Change change change

It’s funny how after all this time I now go to finally update this blog and barely think of all the events that have transpired in the time since last blogging, so this might serve as a brief apologetic update and hopefully I can get back on track from here… It hasn’t helped that our laptop has broken down twice for us to have to get repaired – not surprisingly this somehow took a whole lot longer than what could be reasonably expected..


So for anyone who missed the last update, the big news for Clarky and I is that we’re about nineteen weeks along with our first kid on the way; sure most of you probably know that by now, but personally the excitement hasn’t abated, so I still enjoy ‘saying’ it anyway. We also moved into our apartment in Benson Town, one of the old cantonment areas of Bangalore, ironically now quite a ethnically diverse suburb with one of Bangalore’s larger Muslim populations. We quite enjoy the area, basically in the inner north, and roughly equidistant to the two offices I currently work in – it’s a good balance of ‘living locally’ and getting a feel for India whilst still being more than comfortable to live in. (http://maps.google.co.in/maps?hl=en&tab=wl ) The apartment itself is also great: 4 bedrooms and 4-bathrooms (why?... blame the under-pant gnomes), quite modern, and in a decent complex with about 50 other apartments, a pool, small gym etc. It’s also been much better for Clarky in particular finally having ‘our own place’ here and settling in.

Since being back in Aus (late July early Aug) Clarky had been fairly ill with some sort cough and chest/head infection – that combined with a rapidly expanding mini-Walks inside her pretty much sapped her of any energy or ability to recover, so she was under the weather for about 4 weeks – thankfully a lot better now though and I think finally enjoying pregnancy and the amazing/ridiculous/fascinating/terrifying/incredible/stunning changes to the body that she once owned alone.

We’ve also managed a trip to Dubai for a weekend to catch up with some great mates, but sadly little else here in India with local social commitments and still a fair bit of demand in my work. We had planned a weekend in Mumbai, but Clarky’s health was still not the best, so we cancelled at the last moment. In the end probably not a bad thing – I was up there for work on the Monday, about the time that northern Victoria (Aus) was flooding. I was reading stories from home of in excess of 150mm falling over a bit more than a day... whilst witnessing first-hand a little more than 200mm each day for 4 days straight in Mumbai!
I’ve finally started a bit of Yoga myself but time is still at a premium, so tough to get into anything regular (even weekly), but hoping to do a bit more here and there. Learning Hindi has also been a challenge – I’ve always found languages relatively easy to learn by simple immersion, but getting a consistent ‘immersion’ down south here is quite difficult; whilst most of my work colleagues will all speak Hindi with an accent of their native Malayam, Tamil, Kanada etc, even the words themselves are often very inconsistent between my different ‘teachers’, so it’s turning out to be a difficult process, but interesting none-the-less.

So enough of the non-interesting for now, hopefully much more to report on shortly, and similarly not quite so long in between updates this time 'round.

Where's Walks?...

Apologies all, this blog has been abysmal in terms of infrequent updates, but will be keen to put a lot more down shortly. Have been back in Aus for a couple of weeks late July, and then pretty much had the laptop 'getting fixed' for August... so just now back on line and able to post some updates again. Heaps of stuff happening still, so will be updating very soon, but the BIIIIIG news for us right now is that we're about 15 weeks in with our first kid on the way! This could make things interesting towards the end of the year and early next depending on where we have Baby Walker (due 17the Feb), but what a brilliant problem to have.

Clarky and I couldn't be more excited; I decided to get in early with all the 'outsource to India' jokes with most of my great mates back home, but I'm sure there will be a whole lot more I haven't thought of yet...

So short and sweet for now but will get some photos of the apartment complex etc into the next edition very shortly.

Please explain...

Clarky back at school?...
Not quite, but I'm sure much more rewarding.

So here’s one that I just haven’t worked out yet...
It’s a great experience and challenge trying to understand a different world, a different lifestyle, belief and values systems, filters on life etc – that’s surely one of the joys of travelling or living abroad. So whilst I can see plausible explanations (not necessarily logic, or at least not my version of it perhaps) behind many of the less subtle differences here like the constant horns in traffic for example, there a few I’m yet to get my head around.

Whoa, easy Tiger...

