status when we leave India. If we had 1oo Rupees for every photo taken with us (the price some Indians ask when we want to take their photo), we would have paid for our holiday.

We arrived home about lunch time and had a rest.

Mid afternoon we decided to get off the tourist sites and meet the locals. We went for a walk and then jumped in an auto and gave some vague instructions about where we wanted to go. He nodded in agreement and then proceeded to do what all good auto drivers do and take us to his mate's store which has the "best prices, but you don't have to buy anything just look".

His mate promotes artists which is good but unfortunately we have not taken a liking to Indian art yet. I find it hard to hide my displeasure so wander around the shop looking at stuff while IW is the ever patient visitor listening and chatting. You would think that after 36 years of marriage IW would have caught a little bit of my abrupness when dissatisfied.

We eventually leave the shop, give the auto driver some money and head off on foot. What a great time we had, down the road, round the corner and about 300 shops awaited selling all the things we didn't want. But being white we obviously wanted to buy:

a rug
a pashmir
shoes that are too narrow for our broad feet
material (IW liked this one)
jewellery
candle holders
drums
carved elephants with baby elephants inside them (again!)
carvings of various Hindu gods
etc etc

We had the time of our life. For about three hours we were with the people, talking and bartering, looking at everything, laughing with them then moving on and actually buying nothing. We eventually hailed an auto and headed back to our hotel for dinner by the lake.

Udaipur, the City of Lakes, is a beautiful place and would be well worth a visit after the monsoons when the lake is filled again.

Palace on the Lake in the evening across the mud flats taken from our outdoor Restaurant

North India Tour - Day 6

2009-05-12T11:39:00.019+10:00

Welcome to Day 6. The drive from Jaipur to Jodhpur. We are told it is 300 km but on investigation it seems to be more like 351 km. Not a big deal - except in India. There are a lot of new toll roads being built and about half of our journey will be on 4 lane divided roads. The open speed limit is 90 km/hr so half the journey should take 2 hrs leaving 170 km on 2 lane Indian roads at approx 40 km/hr. Allowing a stop along the way and we are looking at a 7 hour trip.

Today is also the hottest day we have encountered. When we get picked up Ram tells us that it is 45 degrees. Thank goodness for the 'cocoon of cool'. We get under way and crawl through the traffic out of Jaipur and are soon on the toll road. As you look out the window the country side is dry and bare, small trees scattered here and there. It is not unlike the Australian countryside really.

We seem to be making reasonable time. Ram is a 'conservative' driver who is still discovering what the gear stick is for. Its main purpose seems to be to get the car moving then get into 4th as soon as possible regardless of what speed you are travelling. This is not pleasant in city driving but we are now used to it and on the open road it works a treat for him.

About two hours into our trip it starts to get hotter and hotter, Ram drives on, he is in 4th gear and happy. I wonder if I should try and introduce him to 5th but decide it is best left alone. The air conditioning is not working and the 'cocoon of cool' soon turns into the 'sauna on wheels'. We start to wind down the windows to get some air. Well air we get. It is a beautiful Indian breeze, about 55 degrees, blowing over the sandy landscape. Why pay for exfoliation when you can get it so easily here.

Ram stops and lifts the bonnet. He employs the 'If I look hard enough at it, it may fix itself'' technique. He hops back in and shakes his head. His hard looking failed to fix the problem.

Ram stops every half hour or so for another look but his looking has no more power than mine. At about 2:00 pm he pulls in to what is best described as 'a Mexican Cantina' from 'the Good the Bad and the Ugly' film set. With what is happening in the world I begin to wonder if the 'Swine Flu' is waiting for us inside.

We go inside and are greeted by a young Indian boy who offers us the lunch menu. We sit and look out the window to witness Ram pouring a bucket of water over the engine. At this stage I doubted the logic of his actions, the bucket of water poured over my head made some sense! We decline the food offer but buy a couple of drinks from 'the fridge'. In India the purpose of the fridge seems to be to keep things at normal room temperature. ie not to cool but to stop contents from getting too hot. The drinks are wet but not refreshing.

We rejoin Ram and drive off into the sun. Gee I hope this has a better ending than some of the movies I have seen. The heat seems to be having an effect on a lot of cars with numerous pulled off the road. Here we encounter the Indian warning cone. Rather than carrying some safety cones with them (how can you when you have twenty people in the car) they use their natural resources. What is in abundance? Large rocks of course.

When a car or truck stops for any length of time, the driver collects large rocks (that is LARGE ROCKS, not stones) and places them about 1 metre out from the car/truck. It should be noted that with the wind blowing the dust over the road distinguishing the LARGE brown rock from the brown road is not that easy. Needless to say Ram manages to avoid these warning devices and we arrive in Jodhpur.

