Ev Star

As my title suggests, the last few days have been busy!!

On Tuesday and Wednesday we did volunteer work with Smita’s eldest brother.  He started an NGO that has two branches to it.  He first started with doing blood drives to get blood for blood banks in Mumbai.  It is kind of crazy as there are 55 bloodbanks in the city and now he is pretty much the central agent for them all.  He runs blood drives at colleges and different businesses and then distributes the blood to the blood banks that need it.  The other side of his NGO deals with a blood disorder called thalassaemia.  I’d never heard of it before, but it afflicts a lot of Indian people.  The problem is that a lot of people are thalassaemia minors and don’t know it, and if two parents are thalassaemia minors their kid might be a thalassaemia major which causes huge problems.  The kid will need a blood transfusion every 15 days for the rest of their lives as well as have an injection every night that lasts 8-10 hours to remove excess iron from the blood.  So, what Vinay (smita’s brother) does is he goes to colleges and gives a lecture on thalassaemia and then the next day he goes back with a group of nurses and does a testing camp where the students can be tested for free (normally it would cost about 400 rupees).  The first day Mad and I went and listened to his lecture and then the day after we helped out with the testing camp.  Mad was in charge of writing down the students’ names and phone numbers and so on, and I numbered the bottles and wrote the students’ names on them.  It proved to be a bit difficult as we are not familiar with Indian names.  Even worse, when the students spelled them out for us it was difficult to understand what letters they were saying.  P, B, D and so on all sound kind of similar especially when you are not used to the accent!  Anyway, we made it through and just over 500 kids got tested which was great.  After that, Vinay, 2 of his co-workers (they kind of joked that they used to volunteer with Vinay during highschool because they got free food at the various colleges but now they have made it their profession!!) and Vinay’s driver decided that instead of taking us straight back to the apartment that we’d take a little trip to downtown Mumbai (it’s at least and hour or so away).  We had never been into downtown yet so it was lots of fun.  Especially because we we had 4 middle aged Indian men as tour guides.  They were hilarious!  We went to the gateway of India and then drove around the city a bit looking at the various sites.  They then decided it would be a good idea to go out for beers.  All in all it was a great time!

Yesterday, Thursday, we went to a Bollywood movie soundtrack release party.  The whole thing was kind of ridiculous but definitely an experience.  In preparation we had gone out shopping with Smita and Minti and bought fancy salwar kameez outfits, bangles and sandals (i ended up with man sandals that i swear are made from camel hide…i guess indian girls dont have size 11 feet).  So on Thursday morning Mad and I ironed our outfits, painted our toenails, put on make up and all that sort of stuff.  Then at about 10 30am (weirdly for us, this thing was a morning event) the driver drove us to a hospital where we were to meet a surgeon and a politician (the politician being a cousin of Smita’s and the surgeon being his friend).  It turns out the surgeon is the head of the neurosurgery department and his wife the head of the gynecology department…and he is a bit of a nut.  In any case, off we drove with the surgeon (who is called “doc”) and the politician cousin (his name is krishna) to Film City.  Once we arrived in Film City we could see sets being built and general film stuff which of course got Mad all excited.  Our actual destination was a place called Whistling Woods International Limited (i’m still not entirely sure what the place is, but apparently at least part of it is an international film school).  In any case we arrived and followed Doc around.  He told us he was the trustee of the place and that we could do anything we wanted.  We soon learned that he meant it when he ushered us into some private elevator against the protests of the front staff.  They were like “excuse me sir, that elevator is not for guests”.  Doc loudly replied, ”I am not a guest!” and up we rode…to the private office of the film director of the film for the launch party we were at.  Apparently Doc wanted us to meet him before he came down to join the launch party.   Anyway, after that we went back down to the lobby where there were tons of photographers and so on and stood around waiting for all the guests to arrive.  Doc introduced us to lots of people, including bollywood film star Anil Kapoor, and always referred to us as his Canadian friends.  It was kind of funny.  Actually what was most funny, was that he kept trying to be in all the pictures.  Anyway, after all the pictures we went into a theatre where there were speeches, a film segment on the making of the movie and the music in it, a small concert by the singers of the soundtrack and then this ridiculous opening of the CD.  There were 6 cds in this HUGE gift box wrapped in a giant bow that they ceremoniously cut open on stage.  I think my favourite part was the concert…i really enjoyed the music!  After that we went out for lunch with “Doc” and Krishna.  Krishna wants to take us out one night before we go (apparenlty he is in with the party crowd and goes out every night…) and “Doc” wants to set us up to go sunbathing at a five star hotel and then the two of them will pick us up and take us out for lunch.  Who knows if that will happen but it would be both fun and funny if it did! 