Mystery-thus-far number one - The queue jumper... I remember standing at a petrol station in Dubai in a queue waiting to buy whatever it was, standing about 3rd in queue, a very obvious and ordered British-style queue, when an Indian guy I knew wondered straight to the front trying to force the cashier to serve him before everyone else. Sure he had something ‘quick and easy’, but so did at least one of the others waiting patiently in line... for example a certain short-haired Aussie whom had become instantly furious with this apparent arrogant impertinence. So you can imagine my delight that I now have plenty of opportunity to explore this little quirk further. It’s not that I see every day, but I certainly see it quite frequently. For no apparent reason, someone of no apparent higher standing, caste, significance or importance of any sort (yes I’ve asked), bypasses the social etiquette and respect for your fellow man of the queue, wandering straight to the cashier demanding immediate attention without so much as a shrug of an apology. And not smugly. Not with any eye contact either. Almost as though that’s just what you should expect, or at least what they did. So the obvious questions...is the queue a habitual creature? Do those others waiting simply choose to ignore because they can’t be bothered? How come everyone doesn’t try to queue jump, and what would that look like?!
So for those of you more intelligent, worldly, travelled, sophisticated and clever than myself (let’s be honest we’re not setting a high bar here), by all means let me know – I’ll even shout the beers.

Other updates for you?
Clarky still good and busy – her list of activities now includes yoga, pilates, teaching slum kids, volunteering in a hospice and with a charity that creates sustainable incomes for women and villages, cooking lessons and of course the all-important social scene... Oh how the tides have turned, and yes I am jealous.
We’re still living in the serviced apartment, now three months in (don’t mention the war), and as ridiculous as it now sounds I’ll say again that we’re ‘hoping to move in this weekend’, or so we’ve been told again... the count on this is now five, without any exaggeration whatsoever, so you can imagine this is wearing a little thin. We’re onto our third driver, who appears thus far to be excellent – the last we’re pretty sure was doing business on the side in a car my work is paying for, consequently turning up late for ‘madam’ numerous times (never for ‘sir’ of course!), and despite several very clear instructions (yep, we’ve learned to be very simple and direct when needed) could not seem to manage not to answer his mobile phone, check messages etc whilst weaving and shoving and beeping through peak hour traffic. Two accidents (albeit minor accidents) was more than enough for madam!

Mysore, an Indian Wedding & Srirangapatnam

Having worked a little more than we'd ideally like of late, we gladly took up an offer from one of my colleagues to attend his wedding in Mysore on Friday, also taking the opportunity to create a long weekend and experience some more of India outside of Bangalore.


Farming ye olde style - no problem when labour is cheap & abundant.


Whilst only about 140km away, it's a good 3 hour drive by road - at least. Having said that, it was great to get 'out of town' and experience a little more of India. So we headed off to the reception Thursday night and then the ceremony Friday morning.


Mysore, known for it's silk, incense and sandalwood amongst other things, was the city of choice for the Wodeyar maharajas, who pretty much ruled in various forms from about 1400 to 1947. Touring the palace below was the first opportunity we'd had to start to learn a little of the history, and it didn't disappoint. Great stories of empires, sub-empires, battles, wars and all the other good stuff that I won't bore you with here in these days of google and wikipedia.

Not a bad little house... if you're a maharaja of course

Making friends in the Palace grounds

Look closely..Peter Pan shoes & all....

Apparently there are literally hundreds of variations within Hindu weddings alone, but we were delighted to be able experience this one. I had asked around some friends and colleagues on what would be considered appropriate attire - "respectful but not over the top" I think I had suggested... and the result can be seen here.

The happy couples

Whilst I'm pleased to have made the effort we soon discovered that many other guests were in simple 'western' dress - anything from 'business casual' to jeans and a shirt. Having said that, it's not every day you get to buy a Sari and Shirvani and wear them with the best intent, so it kind of added to the fun and was, I'm think, received well. The wedding itself consisted of a great number of rituals and traditions taking place over a couple of hours - another work colleague gave us a bit of an insight into what was happening at some of the stages but I won't even attempt to recount in any detail.

Random shot from the streets of Mysore... how many school kids can you fit into one 'auto'?

Having looked around some of Mysore's great markets, we checked out Chamundi Hill and temple and then Brindavan Gardens, apparently a feature of many of Bollywoods best. Probably my favourite new spot of the weekend and one of the best little towns so far was Srirangapatnam - a town on an island in the river Cauvery with a load of history. Home to Hyder Ali and the great Tipu, it was pretty much the capital of Southern India for much of the 18th century, when Tipu in particular enjoyed a number of major victories over the British. The poms eventually managed to beat him, and he lays today within the town. Many of the old ramparts and gates of the old fort still stand - I love the fact that the majority of the town still stand within the walls of the old fort.

