High tea with the lads from Punjab

After lunch today me and neil went down to the beach for a bit of body boarding. Looked for our guy sheeba or sheevba or sheevbrah or she-ra or was it even (alan) shearer? Anyway it didnt matter cause he saw us coming up the beach and ran up to us shouting "Neil!, James!, my brothers!"

He's the guy we rent our boards from anyway, and he also keeps an eye on our stuff whilst we are in the sea. And he gives us pillows to rest our heads on. And he gives us an umbrella if we want shade. And he has invited us back to his mums house to sample her prawn curry.

Anyway after our first hour or so in the sea we decided to rest a bit in the sun and whilst there neil trotted off to by a t shirt and get us a couple of drinks. Meanwhile my rest on the beach was disturbed by the statement:

"Hey - you american?"

I turned to find my self laying right next to a group of about 7 blokes all chatting and laughing amoungst themselves. Most of them in shirts and trousers, but one or two also going for the simple white 'y' front combo with nothing else. Anyway I got chatting to this guy who'd asked me if I was american and after informing him I was english we got on pretty well! He was a funny guy and he told me they were all from the punjab which is up north india. He got the train for 52 hours to get to kovalum for a bit of a holiday.

He kept asking me:

"You like indian girl?"

I was like:

"Umm well,"

Then, pointing at an indian girl RIGHT IN FRONT OF US

"You like her? She good or bad?"

Me:

"What do you think"

And this conversation went back and forth until a guy came round selling tea. Now, here is a challenge, you try saying "No, I dont want a cup of tea" to a bunch of blokes from the punjab. I've discovered it is impossible, they simply failed to acknowledge the fact that I didnt want a cup of horrible looking tea from a stange bloke on the beach.

One cup of tea later, I said my thank yous and shook my hands goodbye and went back in the sea, hoping I wouldnt be made ill by the tea.

The waves were amazing today, massive. As the sun came down me and neil went to a bar that overlooks the beach and has views of a really nice sunset. We ate the best king prawn curry ever created and had a drink watching the sun go down - after which it was time to head off to work. If most days are going to be like this I really dont think we are going to mind working nights too much.

Picture credit of the above goes to neil this time, as usual click for an enlarged.

First day

First day in the indian office today and it went well. At home the new cook showed up this morning and after the seemingly compulsory custom of shaking my hand and bobbing his head side to side and up and down 72 thousand times - he whipped us up some sort of veggie curry and rice, very nice. After lunch me and suz headed off for work and I finally got to meet everyone after seeing their pictures countless times. The indian office is really nice, but the ambiance is totally different. Not in a bad way, just different. A lot quieter but at the same time alot more social. Everyone is so friendly, offering to help you out with stuff all the time. Not work related stuff, more like "if you are ever stuck here give me a call" or "if you want me to arrange this for you its no problem" - All very welcoming and my immediate team are all great, which is a relief quite frankly.

You'll be pleased to hear that I had my priorities straight. Panic over, I have sorted out some speakers for our corner of the office so we can listen to the radio and anything else we want to whilst working. Well I say anything else WE want to, more like anything else me or neil want to. Neil swapped with me today and did the graveyard shift on my behalf, but we will both be in through the nights for the majority of the week from now on.

The plan for tommorrow daytime? The beach, belly boarding and (more than likely) burning.

Kovalum

So we headed out to Kovalum today with a plan to stay the night in hotel "Ocean Sparkle", check out the sunset and have a few "welcome to India" beers.

The mini advenutre of getting to the place, cue:

A) Mental roads
B) Mental drivers
C) A complete lack of any rules
D) Zero concept of the term "right of way"
E) Me sitting in the back of the car so I dont have to look out the front.

Got to the hotel and it only has two rooms but its really nice. Me and neil decide to just kip in the same room and let suzie have her own room. Again, one of the nicest blokes on planet earth is running the place. Everything is 'no problem sir' and he seems completly genuine in his kindness. We go for a stroll down the beach and take a few photos, kindly refusing the copious amounts of fruit and "tat" that is offered us along the way. Quick fact - I saw an indian guy selling paintings and wearing an arsenal shirt.

We ended up on a bar that overlooks the beach called fusion. Very clever. They have an eastern menu, a western menu and, you've guessed it, a fusion menu which combines the two. Anyway, a bit curried out from the plane food, I plump for a simple cheese and tomato grilled sarnie, and suzie goes for the same. Neil goes for deep fried cheese balls with chilli sauce and, and I quote "the best fish fingers in the world". Oh, and of course we order three massive bottles of kingfisher. Food comes, is lovely - they really are the best fish fingers in the world. Fresh, spicy, and actually taste of fish! Anyway, I digress.

