February, 2004 Mixed Bag

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February, 2004

Mixed Bag Edition

The new installment has arrived... This edition throws together a jumble of 30 pictures from October, 2003 to February, 2004. We start with a trip in October to the south Indian state of Karnataka:

Our trip began with a 14 hour drive to Bangalore through endless highway construction and traffic. We spent some days with Trudy Ann's Aunt Inez & family. Then we switched into tourist mode and drove to Mysore, a pretty city with palaces, plazas and a zoo. On the way we encountered more highway work, this time you might call it maintenance. The city of Mysore has made an effort to preserve buildings and monuments from the days of the Maharajas. Mysore's palace is open for tours (no photographs inside, please). The ex-Maharaja still lives in the palace, though he's relegated to a side wing. The palace includes a temple within the compound.

The next destination was an area called Coorg, a hilly region with endless slopes of coffee and spice estates. We spent two nights in a small guesthouse with no electricity and fabulous meals of Coorgi food. There is no large scale development in Coorg, mostly small villages of farming families, with hills and rice fields between them.

The next batch of pictures show bits of our daily life in Goa.

The markets in India are always full of great photo opportunities. I am amazed at how much merchandise shop owners can keep in such tiny spaces. Most shops are just stalls, which means every evening the shop must be stored away and set up again the next morning.

In the tropical regions of India most people wear open toed shoes, usually flip-flops or slip-on sandals. Straps are a hassle as people remove their footwear in all temples, most houses and even some shops and businesses. It's easy to tell if your neighbors have guests - just count the shoes outside the doorstep.

Perhaps you have read Trudy Ann's description of the water situation at our colony. In a nutshell, we are on, theoretically, water rationing hours of 7-9 AM and 7-9 PM every day. In reality, in our flat we get, at most, 20 minutes of running water a day, usually at 8:30 PM. On a lucky evening that's just enough time to fill all our buckets in our own bathrooms. On an unlucky evening we get no water at all and have to go to our downstairs neighbors, fill our buckets and lug them upstairs again. Sound like fun? Well, as is said about so many things in Goa, what else to do?

If we have achieved nothing else in India, I can say, with at feeling of satisfaction, that Trevor and I have reached one goal that life in California just hasn't give us enough time to tackle. We have, with the help of some friends, completed all ten levels of the Bugdom II computer game. It may not mean much to you...

Christmas in Goa was calm and festive. The boys were happy to know that Santa gets to India. Trudy Ann & I were happy to not be trapped in the gift thing. Here the gifts are pretty much for the kids only. On Christmas day we hosted Trudy Ann's relations from Ponda. They have generously hosted us for a variety of Hindu festivals, so it's only appropriate that we share a Christian holiday or two with them.

Below our colony is the village of Ribander. It is very much a village. After our colony was built the population of Ribander probably doubled. There are two general stores, two vegetable sellers, a pharmacy, a barber shop, and quite a few bars. Oh, did I forget to mention the tailor, and the on-call beautician who does house calls?

At school, Trevor and Rowan each had their Sports Day, a morning of races, drills and slightly militarized pomp, especially for the older kids. Rowan did a race, Trevor did a drill.

The remaining miscellaneous pictures have their own captions, so just browse and enjoy:

See you next time...