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Other entries in Nandi Hills

Nandi Hills

Last week was more of the same - work, eating out, having a few drinks, etc. On Friday, when we were coming home from work, our rickshaw had to stop at some traffic lights/a crossroads. Coming across the road was a big convoy of cars, trucks etc with people jumping up and down in the back, shouting something we couldn't understand. They had big flags and then we saw...massive banners with Saddam Hussein's picture on, with the slogan "A good friend to India" underneath. It passed fairly quickly, and whilst we were surprised at first, we didn't think more of it at the time...

On Friday night we were invited to a club night by some guys (a guy called Ajay, not to be confused with the Ajay we live/work with!) that have become friendly with Liz, Deepal and Barbie. It was Deepal's last night here so they wanted to go somewhere decent...we went to Fuga, which is the club that tried to charge me and Chris 2,000 rupees to get in the previous week. When we arrived, we said we were with Ajay, and were instantly whisked upstairs to the VIP lounge, with no entry fee. It was pretty mint to be fair, classy place - equally as classy as anything i've been to in England. Downstairs was standard club-fare, dancefloor etc...we avoided that and chilled on the sofas, sampling some delicious finger-food! At the end of the night we went back to Ajay's place/mansion for a few drinks...and who should we meet there, but one of our ex-sub-editors, with whom we had a rather interesting talk about work. We also turned on the news to discover that the convoy/march that had driven past us earlier had turned violent, with fighting nearer the city centre (about 30 minutes drive from us). Again, we were surprised but didn't think much more of it... We got home pretty late, needing to be up early the next morning...

...to go to Nandi Hills. We hired a driver for the day to take us there - Me, Chris, Liz and Sue. It took a couple of hours to drive out, but the drive itself was really relaxing. Driving out of the town away from the beeping horns, incessant fumes (that have given me a pretty bad cough), into vast expanses of beautiful landscape...with Loveless playing on my iPod...with the window down and the wind blowing through...it was great. Plus it helped my hangover :O)

The land is totally flat for miles and miles, and then suddenly these hills come out of nowhere. I say hills, but if you saw one in England you'd probably be more inclined to think of it as a mountain (i believe it is around 4,800 feet above sea level). A narrow road weaves around and around the main hill, gradually taking you further and further up. The views were incredible and the weather was perfect - hot, but not uncomfortably so. The car stops at the entrance to some hill paths, where we paid just 60 rupees between the whole group (including the car) to get in. From there you walk the hill-trails to the very top, where there's a restaurant, a little park and a temple. Whilst Chamundi Hill in Mysore had been riddled with aggressive tout-types, this was almost deserted, apart from the people working there (shoe-minders for going into the temple...textbook), a few other tourists, the odd cow grazing away, and an army of monkeys that looked suspiciously cunning! It was so quiet, and the air was so clean and fresh - noticeably so after the smog-fest that is Bangalore. The whole thing was really peaceful and...well, awe-inspiring. We ate in the restaurant and the food wasn't very good unfortunately - it would've been much better to have a picnic but we'd left the food supplies in the car, not realising how far the walk would be.

We got back and popped to an Internet cafe to find that the scousers had beaten Chelski, woo! Deepal had left on Saturday morning, so her room was now totally vacated (Tess and Louise had been there before as well). That room is the one that has the TV...which has cable...and shows football! No more of this watching-until-half-time-and-then-being-kicked-out-for-closing-time! On the other hand, four new girls would be coming to stay on Sunday, and would probably want to get some sleep...a dilemma for us indeed. Fortunately, we managed to locate Pub World, which is a small pub that supposedly actually has four pubs inside. There's a section which has a few wooden barrels, which is meant to be a German beer hall or something, a section with cowboy gear (to be a Wild West bar)...that kind of thing. More importantly, it has a TV to show football, and doesn't close until 11.30pm (just enough time to watch all of the game). We agreed to go here and let the new people sleep (aren't we nice?)...