We continue to drink in here throughout the night, even end up watching the footy on tv. Kicking out time round these parts seems to be about half nine, but when half nine comes it feels much later. Also by half nine, we had also eaten a couple of really nice pizzas there too. Just realised I sound like a right townie. Go half way round the world to an amazing place and still end up watching football, drinking beer and eating pizza. Disgraceful. But it was a great laugh, and after settling the bill which was a whopping four quid each, we moved back to the hotel where we had a bottle of vodka and bacardi waiting.

Cue:

- Sitting out in the garden facing the sea - Drinking - Card games - Drinking - Card tricks - Drinking - Spotting fireflies - Drinking - Drinking - Drinking.

The little man who ran the hotel kept on coming out and checking if things were ok, we could tell he wanted to go to bed but he insisted we were no problem and he was happy to "do his duties and look after us". Anyway everytime he came out we gave him a drink then suzie payed him off with a Marloboro Light so he wasnt doing to bad.

We were now drunk and it was midnight. So - We each scaled the hotel wall into the neighbouring hotel and went swimming in the pool for two hours. Absolutely hilarious, I have never swam drunk before but it soon sobers you up. Our hotel guy came out after a while and we were convinced this would now put him in a bad mood. Of course it didnt, he laughed, went back in the hotel then came straight back out with towels to offer us. What a nice bloke....

After getting out the pool and miracliously not getting spotted by the security guards at the other hotel, we headed back to our rooms at about 2 am. Hotel guy was now so tired yet all he could talk about was getting us breakfast in the morning. We then all piled up to suzies room because she had a TV and we all felt a bit guilty about keeping hotel guy up all night even though he said he didnt mind. Anyway he was in bed now so we felt a bit better about the late night. Well he was in bed until I decided to turn a light on in the room. The funny thing was, the switch wouldnt stick properly and kept popping back into position after pressing it. Well folks, mystery solved, it turns out it was a bell directly linked up to hotel guys room so he came running up the stairs quick as a flash asking us how he could help. The guilt.

Soon after that we all crashed, fell asleep on the bed, waking up at 11 the next morning.

The next day (today) we spent on this beach, sunbathing and belly boarding. It was great, the sea is warm and clear yet has amazing waves so its perfect for boarding. Me and neil decided that we were gonna go belly boarding 3 or 4 times a week because aside from the fact that its great fun and great exercise, we wont be starting work till the night time so will have all our days free. Result!

I guess thats enough info for now, better go to bed, first day at work in the indian office tommorrow and there are bound to be countless names to forget, hands to shake and confusion to be dished out - night night.

Arrival

Arrival at the house, wow, the journey in the car was an eye opener (post to come about that) but the house we are living in is very nice.

Had to call Neil to get him up to open the door - By the way, I'm living with work collegues Neil and Suzie. Neil has his own blog of events here. Anyway, had to call Neil as I didnt have a key, but had my first experience of Indian friendliness when the driver wouldnt leave my side until he saw me safely in the house. Now he didnt need to do this, we have two security guards inside the gates that guard our house (known as Happy man and Spider catcher), and the people round here are very nice so I was in no danger at all. But I could tell that he could tell that this was my first day in this strange place and he wanted to make sure I was ok. He must have shook my hand and nodded his head at me about 3 million times before he left as well. What a nice bloke (by the way, I've been saying "what a nice bloke" an awful lot so far).

Anyway - so - got in the house, had the tour then began to unpack.

Disaster strikes.

Funny - I dont know why I packed this hoodie in my hand luggage....I guess I'll just pull it straight out and throw it onto the hard, tiled floor - not like my new camera is wrapped up in it for protection or anything...

Whats that large cracking sound I hear you ask, oh yeah, thats my camera obviously.

Ok so its not broken, but it is damaged. I'm gonna try and get it repaired on warranty. If you are interested, I think I have damaged the lens in someway, it doesnt autofocus as well and the view through the viewfinder is slightly more to the right than what you get in the final result but its still ok to use, just annoying it isnt in tip top condidtion from my own clumsy fault.

So after unpacking, saying my hellos and having a nap, I didnt have the luxury of staying the night in this house just yet, we were going to Kovalum and thats where the fun of this weekend really began....

Journey

The journey began at 6am when the cab turned up to take me to Heathrow. It ended about 24 hours later when I walked into the house here in Trivandrum.

First stretch was a 6 and a half hour flight to Abu Dhabi Airport in the UAE which is one of the nicest airports I've ever been to. I managed to get some sleep on the plane over which was good, and it wasnt as bad as I first thought it would be. See pic top right, not taken by me but it shows you what the place looks like after you have got out of the plane and walked down a tunnel - Very nice.


After nearly buying a robot from the electronics store there it was time to move on and catch our next flight onto Muscat. The views flying out of Abu Dhabi, and flying in for that matter, were brilliant. As it was dark, you could just see this huge grid system of lights. It looked like a cross between the computer game sim city and some sort of giant Las Vegas.