We check in and rush to the room to cool down but alas as we enter all power goes off. It is a VERY hot day in North India. Turns out that it was 45 degrees. Luckily the power outage is only the normal five minute interruption and soon the fan and air conditioning are purring away. Yes, we are spoilt. We have an hour break while Ram tries to find someone who can look at the a/c fault. It is Sunday and we pray the he finds someone who can do more than 'look at it'.

Ram picks us up at the alloted time and he is a happy man. The 'cocoon of cool' has returned. We head off to see the Mehrangarh Fort and the Jaswant Thada.

Mehrangarh Fort is one hundred feet high and is built on a perpendicular cliff, four hundred feet above the sky line of Jodhpur. Again we ask the question "How did they build this?" It is magnificent. The best quote we have found is from Rudyard Kipling, who called it “the work of giants”. Today, it is acknowledged as the finest living example of a Hindu fortress.

Ram drops us at the entrance and we purchase our tickets. One of the tips we got here was that for 15 Rupees (about 50 cents) you could get an elevator to the top and then explore as you walk down. We did this and by the time we were completed and finally reached the bottom we realised there was no way Lynn could have climbed all the stairs to the top and then enjoy the place. The extent of the climb or the availability of the elevator are not prominent near the ticket booth so we were glad for the tip.

From the top there were spectacular views of Jodhpur with its blue buildings. Whereas Jaipur is known as the "pink city" because the Maharajah commanded that all buildings in the old city be painted pink, Jodhpur is know as the "blue city". The reason the houses are blue is that they have a terrible termite problem and the only way to get rid of them was to add Copper Sulphate to the whitewash. Over time this changed to blue.

The Fort was fascinating with a good display of things to look at and overall was quite well preserved. It took us about an hour to walk down. We then proceeded by car to Jaswant Thada which is about 200 metres down the hill.

It is a white marble memorial built by Sardar Singh in 1899 in memory of Maharja Jaswant Singh II. The monument, in its entirety, is built out of intricately carved sheets of marble. Within this cenotaph, there are also two more tombs. The Jaswant Thada is a traditional cremation ground of Jodhpur rulers. The grounds are also comprised of exquisitely carved gazebos, a beautiful multi-tiered garden, and a small lake.

Jaswant Thada

External carved marble Cenopath

More Jodhpur Rulers

It is only small so after a look and a few photos we jump back into the cocoon to head back to our hotel for a well earned rest.

North India Tour - Day 5

2009-05-11T11:47:00.012+10:00

We stayed overnight at a Hotel called the Jaipur Palace. Over the years we have found hotel names to be quite deceiving so it is always an interesting experience after seeing the web presentation of the hotel to actually arrive at the front door and see it for yourself. Much like meeting people really. The accommodation was great and they had a great restaurant plus a 24 hour Coffee Shop. Lynn was delighted.

This was our first two night City so we were looking forward to having a bit more time to get out and see some of the normal things of the City. Today's planned itinerary was a visit to Amber Palace and Jaigarh Fort (above) then back into Jaipur to see some of the tourist sites (City Palace, Astronomical Observatory).

Jaigarh Fort and the Palace are 11 kms from Jaipur and look magnificent, perched on the hill top. The guide book told us it was a great blend of Hindu and Muslim architecture, built in 16th century by Raja Man Singh. The Old Palace lies at the base of the Jaigarh Fort. This area was the original Amber before Man Singh I came along and went on a building spree.

Imagine yourself in the starting gate for the Tour de India Elephant Time Trial. We started at 20 second intervals and the course was downright treacherous. All uphill with hairpin bends. These Indians are crazy setting an elephant time trial course like this.

Funnily enough our elephant's name is Cadel and he looks fresh and in good shape. He was carrying a bit of flab, but who isn't. Before the first elephant started we noticed a couple of them gathered in the corner apparently chewing on some 'grass'. Time will tell if it will assist them this close to the start.

We were about fifth to leave and started at what could be described as 'a good steady plod'. We tried not to get Cadel too excited as we didn't want him to 'hit the wall' as the walls on this place look pretty solid. It was a race of concentration with lots of distractions - photographers all over us, people wanting to sell Gary a turban, and what about a nice piece of cloth or yet another carved elephant. Are these people serious! Don't they know there is an elephant race going on.

After five minutes we passed the elephant in front of us - unfortunately his rider got distracted by someone selling caps. We pressed on around a dangerous hairpin bend where many an elephant has lost his footing. Cadel beautifully changed his stride pattern to short rhythmic thumps and took the corner easily and in the process made valuable ground on a Russian elephant named Menchov.

This was where Cadel needed some encouragement so Gary leaned over and whispered in Cadel's rather large right ear. Out of professional courtesy we cannot mention what was said but it was not long before Menchov felt the power of Cadel as he glided past him on a steep uphill section. We arrived at the top with Cadel puffing slightly but in good spirits. As we did a lap of honour around the quadrangle Cadel held his trunk aloft as a sign of his great time and assured victory.