Sunfeast 10K

One of the cool things about Bangalore is that it
at least gets a share of sporting events other than the IPL of course... and some that you can join in if you so fancy, such as the Sunfeast 10K.
For those of you I've bored in the past with tales

of woe, skip forward a couple of paragraphs, but
for anyone not up to date, the basic summary is
that about 8 or 9 years ago I had to quit all

sport that involved running or 'weight-bearing'

thanks to some hip issues.

(Clarky missed me coming but got this shot just after we left the stadium...at this stage it still seemed like a great idea!)

Not wanting to believe one
specialist I sought three different opinions: The
feedback from the three was that in 3 - 5 years (one guy said 3, one 5, and the third '3 - 5'!) they expected I would not be able to walk, at which point I could then get a hip replacement. At the time this was obviously not great news for someone who loved being involved in sport, even though I was never going to be the world's best (although the older I get the better I was if you listen to me reminiscing!) at anything. However, I learned to accept that I was pretty much restricted to swimming and cycling from now on in.

Nine years later I'm still walking pretty much without hindrance...which every now and then makes me wonder if I could go back to doing more; like running for a start perhaps...

And thus the plan hatched to take place in the Sunfeast 10K run here in B'lore. I had done a couple of 3 - 5 K jogs on treadmills over the last few years without too much pain... so I decided to give it a crack. Whilst things have been pretty busy, I managed to get a few 5 - 6 K jogs in over the last month since arriving, including a couple of 'real runs' off the treadmill.

( Almost 10K later not looking quite as flash! - don't be fooled, the blur is not speed, but just tricky-photo-business by Clarky.)

So whilst I knew I wasn't exactly in top shape, and the hip had certainly let it be known it wasn't great, I gathered this morning with a few thousand other runners in a stadium just 10 minutes walk from our current residence. I'll spare the step-by-step details, but the highlights (lowlights?) are probably best described with a distance indicator and the corresponding thoughts...

Start-line: OK so this is what about 7 thousand runners looks like...this is going to be fun to fight through surely...

1 klm mark: Yep, not much fun so far...weaving, shuffling hustling and at times walking through the throng...more than 6 and a half minutes for first klm as a result. This is going to make my ideal target of sub 50 minutes pretty tough already

just over 2klm: Almost finally getting a rhythm..but still a little too crowded. Not sure I should have swapped shoes this morning...has been at least 6 months since I've worn anything with these arch supports, should have stuck to the cross-trainers I've been using lately.

About 3klm: Geez this is feeling long already...had a good klm there but my arches are killing me, suspect there is some rubbing happening

5 klm: Strewth. Half-way. I now believe Dr. Dalzeil, Dr. Zimmerman and third-bloke-I-can't-remember... Definitely going to have blisters on the arches. Hip not great either...

6 klm: What?! That was just 1klm? You've got to be kidding! If I thought I could afford to speed up I would overtake you again mate-o in front of me...or just share some deodorant with you in the least.

8 klm: Ughhh. Hip...aching....arches feel like they're rubbed raw. Must have slowed to about 1 klm a year at the moment...

9 klm: OK...surely I can speed this last klm up?... Not really? OK fine, just don't walk and don't stop. Try to spot Clarky so you can at least pretend to be looking good!

Finish: Oh crikey that was harder than I expected. About 54 minutes, disappointing. But relieved...Geez my feet are killing me!

So at least I've now answered (yet again!) that little question that flirts with my ego in the back of my mind occasionally; 'could I ever run a marathon with these hips of mine'? If I want to avoid a replacement for a while longer the message coming from my body is pretty clear! But at least I finished this little stretch. I know for anyone who runs regularly or even just probably 'normally fit' my saga will be laughable - just for the record, the elite men's race this morning was won with a time of 27min 34sec... literally half my effort! I'm sure I'll be a lot better in the morning already, but hobbling around the room right now with two half nude arches and a dull ache in my hip I think training for and completing a full marathon may just be a stretch....

More to come soon on Mumbai trip(s), hopefully moving into an apartment soon (heard that before?), and anything else we can think of worth mentioning.

Some catch-up notes...

So which one is the monkey?....

A couple of weekends ago we headed out towards Mysore to the Big Banyan Tree. Not surprisingly when we arrived we found a ...big ...banyan tree...

It's about 400 years old and has a strange root system that means it looks more like dozens of smaller trees somehow grouped together. It doesn't have one main central trunk as such but it's still impressive; any big old tree covering about 4 acres still gets my vote as worth seeing.