...and then things went a bit pear-shaped. We'd gone into town to get our camera memory cards burnt onto CD so i could put some pictures up on here. On our way back, the rickshaw was going the usual route, but we got to a road that had been closed off, with police stopping any traffic from going down there. The rickshaw asked us if we minded him going the other, longer way, which we didn't seeing as we didn't have much choice. So he drove us round the closed off areas...into a mass of people marching along with big sticks/flags/banners - another protest! We were literally crawling along in the rickshaw with people walking alongside us, trying to talk to us...telling us to say "Jai Hindu" (I thought that meant "I love India", but apparently it means "Long live India/Hindus", although there's still some confusion over this). At this point we were assuming they were the same people who, two days ago, had been marching with a banner proclaiming their love for Saddam Hussein, so we were a tad worried to be stuck in the middle as you can imagine. However, as soon as they heard us say Jai Hindu they smiled and backed off...it was really weird. I wish i'd got some pictures but i didn't really want to get my camera out and start snapping away, under the circumstances. We turned the corner and two lightly-armoured vehicles drove past, with massive water canons on the front...a worrying omen for things to come. We got home safely, thanked our driver for getting us there in one piece, and went upstairs. We were still planning on going to Pub World for the football...until we got a phone call from Asha (the i-to-i co-ordinator), advising us not to go out on that night. The march had turned into a full-scale riot, with people setting fire to buses, rickshaws...you name it. 300 people were detained by the end of the night, and a 12-year-old child was killed, supposedly by police fire. Mental or what?

Our Pub World plans had gone out the window, but by this point we had met the new girls: Sonali, from London, Becky from Kent, Aina from Norway, Amy from Cornwall and Suzanne from London (not staying at our place, but just down the road with Barbie/Sue/Merja). They said they were happy for us to watch the football, but our plans were once again scuppered by the fact that the sports channel showed the Wigan vs Everton game...and then turned over to bloody cricket before the Arsenal vs Man Utd game started! Plans A and B destroyed, we turned to Plan C - the trusty World Service on the radio James got me (cheers!). We listened...we cheered...we swore...we turned it off and went to bed.

The next day we found out that the initial protest/march on Friday was by the Muslim population, and that yesterday's protest was in fact a protest-against-the-protest on Friday, by the the Hindus. Apparently they marched through the Muslim areas, which is where/why it all kicked off. How accurate those reports are, i don't know...but there we go.

On Monday we weren't in work because the 'current' volunteers are invited to lunch with the new batch. It's good how each batch is staggered, so you have people who have been here a week or two to show you around. It's quite strange for me and Chris because everyone thinks we know what we're doing, where we're going etc. It's surprising how fast we've learnt our way around, but i guess you have to, otherwise you'd have problems! The meal was another buffet, like the one we went to on our first day. We met the final new person, Frances, from Scotland (or so i assume from her accent). My meal was fine apart from one mouthful, which almost made my eyes water. I think i ate a whole chili or something. It's quite funny really because up until that, the hottest thing i've eaten was a cheese sandwich(!), although to be fair, it did have some chilis in it was well. The curries here just aren't anymore near as hot as i'd expected them to be. Nothing has come close to a Sainsbury's vindaloo thus far. Do people in England spice up their curries as a display of bravado more than anything else? It's a question that has been debated since we got here...

That's about all we've done this week - we seem to be in the routine of going to work, coming home, then going out for food. The weekends are good because we get to do some proper sight-seeing, and the evenings are fun because some of the food here is amazing (i had a bolognese last night that could have been made in Italy), and the bars aren't stupidly loud so you can talk to people properly. I think we're going to get a few drinks and stay in tonight.

It's Republic Day here on Friday 26th. In 1950 the consitution came into force and India gained independence. It's a public holiday but there's a chance we may have to work because deadlines are approaching...it depends on how much work there is to do. We wanted to book to go to Hampi for a long weekend but because of Republic Day, all trains and buses are completely sold out. I think we'll look around the parks/botanical gardens in Bangalore on Saturday, and then go to the Leela Palace on Sunday - a seven star (count 'em) hotel that has an all you can eat and drink (champagne, how bourgeois) brunch buffet on Sundays. It's Ajay's last day here so we're all going to go there to see him off.

That's about it for now...

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