Today was a little less busy.  In the morning mad and I booked our flight from singapore to Thailand (18 Singapore dollars…woohoo!) and a couple nights at the Hive hostel in Singapore for the next two times we are there.  We also have found the group we will probably go with for our trek in Nepal.  In the afternoon we went out with Minti to downtown.  We went to the Prince of Wales museum which was great!  We also walked around and looked at some of the fabulous architecture left over from the days of British rule.  As Mad pointed out it is kind of weird to be so into architecture that was designed by British and built with Indian labour…but it is very beautiful!

That’s about it for now….i’ll try to make my next post a little shorter…

xoEv

Hi everyone!

Last time I wrote we were still in Singapore, and actually we still had another full day and another sleep at the Hive hostel before leaving for India. 

 Our second day in Singapore we decided to tour the city by means of the “hop on” bus system.  What it is, is a bus service for tourists that has buses that drive all around town with stops at the major attractions.  It worked out well for us because for $3 we could have a basic tour of the city in a day.  From our hostel we walked to Little India (not far from where we were staying).  Little India had a lot of shops selling clothing and jewelry as well as fruit and vegetable markets and also a number of temples.  We took some time to explore the area and then got on our first “hop on” bus which brought us to chinatown.  Chinatown had a lot of outdoor stalls to look at and a few malls.  We walked around Chinatown following a walking guide pamphlet we picked up at a tourist info centre which mainly wove through the outdoor stalls.  We also went into one of the malls and went to a couple of travel agents to see if we could find a good deal to fly from singapore into thailand.  We haven’t quite decided yet how we are going to do that but we got the names of some of the cheaper airlines so we can keep checking for deals.  After that, we got on the bus again and drove back to Little India.  This was quite a long ride but was very interesting as we got to see a lot of the city.  I especially enjoyed seeing the large old colonial style homes.

The next morning we were up at 5 as we had to catch our 7 40am flight to Mumbai.  Unfortunately the subway nearest our hostel didnt run early enough so we decided to save some money and walk (instead of taking a taxi to the airport) to a subway station from a different line.  This proved to be a bit hot (it doesnt cool down at night much!) and tiring, but it worked out none-the-less. 

When we arrived in Mumbai, Nimisha’s (maddy’s friend) uncle (Manu) and driver (!) were waiting for us.  The driver was holding a sign saying “MADELEINE” on it which was kind of funny.  I was kind of confused and thought the driver was Manu’s son.  Ooops.  Well, i figured it out soon enough.  Anyway, we drove to Manu’s apartment which is located in the suburbs of Mumbai and we were greeted by his daughter Minti.  She is really nice and has a great sense of humour.  We sat around and chatted for awhile and then, as per Manu’s request, she ordered pizza for us for lunch.  It was pretty funny!  I guess they were worried about what we would eat.  very thoughtful of them actually.  At that time Manu’s wife (Smita) came home from work (she is a teacher) and so she ate lunch with us.  She’s also very friendly and also really funny.  It made for good conversation.  The rest of the afternoon mad and i rested in our room (Minti and her brother Samit gave up their room for us…we felt bad, but better than the parents giving us their room which was the other option).  In the evening, Smita, Minti, Maddy and I went out to a market type place where they were selling Indian clothing and crafts.  It was a lot of fun!  After that we met up with Manu, Samit and Samit’s friend for dinner.  There was SO much food!  Actually, that seems to be a theme here.  TONS of food and getting reprimanded for not eating enough.  Though we get some leeway because they figure we’re not at full eating capacity because of the hot weather. 