Yep - that's all one tree, connected through it's root system

The outing also took us just out of town with a great friend of ours visiting from Dubai - sadly her hubby was busy working, but it was great to have a visitor already and catch up.

Safety first.... at least for the driver. This little family outing was kind enough to let me get a snap, in fact quite keen. I think I might have just developed a theme for a coffee table collection....

The shot below is from our weekend to Trivandrum...there were a few more I wanted to include but I'm not exactly a wizard on formatting this thing yet, so they'll have to wait for next time.

Fishing the way they've all always done...with all the time in the world.
Despite the humidity and heat, there is always something very relaxing about the beach/coast/ocean - I was surprised to realise that we actually quite miss this sort of thing living in land-locked Bangalore.



Other news... We're still in our serviced apartment and waiting to move out - hopefully in the next couple of weeks still, but this seems to be happening very much in it's own time. We've upgraded our car and driver (they are generally a package) to get something a little bigger - the car, not the driver. It's a bit more comfortable and as a bonus the new driver also speaks significantly better English.

Clarky is very much out and about - as a lady of leisure she's taken up yoga and pilates, some charity work teaching slum kids and also working in a hospice, and of course keeping some spare time for a busy expat wives social scene. Poor thing. Her new name is now 'Housewife' as that's what it officially says on her visa - classic!

B'lore tally:

Drivers - 1

Visitors - 1

Out of town trips - 2

Trivandrum

Whilst it's only just under a month since we hit the ground here in Bangalore, it's been brilliant to get away for the weekend for a bit of rest and relaxation, a few drinks, great company and some of the typical fun and games you'd expect with 4 expat couples heading 'out of town' for a weekend. Clarky has met some great people through the Overseas Women's Club here, some of whom kindly invited us to join them for a weekend away to celebrate the birthday of one of the husbands. So four Aussies, two Irish, a Brit and a Dutchman pitched up on Friday to a beautiful beach side resort in Trivandrum. The first that 'hit us' getting of the plane in the South-Western state was not surprisingly the humidity - the thick air quite literally feeling like something hitting us in the face. One of the fortunate aspects of Bangalore is the absence of the humidity that is (apparently) present in much of the rest of the country, so this was our first taste of thus far: For a guy not great with the sticky weather, hitting the tarmac again in B'lore this afternoon was quite a relief.

I guess it's an aspect of human nature to seek out those we feel most comfortable with, often in many ways those that are most like ourselves. As much as I have probably done quite the opposite thus far, there is something quite enjoyable, almost relaxing, about 'easy' conversations with new acquaintances. Affinity at a basic level. Being able to 'chat' without the need to concentrate. And whilst I have no less of a passion for learning more about almost every aspect of our new home and the people around us, it's also great to enjoy the company new found friends and know we'll be spending more time with them in the weeks and months to come.

The first day of each month in the state of Kerala is a 'dry' day, with no alcohol is served or sold at all. Having this knowledge prior to the weekend, however, allowed for appropriate planning and preparations, ensuring the birthday celebrations continued in style. But amongst the drinking games, stories and playful debates (what is a 'sport' and what is a 'game' always a reliable classic) we also managed to unwind, relax with a book or two, and partake in some tennis and swimming; all-in-all a fantastic weekend.


Photos from Trivandrum and more updates to come in the next edition, as we've not long arrived back 'home' to our serviced apartment here in Oakwood...Hope all are well, for those of you who have tried to load comments on here let me know if you're still having issues!

Welcome to Bengaluru

G'day all, or at least 'all' those keen to hear stories and some of the fun and games for my (and this time 'our') little jaunt OS. Whilst this probably won't be quite like the stories of Walksontour from a few years ago (and certainly not the blacklist!), hopefully we'll be able to keep in touch with great mates and family and share a little of our adventures.

For any of you that we didn't catch up with prior to leaving Oz, a quick little background...

After starting my new job in Melbourne in Sept 09, a number of chance circumstances combined to suddenly open up the opportunity for a long term secondment in Bangalore. Whilst I didn't really expect Clarky to be too keen, she was (obviously!) quite open to the concept on the whole. Whilst the idea was first 'mooted' around or just after xmas, by the time all the necessary 'corporate approvals' etc were taken care of and the green light was given, we literally had just on 4 weeks before the date we needed to be here...

So we went into the mad rush of packing up, renting out the house, getting organised etc to get everything ready to go in such a short space of time - thankfully my work helped a lot of course as part of the deal - not sure it would be possible to get so much organised (whilst working pretty crazily right up until leaving) quickly enough without all the agencies helping with freight, packing, visas, temporary accom etc.