Now back to the Fort and the Palace. As we alighted from the elephant we were accosted by the 'official' tour guides. We stuck to our script of wanting to view the place in silence and were soon left alone. As usual we marvelled at how these places were built. We are sure a lot of people would have lost their lives in its construction.

It was a great place, with spectacular views over the valley. We spent an hour or so wandering the hallways and enjoying our time together.

India is a different place with different customs that most of the time seem so strange to us yet each day we understand a bit more about ourselves and how we treat others and how our viewpoint is sometimes so narrow that we are blinded to the things around us.

When we completed our time at the top we made our way down the steps to the car park to rejoin Ram to return to Jaipur to visit the Astronomical Observatory and the City Palace. The Observatory was good with lots of different devices used (from 1728) for measuring star positions etc. The maharajah was an astronomer and as the Observatory was close to the palace he used to carry out many observations there. We were totally amazed by the things they invented back then to assist us today. We are content that we don't know how they work.

As we took the short walk from the Observatory to the City Palace we both realised that we are ready for a rest so headed instead for the car park where Ram drove us back to the Hotel. When we first started travelling overseas in 2000 we made a pact that we did not have to see everything and if we felt like a rest then we would have one. This was one of those occasions. We have missed touring Jaipur City Palace forever but we did get a sneak peak through the large entry doorway in the wall. From the outside it looked like most of the other palaces we have seen. We don't think our missing it will change the world that much.

We arranged for Ram to pick us up again at 5:00 pm and drop us down to the Market area so we could see a bit of the local colour before our departure in the morning.

North India Tour - Day 4

2009-05-10T22:49:00.014+10:00

Ram picked us up after breakfast for a leisurely 180 km to Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan. We are stopping along the way to visit another deserted city. The countryside is dotted with these once great places that have been abandoned as ancient rulers decided that they would move on and build a new residence.

The history of the North is one of power and war with the strongest surviving. This place was no exception - a temple surrounded by residences and courts all laid out to give the best vantage points against those who would attack you.

It was worth the visit but like most cultural things we have seen so far, with the exception of the Taj Mahal, it was in a dreadful state of disrepair and management.

The Hindu Temple here is devoted to Hanuman, the Hindu Monkey God so obviously the place was full of monkeys.

Again, they do as they like and move around doing what the please.

Even in its current state of disrepair it is spectacular. Built into a ravine with hundreds of steps to climb. Halfway up there is a pool with lots of kids swimming in it. It does not look inviting at all but they are having a ball.

We spent quite a bit of time looking, then headed back down to meet Ram and head off to Jaipur.

It was a good trip with the usual sights of overcrowded transport vehicles, camels and the constant noise of horns as cars neared each other.

Jaipur is a lovely city - about the same size as Brisbane. Quite busy and the young people dress in modern clothes. We had a long walk from our hotel up the road. It is clean, full of mango sellers and others eking out a living somehow. We walk for about 2 km then catch an auto home.

North India Tour - Day 3

2009-05-09T23:59:00.014+10:00

We left Agra early for the 260 km journey to Ranthambhore National Park. A short journey by Australian standards but as we have come to know, this distance by road in India is an elongated time warp that could take forever. For us 6.5 hours with a 20 min stop at the 'tourist shop' where you can buy overpriced anything but especially carved elephants, camels, turtles and extremely overpriced textiles.

We now know that the average speed for any trip of length regardless of the quality of the road is 40km/hr.

We were deposited at the Ranthambhore Safari Lodge at 1:30 pm in time for a rest before we embarked on our 3:00 pm Tiger Safari. Ranthambhore Safari Lodge is the famous place mentioned in 'The Pub With No Beer'. I have pondered this oddity for a couple of days now and wondered how this scenario would play out in Queensland if in the off-season they stopped serving all meat and salad dishes and only served Chinese and Indian food.

Anyway, the Lodge accommodation was terrific. Great staff, great grounds and terribly embarrassed that they could not serve us Indian food.

We were to do our Safari in a Jeep fitted with two rows of bench seats. It duly arrived with a young couple from London already aboard in the first seat. This left IW and I to somehow scale the side of the Jeep into the back bench seat. For a normal athletic couple this would have been no trouble but to two people who now have trouble remembering how to spell 'athletic' it presented more of a problem. Needless to say, there were no photos taken and we made it into the back seat.

Off we went - a whole afternoon of adventure in front of us - or so we thought. We had about a 5km drive to the entrance and to our surprise just before arriving we veered off the road and into another accommodation venue. There we picked up another English couple, the husband leapt into the front bench seat leaving his wife to scale the side to join us in the back.

There have been many stories written about the width of 'Wallis hips' so trying to fit both of us plus a 'not so small' lady on one bench seat is silly beyond belief anywhere in the world except India. This is what you do here. On our 6.5 hour drive here we passed countless jeeps without two specially fitted bench seats that had at least twenty occupants.

