Pictures From India, I
After uploading all the pictures I wanted to share from my first few weeks, I've realized that it's too high a volume of images to make blogger a sensible choice. I'll probably use Picasa web albums or Flickr to upload photos from now on; I'll be sure to keep you posted. For now, a photo odyssey courtesy of blogger, cumbersome as it may be. Captions are BESIDE the photos.
NOTE: You can click on them to view larger versions.
Approaching Kodaikanal on the Ghat Road, some monkeys on the side of the road - as you can see, lush mountaintop vegetation! Lovely.
View of some houses in Kodai - typically colorful, built on the hillside, surrounded by trees.
View of my loft in my first residence, Airlee Main. That's my purple sleeping bag dangling down - the loft was more spacious than it looks like from this picture, but not huge. Below is the dining table - we never really used it, as we all ate our meals at the cafeteria or out at a restaurant. Most people don't cook themselves; if they eat at home, they have an ayah (servant/maid) to cook for them. Cooking is a much more time-consuming proposition here; between going to a dozen different market stalls to buy the food, then washing the vegetables in treated or boiled water, then dealing with a small gas stove and usually no oven, it takes quite awhile.
Yisu and Lowri, before we leave for class.
Marie, at one of the teaching workshops.
The Sunday Market! Vegetables galore, spread out under tarps. The meat/fish/poultry is at the far end.
On the road bordering the Sunday Market, more fruits and vegetables.
Electricity in Kodaikanal. Last year there was a power-outage that lasted for over 24 hours, taking out all the electricity in town... The cause? A cow had bumped into the switch that controlled the electricity for all of Kodaikanal, and it took them over a day to figure out what had happened. Then they switched it back on. NO JOKE, FOLKS.
Power lines stretching over one of the main roads. Down this road is the marketplace for the Sunday market.
People in Kodaikanal. Fairly self-explanatory.
Me and Yisu!
A typical vista. Houses perched on the hilltop. There's a view like this around every corner, another mist-shrouded village scattered across the hills. Hopefully we'll get to visit some of them over the course of the hiking season...
Laundry hanging on the porch of one of the staff. Many people here have lovely gardens, whether they be large plots of land or just a profusion of windowsill flowers.
First hike of the season! Vera climbing up through a beautiful terraced orchard, impossibly green and lovely in the early morning sun. Mist sets in by lunchtime, and heavy rain falls between 3 and 5 every day. But the mornings are gorgeous.
Lowri, my roommate for the semester.
For us, it's a rocky hiking path; for everyone else, a well-used road.
Some children we met along the hike; in central Kodai, people are bizarrely unfazed by my white face, they're used to the presence of the international school and the zillions of tourists. But get a little bit outside, and the children are fascinated and boisterous, demanding to see their digital reflections, chasing after us wanting to play football. They're lovely.
Eucalypt crown! (My secret goal in life is to look as crazy as possible, almost all the time.)
Tall, tall groves of eucalyptus trees.... I'm not sure why they were planted in the first place, but now you can find dozens of little shops that sell mostly eucalyptus oil. I'm not sure what anyone would need all those gallons of eucalyptus oil for, and I've never actually seen anyone buy it, but you could certainly buy a TON if ever you desired.
A rare giant squirrel! Spotted during the hike. It looked like a giant teddy bear but was actually quite agile, and reminded me of the colobus monkeys we saw in Kenya. I suspect it fills a similar niche.
...And the mist rolls in.
Some pictures of the new apartment in Loch End, where I now live with Lowri... Our stove (blessed, blessed stove!).
The living room, where we spend all of our time. Bookshelves! Fuzzy Tibetan shawls! Couches! Wood floors!
More of the living room. These rich burgundy curtains are everywhere, it makes a huge difference to the atmosphere of the room. And there's a large batik I bought at a women's co-op in town. Curtains on the left lead to bathrooms, bedrooms... Curtains on the right lead to the kitchen.
My bedroom, messy as always.
Why didn't anyone tell me it was this hard to buy alcohol in India??? I never would've come! Just kidding... But Lowri and I had a hilarious misadventure in which we thought we'd found wine at Meenakshi's, the grocery store that has everything... We bought three bottles for our house-warming party, at great expense, and took them home only to realize that they were non-alcoholic. So we made a trip to the sketchy, sketchy liquor closet - it can't properly be called a shop - to get some brandy, and ended up making some very decent mulled wine. When the majority of people (Hindus, Muslims) aren't allowed to drink for religious reasons, and the leftovers (Christians) are encouraged not to, liquor closets become a shady hangout of rough-edged men and tragic drunkards. And the occasional pair of determined white girls.
I have planted a lot of flower seeds in bowls, cut-off water bottles, plastic containers, and so on. Larkspur, lupine, balsam, sweetpea, beans and snapdragons! I'm very excited about them, and will keep you posted on their progress. These are my first sprouts.
View out the window of Loch End. As you can see, I actually live in a 1900s Lutheran monastery, not India at all.
My classroom! Large, beautiful, full of supplies and light and old artwork - and chilly, but I'll deal.
My blackboard. I'm official.
Mobiles from last year.
Goodbye till next time! I promise not to overload you with photos again, I'll find a better way of doing it. This is WAY too time-consuming. Yawn...
NOTE: You can click on them to view larger versions.