From Muscat, we then flew into our final destination, Trivandrum. The flight was half empty, but full of wierd bollywood movies and yet another "airplane curry". Once we had landed, I was dreading the passport check and baggage retreival but we breezed through, with the only snag us waiting for a while for my bag to turn up. After waiting for over ten minutes, I glanced to the right and noticed that someone had taken my bag off the carousell and just left it about 5 meters to the right of it. Umm thanks, I think. One thing I did notice, no one was stressed, no one was in a bad mood and everyone seemed friendly - this is something that appears to be common in South India.

Walking out of the airport - cue the weird adverts, crazy people and the lack of phrase "Health and Safety".

Lovely place though, pics to come.

New soil and pimp sessions video

The soil and pimp sessions who me and nat went to see a few weeks back (see a few posts down) have just released a new video. Click here if you fancy a look, we cant get enough of them right now :)

They also have a shorter video clip online of an older track which is good to see as well, click here.

The iPod nano

I love gadgets - fact.

I want one of these.




The new iTunes version 5.0 is also now available. From what I've used of it so far, it is pretty much the same but with a nicer looking interface and some advanced search options.

My new camera

Here are the first few pics from my new camera. I'm looking forward to learning how to use it better, should come in handy for the inda trip.

Where did this come from?

Went outside the other night, and this thing was in my cat's mouth. No idea on earth where she found it but it seemed happy enough to go to sleep in a plant pot after its ordeal. I nearly got the hammer to put it out of its misery but it turned out that it was just stunned at first, lucky thing. Its probably still in the vets waiting to be claimed.

The India house

I've just been forwarded some pictures of the house we will be staying in in india. It looks lovely - cant wait to get out there.

There should be some serious sunbathing going on on that roof....(click for enlarged)

Creamfields

Creamfields.

This actually happened on the 27th of august but I wanted to mention it as it marked the end of the summer and was such a great night.

Highlights of the evening included erick morillo, gilles peterson, meeting up with claire, dawn and kate, plenty of group hugs and loads of smiley happy people.

Interesting fact - Creamfields took place in liverpool and that is the furthest north I have ever been.

Motivation

A real lack of motivation today - you know the feeling, umming and arghing for hours deciding whether or not to go to the gym. I went in the end though and feel better. Thats the end of that particular story - although once I walked in I suddnely remembered that we had ran into a few of the gym staff in thirst on Saturday night. Thats slightly worrying I had no recollection of that until today - What else happened that night (See 2 posts down) that has been forgotton?

I was thinking earlier, we were out that night for about 8 hours. I must recall around 2 minutes of it at the most. I know we had a great time but its a shame most of it has been wiped from my memory.

I think the real hangover hit today, obviously influenced my lack of motivation.

Soil and Pimp Sessions

Me and Nat went to see the soil and pimp sessions play a couple of weeks ago at cargo in london. All I can say is you need to check these guys out, mental japanese jazz - cant beat that to be honest! For a more apt description of the band click here. Also - If you fancy having a look at a video clip of how they look and sound on stage, click here.

This night turned out to be one of the best ever with wave after wave of good luck.

Whilst working out what was the best ticket to buy on the underground, someone walked up to us and offered us not one, but two all zone travel passes for the underground. He didnt want anything for them so me and nat did the only thing we could and accepted them - cheers. Then whilst looking for somewhere to have a 'pre gig drink' we stumbled accross a very busy pub on a street corner in east london, I wish I could remember the name. In this pub, I noticed that they were getting through bottle after bottle of this new brazilian beer, Brahma. Anyway - I asked at the bar if there was a promotion on for it and was told that they were giving them away free as long as we had some sort of special voucher from another place round the corner. Not having any of these vouchers, I politely asked if the barman could 'pretend' that I had some, to which he replied "I dont care, how many do you want?" . So as much free beer as we wanted, were we dreaming? Then onto one of the best nights of music ever, with the legendary Gilles Peterson warming the crowd up with some lovely music, he was also kind enough to take some time out for a little chat with us...which was nice. Then on came soil and pimp and live music will never be the same again, any other gig I go to from now on will have alot to live up to.

Did I mention that we had free drinks vouchers in the club as well? Thanks glenfiddich. We even got a lift home with paul and the hodge. Ta!

I didnt take these pictures myself as we were a bit further back, but the bbc worldwide crew did a good job so I thought I'd share them.

India trip and the leaving 'do'

I'm now due to leave for india on the 23rd of september. It was meant to be the 9th, hence the leaving do being last night, but down to a broken phoneline in the india office I will now be heading out two weeks later. Still due to return on the 16th December.

Last night saw the send off for my india trip - A celebration, a gathering, a last chance to see my friends for a few months....Who am I kidding, it was just a bloody big booze up. Best described as 'many in attendance and high fives aplenty' - a great time was had by all. It was good to see everyone made it out, apart from nat who fell asleep....lightweight.