We entered the park to be greeted by at least 100 monkeys playing and crawling over everything - so used to the people and traffic that there was nothing you could do to dissuade them. This was their area and they did as they pleased.

After the driver had registered, off we went into the scrub in search of one of the thirty Tigers that lived there along with Sambhar Deer, Spotted Deer, Leopard Jackal, Sloth Bear, Crocodiles, Hyena plus a fantastic array of bird life. Despite the discomfort of playing 'Sardine Charades' along the way we had a lot of fun.

We screeched to a halt at one point because the driver saw a Tiger footprint in the dust at the side of the road. We were puzzled at how a Tiger could leave just one paw print but having witnessed several great circus acts over the years we were sure Tigers could hop on one leg to avoid detection by a group of people who had never seen one before.

We witnessed many beautiful sights and animals during the first hour and then it happened! As we drove alongside a small water course where Sambhar Deer were having a bit to eat and a drink, our attention was drawn to a dark shape alongside a deserted brick hut on the side of the hill.

What followed was spectacular as nature unfolded before us. The deer eating and drinking in a small dip in the land, the Tiger taking an inordinate amount of time to creep into position and us perched in our Jeep on the other side - barely thirty metres away and desperately trying to be quiet. Some wanted to shout and warn the deer, others wanted the Tiger to win.

The patience of the Tiger was endless, for fifteen minutes we watched as she crouched behind a bush and inched forward toward the deer which were enjoying their day. One deer slowly walked to where the Tiger was hiding. This is the end we thought. There was one small bush separating them. Then all of a sudden the deer let out a high pitched squeal and ran up to the top of the hill.

The ones down below scattered and the one at the top continued to sound the alarm - the Tiger did not move. It was all over in a flash - the deer lovers cheered, the Tiger lovers were devastated. The Tiger slowly crept back to the side of the building where we first saw her. The guide said the reason it did not attack was that the deer wasn't in the right position so the Tiger was not assured of a kill. They will not attack until they have all the odds in their favour.

Just then a large carrier that transports about twenty people arrived. It was full of American tourists. The atmosphere soon disintegrated as the noise level rose as they screamed their delight at seeing the Tiger. We were glad the carrier did not arrive any sooner. The Tiger fans in our Jeep wanted to drag a deer up to the Tiger then from the mouth of a quietly spoken English tourist came the words "Don't hurt the deer, lets drag an American tourist up." With apologies to our American friends, but yes we did laugh as it was a very fitting comment at the time.

We stayed on to see what would happen. Other Jeeps came and went but for some reason our drivers wanted to stay and watch. At this stage the Tiger was only visible through high powered binoculars. Despite several hints we stayed there for a further 45 minutes looking at the undergrowth and what to the naked eye looked like a small rock which we were told was the Tiger's head.

Eventually we headed back to the entrance, said goodbye to all the monkeys and checked out. We were then driven back to our respective hotels to relive the adventure of the afternoon.

North India Tour - Day 2

2009-05-08T12:13:00.016+10:00

One thing that puzzled us was Ram's statement that by leaving at 8:00 am we would miss the traffic. We were in a city of 17 million people. Missing the traffic here would be like ordering a Big Mac and not being asked 'Do you want fries with that?'

One thing about the driving is that there is always something to look at. Most businesses do not start work until 10:00 am (some 11:00 am) but there are people and cars going everywhere. It is tough driving but Ram is happy that we have missed peak hour and we have many things to see, comment on, and ponder over. Life is different.

Agra is about 204 km from Delhi so on a reasonable road you would expect we could average at least 70km/hr and be there in under 3 hours. We left at 8:00 am and at 9:30 we passed a sign that said Agra 160 km. Ummm 44 km in 90 minutes. Ram was happy that we missed the traffic and said that we were making good progress.

We kept expecting to leave the city and hit the country roads but it never happened. Ram would announce that we were leaving the Delhi city limits and entering some other municipality but nothing changed, just more people and cars and buses and trucks cooperating with each other to reach their destination.

About 12 km before we reached Agra we arrived at a place called Sikandra where we were to stop and visit Akbar's Tomb. This puzzled Gary as he had never met Akbar so why would he want to see where he was buried. IW then informed him of the cultural and historic significance of some of the places we were visiting.

Sikandra is the former capital of Lodi dynasty and was named after the Afghan ruler Sikander Lodi. It houses the tomb of Mughul Emperor Akbar. The design and construction of the tomb was started by Akbar himself and subsequently completed by his son Jehangir.

The shape of the tomb is a truncated pyramid with five storeys. The first four storeys were constructed with red sandstone and the fifth one with white marble. The white marble storey comprises a false tomb of Emperor Akbar. The real tomb of Akbar is located in a crypt right below the false tomb.

