December 29. 2010

I've officially decided with time constraints each days post will be a day late.  My routine will be to write in my journal for the current day and then post online for the previous day afterwards.  That way everything from the current day is fresh.

So today I had to be paged by Dr. Anthony again because my roomate and I overslept.  We were to meet in the lobby at 12:00 and we arrived at 12:30.  As bad as it sounds, many of us straggled in late as we were all suffering from jet lag and there was understanding (no worries, I was on time today and will be for the duration of the trip).  From the lobby we walked to find lunch and I am going to do my best to describe all that I saw.  However, I have pictures for you all today!

It began just footsteps away from the hotel.  From the inside stepping out, I felt as though we entered another world.  We were surrounded by a much more impoverished area where shoes were optional.  However, as we reached downtown, I didn't notice such.  Below are images taken from my hotel window...and some along the street as we passed.

The men to the right of the hotel had been there all morning, digging and removing dirt, trying to reach something I could not tell.  Mud covered them from toe to knee, and they used baskets to efficiently move the dirt.  Baskets seemed to be a common tool as it was also used by the men removing trash.  When I initially saw the mounds of trash I was a bit shocked by all of the pollution before realizing it was "trash day" and men were collecting the heaps. 

As we walked, it was clear we were travellers and all the children came to the curb to wave hello.  Their smiling faces were warming.  As we continued on, we all noticed a protest ahead.  Still unsure what caused the protest, it did consist of everyone; men, women and children. 

As we walked in search for a place for lunch, we found a hotel with a vegetarian restaurant to eat.  With no reason to walk any further, we stopped.  Before crossing the street, Dr. Anthony pointed out the name of the street, MG to be exact, which stood for Mahatma Ghandi Street.  As explained by him, Ghandi as we all know is highly respected in India and therefore has a street in every major city named after him.

Lunch was good, and I will post a picture just to display my first meal.  However, dinner was better.  Dr. Anthony said our meal for dinner was more representative of a North Indian meal versus a Keralan dish.

Before finding a restaurant for dinner, we did more walking around the outskirts of our hotel.  We walked to their rail station but could not enter because we didn't have tickets.  I captured this picture of the buses and two women walking by which is not relevant to anything I've said thus far, but a picture I like:

  I will end this post with 9, not 10 things I learned on my walk to meals and throughout Trivandrum.

1. It seems women generally sit to the front of the bus, men in the back. (I learned today Kerala is one of few countries that allow women to travel on the buses and be out after sunset.  They are also allowed to work but are still expected to be the housewife when they return home.)
2. Dinner begins around 8:30 or 9:00 so when we arrived to the restaurant at 7:30 for dinner, we were quite early, and the only ones there.  As we finished, families began to arrive.
3. Mixed income housing or housing co-cops are plentiful and not rare.
4. Street markets/vendors/shops are within every 2 feet you step.
5. We are automatically (or have been thus far) served bottled water in restaurants.
6. Cash conversion is cheapest at an ATM (too bad I have a lot of cash) and the hotel is the next best.
7. Most animals, especially dogs appear to be very malnourished.
8. The federal government has more control over states than in the United States (This I did not learn by observation, but from conversation with Dr. Anthony =)
9. Zoning does in fact exist here, although it may not appear to be.  However, money heavily determines land use.

That's all for today!