Approaching Kodaikanal on the Ghat Road, some monkeys on the side of the road - as you can see, lush mountaintop vegetation! Lovely.
View of some houses in Kodai - typically colorful, built on the hillside, surrounded by trees.
View of my loft in my first residence, Airlee Main. That's my purple sleeping bag dangling down - the loft was more spacious than it looks like from this picture, but not huge. Below is the dining table - we never really used it, as we all ate our meals at the cafeteria or out at a restaurant. Most people don't cook themselves; if they eat at home, they have an ayah (servant/maid) to cook for them. Cooking is a much more time-consuming proposition here; between going to a dozen different market stalls to buy the food, then washing the vegetables in treated or boiled water, then dealing with a small gas stove and usually no oven, it takes quite awhile.
Yisu and Lowri, before we leave for class.
Marie, at one of the teaching workshops.
The Sunday Market! Vegetables galore, spread out under tarps. The meat/fish/poultry is at the far end.
On the road bordering the Sunday Market, more fruits and vegetables.
Electricity in Kodaikanal. Last year there was a power-outage that lasted for over 24 hours, taking out all the electricity in town... The cause? A cow had bumped into the switch that controlled the electricity for all of Kodaikanal, and it took them over a day to figure out what had happened. Then they switched it back on. NO JOKE, FOLKS.
Power lines stretching over one of the main roads. Down this road is the marketplace for the Sunday market.
People in Kodaikanal. Fairly self-explanatory.
Me and Yisu!
A typical vista. Houses perched on the hilltop. There's a view like this around every corner, another mist-shrouded village scattered across the hills. Hopefully we'll get to visit some of them over the course of the hiking season...
Laundry hanging on the porch of one of the staff. Many people here have lovely gardens, whether they be large plots of land or just a profusion of windowsill flowers.
First hike of the season! Vera climbing up through a beautiful terraced orchard, impossibly green and lovely in the early morning sun. Mist sets in by lunchtime, and heavy rain falls between 3 and 5 every day. But the mornings are gorgeous.
Lowri, my roommate for the semester.
For us, it's a rocky hiking path; for everyone else, a well-used road.
Some children we met along the hike; in central Kodai, people are bizarrely unfazed by my white face, they're used to the presence of the international school and the zillions of tourists. But get a little bit outside, and the children are fascinated and boisterous, demanding to see their digital reflections, chasing after us wanting to play football. They're lovely.
Eucalypt crown! (My secret goal in life is to look as crazy as possible, almost all the time.)
Tall, tall groves of eucalyptus trees.... I'm not sure why they were planted in the first place, but now you can find dozens of little shops that sell mostly eucalyptus oil. I'm not sure what anyone would need all those gallons of eucalyptus oil for, and I've never actually seen anyone buy it, but you could certainly buy a TON if ever you desired.
A rare giant squirrel! Spotted during the hike. It looked like a giant teddy bear but was actually quite agile, and reminded me of the colobus monkeys we saw in Kenya. I suspect it fills a similar niche.
...And the mist rolls in.
Some pictures of the new apartment in Loch End, where I now live with Lowri... Our stove (blessed, blessed stove!).
The living room, where we spend all of our time. Bookshelves! Fuzzy Tibetan shawls! Couches! Wood floors!
More of the living room. These rich burgundy curtains are everywhere, it makes a huge difference to the atmosphere of the room. And there's a large batik I bought at a women's co-op in town. Curtains on the left lead to bathrooms, bedrooms... Curtains on the right lead to the kitchen.
My bedroom, messy as always.
Why didn't anyone tell me it was this hard to buy alcohol in India??? I never would've come! Just kidding... But Lowri and I had a hilarious misadventure in which we thought we'd found wine at Meenakshi's, the grocery store that has everything... We bought three bottles for our house-warming party, at great expense, and took them home only to realize that they were non-alcoholic. So we made a trip to the sketchy, sketchy liquor closet - it can't properly be called a shop - to get some brandy, and ended up making some very decent mulled wine. When the majority of people (Hindus, Muslims) aren't allowed to drink for religious reasons, and the leftovers (Christians) are encouraged not to, liquor closets become a shady hangout of rough-edged men and tragic drunkards. And the occasional pair of determined white girls.
I have planted a lot of flower seeds in bowls, cut-off water bottles, plastic containers, and so on. Larkspur, lupine, balsam, sweetpea, beans and snapdragons! I'm very excited about them, and will keep you posted on their progress. These are my first sprouts.
View out the window of Loch End. As you can see, I actually live in a 1900s Lutheran monastery, not India at all.
My classroom! Large, beautiful, full of supplies and light and old artwork - and chilly, but I'll deal.
My blackboard. I'm official.
Mobiles from last year.
Goodbye till next time! I promise not to overload you with photos again, I'll find a better way of doing it. This is WAY too time-consuming. Yawn...
posted by Jenn at
5:54 PM
2 Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
Another issue with alcohol I've observed is the extremely irregular tax laws on imports - European wine (and imported liquor) costs more than it does in the US, and it's apparently all tax.
The Indian wines are tolerable, but where I find it annoying is that, if you like your beers more interesting than what Kingfisher and Fosters have to offer, because, that's too bad because Kingfisher and Fosters is all you're getting.
(oops, I tried to edit one word and ended up with a big ugly "COMMENT DELETED"!)
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