Sikandra will live in our memories forever because of what happened there. All these great places teem with peddlars and false/real tour guides and you are made aware of them and told to ignore them. Sometimes this is easy and other times almost impossible.

We managed to get past the group of people selling stuff and entered the general precincts. We managed to fob off the false tour guides. At these places we like to look in silence, just take it all in. We read about it beforehand and re-read about it after the visit.

As we casually strolled into the main building, removing our shoes beforehand and leaving them to one side of the doorway, we were engaged in conversation by a man who started to tell us about the tomb. We immediately said we would not pay for a guide. With much head nodding and waving of hands he informed us that he was not a guide but a paid employee of the tomb. It annoyed Gary greatly as wherever we went, "paid employee" followed with his commentary. Gary's tolerance levels were broken fairly quickly and he moved on to explore by himself. IW stayed with "paid employee" to be polite.

Eventually we emerged and were dissapointed when he asked for money for his services and we imformed him that we told him there would be no payment which seemed to upset him. Then his mate had our shoes (which we had placed no where near him) and requested payment because he was looking after them for us. At this stage we were both quite irate at the proceedings and demands being made. It had nothing to do with the money, but more that they paid no heed to our request to be left alone. Those of you who know us would by now know what our two reactions were. Gary just walked off and IW cried.

It appears that IW's response was the best one for this situation as the two Indian gentlemen stood at the entrance and watched us depart without saying another word. The trip into Agra was very sombre as we explained to Ram what had happened. Ram did not have much to offer as this is just the Indian way and we had to work out how we were going to deal with it.

We made it to our hotel and agreed to have an hour's break before heading off to see the Taj Mahal.

We were in no mood to face this as we had been told by many people that what we would experience at other monuments would be ten fold at the Taj. We talked about not letting these people rob us of the joy and excitement of what we were experiencing. We could not change their ways and did not need to be rude to them but to firmly state our position to view in silence.

The Taj Mahal was something we had wanted to see forever and wondered if we would be disappointed. We remembered our excitement when we first saw the Grand Canyon in USA. Having seen thousands of pictures of it, to actually stand on the edge and see it was incredible. Well Taj Mahal here we come.

Ram did his job. Cars are not allowed within 2 km of the site and there is a large carpark where pedal-powered rickshaws, autos, or battery powered buses (depending on choice), ferry tourists to the Taj entry. Ram advised that the bus would be a few rupees and the other two would drop you there and wait then deliver you back for 100 Rupees (approx $3).

As we pull up drivers invade the car. It is almost impossible to get the door open but we put our plan into action. Gary catches the eye of a young rickshaw driver and indicated to him that we will ride with him. A victory - he is now on our side, shouting at the others to move away. We exit the car and hop in the very cosy seat and off we go.

It was a good ride and conversation but we noted that it was mostly downhill and wondered how he was going to cope with the two km uphill ride home. He was definitely not Lance Armstrong on the Alpe d'Huez. He was on a 30 year old bike with no gears and a wobbling front wheel which hit the mud guard at every turn. To complete this little scenario, on our ride back he put in a sterling effort but twice had to dismount to push.

It was a herculian effort (given our combined weight), with minimal conversation except Gary's urging him on with 'It only hurts in your mind'. On arrival at the car park, he turned and smiled and we gave him 200 rupees for his effort. He laughed and shook Gary's hand.

Back to the entrance of the Taj.

No real hassles here. We bought our tickets, avoided the hawkers and tour guides and went through security into the forecourt. One amazing thing about the Taj Mahal is that it can be seen for miles as you approach but once you enter the forecourt it disappears completely. Part of the design is that this spectacular red sandstone gateway completely hides your view and once you advance through the gate the Taj just magically appears in front of you.

It truly is magnificent. It is one of the few monuments that is breathtaking and does not disappoint. We spent the next couple of hours wandering around the beautiful grounds and through the Taj with 5,000 of our close and personal friends. Because of the impact this building has it seemed irrelevant that there were so many people. We were free to wander and view and take everything in as if we were the only ones there. We think this is one of the beauties of the place. Mind you we have been told that this is "low season".

The grounds are beautifully kept with flowering trees, green lawns (not often seen in Southern India), paths and water features. It completely washed away the disappointment we felt at Sikandra and exceeded all our expectations.

"Lance" was faithfully waiting for us at the exit gate for the punishing ride up "Alpe d'Huez" and back to the carpark where Ram was waiting.

It was a great day with all the highs and lows we have come to expect in India.

Wall panel inside tomb

Grounds looking from Taj Mahal towards gateway

Ceiling of Gateway

Western facade of Taj Mahal

North India Tour - Day 1 (Cont)

2009-05-08T02:14:00.009+10:00

We left you after our seamless transition through check in and security at Delhi airport.