The next morning we were up pretty early (still a little jet lagged I guess).  We had breakfast (they bought us cornflakes) and then we packed up all our stuff.  At about 11am Nimisha’s other uncle, his name is Tata, came to pick us up.  We drove with him to a site called Kenheri caves which was really cool.  We drove up a mountain to a place where Buddhist monks had once carved out caves to live in.  The amount of work put into it was incredible as they not only carved out caves but decorated them all with statues.  After that we had lunch at McDonalds (no hamburgers here!) for indian style chicken burgers (Tata phoned Manu to ask where he should take us for lunch…)  After that we drove to his apartment and met his daughter Titli and wife Rina.  The three of them together make one of the cutest families ever!   His daughter was very sweet and friendly.  She’ll be coming to Canada next summer so it will be lots of fun to get to show her around.  Rina, the wife was also super cute.  She dressed Mad and I up in her saris and jewelry which was great!  She also showed me how to cook alu paratas.  They are thin potato bread pancake type things.  We ate them for breakfast with sweet kurd.  Maddie filmed it all so you’ll probably get to see that sometime.  We stayed with that family for 2 nights.  The first evening we got there, they took us to a Indian carnival.  We only stayed for about 10 minutes and it was to see the most ridiculous act ever.  We climed up this big, rickety flight of stairs, and at the top everyone was standing around a big ring that looked down into a circular pit with walls coming up at 90 degrees all around.  Inside the pit were 3 SUVs and 3 motorcycles.  Somehow the guys running the act got the cars and bikes going fast enough that they drove up the walls at break neck speed and zoomed around and around almost up to where we were standing.  It was nuts!!  Apparently there had been an accident the day before……

The next day we all piled into Tata’s car and drove to the neighbouring city of Pune to visit his nephew Anabil and his girlfriend Yashwanti.  It’s not exactly a short drive…I guess it took at least 2 hours to get there but Tata is a big fan of driving and it was nice for us to get to see the scenery.  On the way there we stopped a couple of times.  Once it was to drive up to a place called Tiger Point.  It was beautiful!  We could see for miles around.  There were a lot of people there selling food and asking for money which is hard to know how to deal with. 

Once in Pune, we went to the apartment of the nephew and girlfriend for tea and then we went out in a rickshaw to a temple.  Actually we went to two temples that were side by side one for Ganesh and one for one of his parents, I forget which one though. In any case, it was really neat!  Anabil and Yashwanti were really nice and we are hoping to go visit them again. 

The next day we went out shopping and mad and I each got a salwar kameez (i don’t know how to spell it) which is an outfit that girls wear a lot here.  We are planning to wear them when we take the train and any other time we want to stand out a little less. 

Today we are back at Manu and Smita’s place.  Minti is going to take us out this afternoon to a temple and a beach and then we are going to a restaurant in a mall this evening for dinner.  It should be lots of fun!

Both families we have stayed with have been over the top nice and generous to us.  It’s been a great introduction to India for us.  We have been given so many tips and ideas on what to do and also what not to do and what to be aware of and so on, i’m sure it’s going to be very useful information for the rest of our trip!

Hopefully my next update will come a little sooner!

xoxoEv

Hi everyone!

This is my first attempt at posting on this site Al made for me…hopefully it works!! 

Mad and I left Sunday afternoon from Vancouver and we have now, on Tuesday, arrived in Singapore.  The flights were long but we were both able to sleep a lot, so that was nice.  Once we arrived in Singapore, we got our passports stamped, picked up our luggage (nothing lost yet!!) and then went to line up for customs.  We are not sure why, but for some reason we got ushered out of the customs line-up and got to by-pass it altogether.  We then made our way to the train station that is located in the airport and bought cards called ”EZ-link”.  These cards wil allow us to use the mass rapid transit system while we are here now and also when we stop here on our way to south east asia and again on our way to Frankfurt.  At the moment we are sitting in the Hive (the hostel we will be staying at for the next two nights) making use of the free internet while we wait for our room to be ready (it is still only 9 30 am). 

That’s about all for now!  I think you guys can leave comments on this site or you can always email me…I want to keep up to date on everything at home!

I’ll post again soon!

xo Ev

From your favourite brother Al!