We also had the 'help' of some of our best mates and family: Like seagulls on a chip at the beach, they managed to snaffle up my tele, motorbike, car (we sold Clarky's to another mate), Playstation, Lawnmower etc on 'long term loan' - thanks blokes... I think...hope they're all going well for you!

After a short stint staying in a serviced apartment downtown, just a block or so from the Mitre Tavern in fact (coincidence?), we had the pleasure of some of our nearest and dearest seeing us off from the airport on the morning of Monday 5th.

There is something really quite strange living in a hotel/serviced apartment right in the middle of your home city...even stranger when you're home of four years (freshly rented out) is less than 5km away...and even a little more when walking almost past the front door (literally within 50m) with a bunch of mates on a Pub Golf session in your home (previous home?) suburb. On the counter, it's pretty easy to then get over the little pang of nostalgia when aiming to win the aforementioned competition - jug skulls seemed a lot easier at Uni... Thanks to all involved though for one of the best and most memorable nights out for a long time.

I've got to say the flight to Singapore was fantastic - we'd been upgraded once previously to Business Class (during the whole 'Heathrow scare' a few years ago trying to get to Hong Kong from Nice) previously, but were probably too exhausted to appreciate it. I'm happy to plug Singapore Airlines here as the trip Melb - Sing was fantastic; great service, food, drinks, entertainment, huge space and the best 8 hour flight I've ever had. Sing - Bang was not a lot worse, and whilst smaller plane meant not quite the same level of luxury, it was a fairly quick 4 hours.

Arriving in Bangalore we eventually found our driver who was there to collect us and take us back to Oakwood Prestige in UB city (we're still here at present), which is also more than comfortable.

Sadly, but not unexpectedly, I've spent by far the majority of my time working some reasonably long hours and trying to get my head around everything with the teams, stakeholders, operations, issues, regulatory requirements, etc - I'm not too stressed about this as obviously that's what I'm here to do(!), but I'm also eager to get out a little more and immerse myself in the incredible diversity in cultures, cuisines, customs, languages, traditions, religions etc. Having said that we had the luxury and pleasure of having a good mate and work colleague (from Melbourne) to welcome me to the office day one and pave the way for a much quicker introduction and settling period. As a Bangalorian (I may have just made that word up) originally, I've worked with him since last Sept, and he's been doing a brilliant job acting in my new role here in Bang until I arrived. Even more valuable has been the intro to some of his family and contacts here, the opportunity to enjoy the Bangalore Club, and helping celebrate his birthday with local friends and family.

The well known Bangalore traffic can be crazy - whilst there are rules and laws, they seem to be often more just 'advisory' than anything to be taken too seriously...especially road lanes. Yet for all the pushing in, mixing, beeping, merging, beeping, swerving, cutting, creeping, beeping etc, it does work. There is no way somewhere like Melb would ever cope with anything like the volume - the 'Nanny state' would go into overload, the revenue collectors would have heart attacks with excitement and to be honest most of the drivers simply wouldn't move due to 'perpetual hesitation' or perhaps fear. But here it works - the beeping that is so famous is actually used to warn other road users where you are, or really that you're about to or are at least wanting or trying to barge up the inside/outside around them.


You have to love some of the rules and laws you encounter travelling/living overseas. I love to learn and try to understand 'why' and 'how' etc, but I'm happy to admit defeat or at least postpone my 'understanding' on occasions. One such classic is the (apparently new) helmet rule on bikes and scooters: the driver must now wear a helmet, although it doesn't seem to be policed too heavily and 'helmet' I've discovered can be a very loose term. However, your passenger is not required in the least to wear a helmet. Nor is your other passenger for that matter. Nor the next. Nor the next. In fact Dad can literally don a loose fitting inverted rusty colander, crank over the trusty 50cc two-stroke scooter, load up the missus and at least 3 kids and head off into the gridlock... Golden!

I'm sure I'm missing heaps but I'll endeavour to try to keep up with stuff a little closer to point of reference as well. In short, work is going well and yes there are cows on the road. Clarky is out and about meeting people, going to yoga, generally having a tough life. We've probably selected a place to move into in a couple of weeks (for at least a few months at least, will update when we get there), we've avoided trouble to date and are both pretty much enjoying the challenge and differences. Here are a couple more photos to at least make this a little interesting I hope for now.

OK, so clearly I can't work out the whole photo-placement thing...will try to improve on this also in 2nd instalment.