The plane was about 30 minutes late leaving but we settle down in the lounge with a nice coffee. The 2.5 hour flight to Delhi was remarkably enjoyable as we didn't particularly enjoy the trip from Singapore via Air India. We arrived, collected our luggage and headed out to find our driver. Pretty easy, someone holding up a sign with your name on. Well Delhi has a population of a bit over 17,000,000, or to put it another way, 68% of Australia lives here. Guess what, they had all booked a driver at the airport. We have never seen as many people holding up signs in our life. They were about six deep and stretched for at least 40 metres. Taking into account the lack of AAPS, that is about ..... Oh forget it , it is just way too many people.

It was then that we realised that we were, once again, the only white people there so we did not need to find him. It would be easier for him to find us. We relaxed and strolled along admiring the chaos when a man leapt from the crowd brandishing a crumpled piece of paper with our name on it.

Ram Singh entered our lives. He is to be our driver for the next nine days. He introduces himself, grabs the IW's luggage and heads off to the car park with us trotting along behind him.

The car is a small 4 seater which suits our needs well. It is air-conditioned and Ram's english is pretty good. We head off to the hotel through traffic that is thick but a lot better behaved than Chennai. There are horns, but nowhere near the decibel level of Chennai. The roads are wide and the place seems quite clean. (This is in complete contrast to our trip from Chennai airport). There are massive roadmorks going on - constuction of an overhead train link form the Airport to the City and continued construction for an underground metro system.

All this is supposed to be completed by the 2010 Commonwealth Games but that does not seem possible from what we saw. Ram assures us that it will get done in time. Indian optimism is a wonderful thing.

We arrive at our Hotel, three porters rush out to carry our bags. They seem disappointed that we don't have three bags, so they have to fight over the two we have. Checking in is all manual. A huge Ledger Book is produced and you have to record your name, home address, all passport details (which are checked), what city you came from, where you are going, and your length of stay then sign at the far right hand end of the page which is about three paces away.

The room is nice and clean, with a fridge, Cable TV and nice bathroom. We unpack a few things then have about 30 minutes before Ram will pick us up for a tour of Old and New Delhi. We head out the fromt door for a short stroll around the neighbourhood.

First impressions. You can walk on the footpaths - there are not great piles of garbage lying around. The traffic is endless so crossing the road is still a two person task. We stroll to the corner, cross the road and head off. Shops are still the same - two metre wide style, crammed with things, with the owner generally sitting outside beckoning you to 'come inside for a look'. We walk down one side, negotiate the crossing and head back to meet Ram.

We are tired from being up since 3:00 am but only have today here so head off on a four hour Readers Digest tour of Delhi looking at all the major attractions. We had time to stop at some and walk through them but others just did a drive by.

Our first stop was to see Humayun's Tomb. The outside is red sandstone inlaid with white marble. Quite beautiful building and gardens. It was built in 1570 and is of particular cultural significance because it was the first garden-tomb on the Indian subcontinent. It inspired several major architectural innovations, culminating in the construction of the Taj Mahal. We were very pleased that it has been heritage listed and renovations have commenced.

Part of the tour was the invitation from RAM to 'let's stop here for lunch'. It was a beautiful Indian meal that was at least three times more expensive than anything we have had so far. A 'special' place for tourists. We enjoy the meal but inform Ram we do not want any more 'special lunches' as they are too expensive. He nods but whether he understands or not we have yet to find out.

The Parliament House and wide esplanade looking off into the distance to the India Gate is very impressive, akin to the Champs Elysees in Paris. The Red Fort is imposing and the site that was most memorable for us was the Rajghat Samadhi.

The Rajghat is the last resting place of Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation. . The memorial stone of Mahatma Gandhi placed there is a simple square platform made of black marble, with the words "Hey Ram" inscribed near it. As homage to the Mahatma, an eternal flame, in a copper urn, keeps on burning there. Enclosing the memorial is a low wall, simple with no ornamentation. This is set amid a beautiful park of rolling green hills. It is good to take off your shoes and walk on some grass again, it is so much better than dirt.

It is after 6:00 pm and we head back to the hotel for a sleep. No evening meal because to quote one of my daughters, "We ate enough at lunch to feed a small African nation".

Ram says he will pick us up at 8:00 am tomorrow for an early start so that we can miss the traffic. Tomorrow is the trip to Agra and the Taj Mahal.

The Pub With No Beer

2009-05-08T01:30:00.002+10:00

Our experience of the moment.

Just spent 3.5 hours bouncing around the forest in search of tigers. Finally back at the Safari Lodge and head off to dinner for some nice Indian cuisine. WRONG!!!

After several occasions of trying to order and being told that the particular item was not available the waiter finally told us that it was off season and there was no Indian food available.

Could we please order something off the Continental menu. WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT!!

