Trip to Pondicherry

I went and visited Pondicherry on the weekend. Stefano, the father of a friend of my girlfriend invited me to stay the night at his place in Auroville. It was a very interesting 2 days.

Firstly, finding a bus there was not as easy as popping on trans-info website and looking up the timetable, nor was it a case of going to Greyhound.in and booking a ticket. Those websites I did find didn't meet my "Secure Online Shopping" policy. Long story short, I had to catch a ride to the bus terminal on Friday and pay a guy 50 rupees to find me a seat on a bus and then pay for the seat. Don't get me wrong, the guy seemed like lastminute.com in human form, he had a pretty good idea who had seats left to where and the timetables for the 20-plus operators; his abilities were impressive. I ended up with a 260 rupee seat on an "A/C Semi-sleeper", a bus with air-conditioning and reclining seats.

The bus ride itself was uneventful, aside from the hundred or so close calls as it weaved through the traffic on the highway. This is an eighty kph version of how they drive in the city (i.e. lane markings are just for decoration, and the horn is used as a warning that you are coming through... right-of-way be damned).

They did play a movie on the bus, and they put on the English subtitles for me (without asking which was very courteous). The translation was fairly rough ("Be correct men, the rice let us talking!"), but not so bad I could not understand the plot at all (e.g. that bootleg copy of Harry Potter from China, that had english subtitles translated from the chinese subtitles). The reason I mention this is that there was a very disturbing "lost in translation" moment... the girl had a crush on the protagonist, and kept referring to him as her uncle!

When I got to Pondicherry, Stefano was waiting for me. We promptly set off on his scooter (without helmets!) and he showed me some of the sites and some shops. It was very crowded as it was Republic Day. My friend Muthu told me this is a favourite period for terrorist threats from various groups... which makes no sense as it comes across as them saying they would prefer the good ol' days of British Colonial rule!?! We had dinner at a joint called the "Promenade" which had a great buffet and lots of different sweets. Stefano's English is not the best, but we managed a conversation or two about various topics. He then took me to Auroville where he, Donata, two dogs and a cat live.

The next morning I got to see the garden where Stefano grows various herbs, fruits and vegetables. I had fresh Pawpaw for breakfast. We went for a ride around and Stefano took me to his friends place where I met Jaqueline, Danip and their daughter who looked exactly like my friend Isabella. I will have to find a photo when I get home of Isabella and send it to Stefano to show them, the resemblance was uncanny! They made us pancakes with a variety of preserves (including pear jam which is now my favourite), butter and passionfruit (which was yellow, unlike the normal purple at home) and it was all organic. In return I fixed the email on Jaqueline's Sony Ericsson P1 (it was Blackberry being silly!).

Stefano then took me to a jewellery shop where I bought some presents for Sylvia.

For lunch, Stefano made fresh gnocci with a pepper-cream sauce and a baked fish. It was delicious and not good for my BMI. :-)

Later Stefano took me to the visitor's centre for Auroville, where my suspicions about the town were confirmed... Auroville is a new-age mecca! I encourage you to look the place up on Wikipedia, honestly the way they have transformed the land over the past two decades is amazing. But I still find it funny how they all have mobile phones (with the required network coverage) in there sustainable living paradise.

After a some more shopping for gifts in Pondicherry I took a taxi back to Chennai (so I would have a seat belt).

N.B. the Indian's like to have various melodies play when they are reversing their car (instead of the usual warning tone on a truck). So be careful when out and about. When you hear "Fur Elise" playing, someone is getting a call or you are about to be run over.

Training in Chennai

I am in Chennai, India for 3 weeks (Madras for those that missed the memo). It has been a week and a bit now and not too shabby so far. My body (and for the best part my health) is intact and I have avoided causing any international incidents so far.

I had arrived a day early due to flight availability, so I was able to explore a bit on the first day. I soon found the hip happening part of town was nowhere near where I was staying. This is OK as I was in walking distance of the office. The walk to work is along a main road which seems the be the lighting district. So if you are looking for a lighting fixture or some lamp-related items then I highly recommend the northern end of Anna Salai.

Obtaining a prepaid SIM was an adventure to say the least. Vodafone had some competitive rates to Australia so I decided to head out and buy a prepaid SIM. This is harder than it sounds.

Firstly, the guy wanted proof of address and photo ID... he suggested I go get a letter from the hotel (obviously this is a common situation, as the hotel already had a Word template for this). But the SIM remained elusive.

Secondly, he didn't want just photo-ID, he wanted an actual passport photo (the prepaid 'application' form had a spot for it). I asked him whether I might go ahead and get an Indian passport while I was at it since it seemed the same level of ID would be required. He just waggled his head at me... which is a common way of saying "you're a looney!" I think.

Thirdly, the only photo-studio he knew of was across the road... but was closed. I asked him whether I could get him a bed-side lamp instead as there seemed to be plenty of those shops around, but only got a waggle of his head in reply. I then found a "passport" sign in an alley, which I headed down and found inside a shop that while they could help with passport applications, they could not help with a passport photo. I marked this place on my map in-case I did want to apply for a passport once I had the photo. They where able to point me in the direction of a Konica photo-studio... which after an hours walk turned out to be a Kodak photo-studio. I suspect I took a wrong turn and just got lucky, as opposed to the kind lady getting her photography brands confused. Kudos to the police who did the best to direct me to their interpretation of my bad pronounciation of Nungambakkam Road.

50 rupees and two sore feet later, I was back in the shop getting a Vodafone pre-paid SIM. The taxes and hidden fees also turned the 249 rupees for a SIM and my first recharge got turned into 46.81 credit on the SIM. Which lasted all of a few minutes of hearing my sweet-heart Sylvia on the other end of the phone. This made it all worthwhile.

Started new job today

I started my new job with the handset vendor. Interesting first day as I actually did some work, in stark contrast to most other jobs where you spend the first day fart-arsing around doing administrivia. On a sad note while I get to use really early prototypes... I can't show my mates as they are super-hush-hush "not announced" products. But there are still bragging-rights I guess.