PS When in Rome sometimes you can't do what the Romans do

North India Tour - Day 1

2009-05-05T21:59:00.012+10:00

We are in our Hotel in Delhi after a taxi ride, a plane flight and a private tour of Delhi by Ram Singh our personal driver and guide for the first nine days of our journey.

Where do you start to describe this odyssey? Alarm set at 3:30 am, taxi booked at 4:00 am, plane due to take off at 6:40 am. Sounds OK. Wake before alarm and leap out of bed, well one leapt and the other rolled lazily to one side and stumbled out. First surprise - phone rings, taxi driver is outside waiting. I said "Good, wait till 4:00 am when you were booked." he is OK and when we venture out the front door at 3:58 am we find him asleep on the front seat. Pretty soon he is awake and we are off to the airport. We have plenty of time so should be no problem from here on in.

Great trip, we arrive at the airport at 4:35, a bit earlier that the 5:10 that was anticipated. But as any Wallis knows, it is better to be early than late. We venture into the terminal and see the line to check in, only about 4 metres long (or 21 people - see story on Habits - Customs) and to the left a security check that is scanning all luggage. We enquire and are told that all luggage to be checked in has to be scanned first - OK.

Scanning complete, so off we head to check in. Line is considerably longer with a lot of people with no luggage. As we wait their luggage arrives and we get pushed further and further back. (Make a mental note - next flight send Lynn to line up at Check In while I get bags scanned). We settle in as the line slowly creeps forward. After about 20 minutes we are next in line - Hallelujah.

The path is clear and I leap forward and toss the bag on to the conveyor as Lynn hands the e-ticket and passports to the Check In Clerk (hereafter known as CIC). Lynn is a woman so CIC obviously does not notice her and turns to me and asks where I am flying. I inform CIC that Lynn and I are going to Delhi. CIC laughs and in a reply that contained the word 'no' at least twelve times informs me that I cannot possibly check in for the Delhi flight as it is too early and my bag will get mixed up with all the other flights and never arrive at the correct destination.

I inform CIC my name is Wallis and that our bags very rarely arrive with us no matter what time we check in. Somehow CIC fails to recognise the humor in my witty reply. He grabs the documents from Lynn, hands them to me and gently informs me that I should go away and come back after 5:15 am. I mumble pleasant thoughts under my breath, grab the Invisible Woman's (hereafter called IW) arm and move away.

As we are walking I do a quick calculation on the length of the line especially noting the lack of AAPS and work out that we can go back to the end of the queue and should arrive at the counter at exactly the right time. IW and I recommence the tortoise like crawl to the counter while glancing over our right shoulder at the next challenge - the security gate. It is now 4:48 am and the line at security is 40 metres long!!!!

Unfortunately there was an error in my calculation about the amount of people CIC could process and we are making hare like speed. Should we let the person behind us go first. Too late - an 85 year old Indian lady has just pushed her trolley in front of us from nowhere. How can someone who can barely walk blind-side me like that. I instruct IW to watch the left and I will look after the right, this will not happen again.

We reached the counter at 5:10 as CIC smiled and slowly nodded his head from side to side. IW leaps forward and thrusts the documents towards him accompanied by the plea "Sorry we are still 5 minutes early, is it all right to check in?" After an innumerable number of nods, CIC and IW are best of friends, we get good seats, a smile, and a "Have a good trip".

Miraculously, the security line is moving fast and we join it carrying our back pack and a small bag containing the computer. We reach the first check point, boarding pass and passports in order. We are ushered to the left lane. I notice a large hand-made cardboard sign hanging from the air-conditioning duct saying 'Women Only'. I try to pull the IW to another line but somehow everyone can see her and her other arm is grabbed and she is jerked back into the line.

IW is assured that it is OK for me to be in the line with her. Apparently the women running this security screening have an inability to see me. As we reach the front of the line the guard refuses to accept our bags and starts shouting in Hindi and pointing at our bags. We are confused until the lady behind us informs us that we need tags on our carry on bags. I quickly indicate the two tags with our names, addresses, and phone numbers but the security guard continues to shout and refuse us entry.

The kind lady behind us informs us that they are not good enough and you have to have a tag supplied by the airline you are flying with. We are instructed to go and line up and see CIC and get some. At this point the security person expresses a huge amount of compassion for IW and motions her to stand at the side with the bags while I go and revisit my best friend CIC and obtain the required tags.

This is where knowing some of the customs-habits of Indian people comes in very handy. I strolled back to the Check In desk, calmly walked to the front of the queue, pushed in front of the man being served and requested the tags from CIC. He smiled, handed them over, and no one else said anything. The Indian people are indeed patient.

I made my way back to the head of the security line where I was met by IW's new best friend who ushered me through. I then proceeded to get out my pen and fill out the tags. IW's new best friend started waving her hands furiously at me as if I had committed some heinous crime. It turns out you don't have to have anything on the tags, you just have to have the tags attached to your carry on luggage. Blank tags attached, off we go. It is now 13 hours since this incident occurred and I am still struggling with why I needed them.

Where is IW? I turn around and IW has broken out into what seemed like a bout of uncontrollable shakes. Her face is twisted so much she cannot get a word out of her mouth. I know some friends will find that last sentence quite unbelievable, but it was true. She was blue in the face - I was worried - was she going to collapse again? At that moment her left hand shot out like an iron rod in a pointing motion. My eyes followed her pointing to a computer screen listing the things that Indian Airlines would not let us take on the Flight. At this stage we both broke into uncontrollable laughter and IW grabbed my notebook and and pen and began writing the things that some people obviously thought were OK to take on a plane:

Axes
Crow Bars
Ammunition
Dynamite
Plastic Explosives
Hand Grenades
Automatic Weapons
Guns
Mace
Bow and Arrows
Brass Knuckles
Baseball Bats
Cricket Bats

Although we did not record them all, it does seem that Knives, Samurai Swords and Anti-Aircraft Missile Launchers are still on the OK list. Luckily IW regained her composure and we went into the waiting lounge for Flight IC440 Chennai-Delhi

.... To be continued

Habits - Customs

2009-05-04T12:25:00.010+10:00

It has been mentioned previously that Gary is a creature of habit, so we thought it would be interesting to share what we have seen to be the general habits/customs of the people of India.

This is only a short summary of some things as we can't possibly cover everything in one story.

We will talk about them as they come to mind. They are listed because they are not part of (or perhaps we don't want to admit it) our regular life.

Some have been mentioned in prior blogs. ie Incessant horn blowing when driving. We would like to add that this need to announce that you are present is not limited to the roads. Yesterday we took a two hour train ride to Chengalpattu or Chengalput depending on who you talk to.

Amazingly we found that the train driver had a similar urge to car drivers so for two hours there and two hours back there was an incessant 'hooting' of the train horn/whistle. This habit might be a delight to a four year old but is quite annoying. Seeing the previous age reference some of Gary's children might wonder why he was annoyed at all.

The people have an incredible ability to be patient with others. Wherever we go we are confronted with people wanting to sell us things and the manner in which they go about it is not what we are used to. As mentioned above, the train ride was two hours or twenty-eight stations long, but someone forgot to tell us that at every one of those stations a group of people would board the train and try to coerce us into buying something.

We could have boarded the train stark naked (scary thought I know) and hungry but with some money, and by the end of the trip would have been fully clothed and fed, with a couple of bags filled with children's toys and books. We are not sure we would have needed money in some instances as these people seemed to have a generosity to share with others what they had.

Add to this the blind trio of male singers chanting and entertaining and there was not much time left to view the scenery. We got this trip for the sum of 13 rupees each (39 cents). (When we first boarded, we wondered how the Indian Railways made a profit until we were joined by 200,000 Indian friends on the journey).

When you arrive at the Chennai airport put all notions of personal space aside. It seems that the personal space allocated to people in India is vastly different to the quota given to us when we were born in Australia. We have tried to point this out to people in several different situations but have come to the conclusion that when we signed for our Indian Visas, we also signed to willingly surrender our Allocated Australian Personal Space. This will be referred to as AAPS in future.

Expect people to touch you and press against you. They will see that the 3cm edge of the seat you are obviously not using as theirs and squeeze their rear ends onto it and perch there precariously until you decide to slide over and further reduce your AAPS to allow their rear ends to invade a bit more of your seat.

Actually the whole concept of one person/one seat is invalid in India. This was first witnessed early on when the school bus took us to Church with the girls. The bus is a standard 3 X 2 seat config which in Australia would mean three on one side and two on the other. This is negated in India by the exchange rate of the Rupee which dictates that you can get much more for your money here so a three seater can accommodate seven and a two seater, five. Thus standard Australian 3 X 2 = Indian 7 X 5.

Your AAPS has no value when you queue for things. From our observation the average length of line for twenty people to queue is about four metres. You cannot reserve space using artificial means ie wearing a backpack. They will not see this as an extension of you but simply press against it until all signs of AAPS are removed.

If you are a male, you may go to the toilet whenever the need arises exactly where you are. For a modest people they have no problem stopping on the footpath of a main road and relieving themselves. We have seen a few females fighting for equality, exercising this right also. This adds to the rich aromas of India as we walk from shop to shop.

Similarly the custom of spitting wherever and whenever is common-place (for men) so caution needs to be exercised when walking and standing still. There is usually an alert given before the expectoration occurs. This takes the form of a harsh barking sound emanating from deep in the throat. Gary can now mimic this sound perfectly. We have found it handy when trying to get through crowds of people.

That is enough for one blog. Wherever you are, treasure your AAPS but know that it has to be forcably surrendered when crossing certain borders.

PS Be careful when you find yourself holding on too tightly to certain aspects of your life.