Well That's Just Disgusting

Listening to:  Lit up-Buckcherry

I recently had something happen to me that was so disgusting I never want it to happen again. Before we get into what it was, let me reassure you that India has tons and tons of local bug fauna. Blows the US out of the water when it comes to insects. For example, we have at least 3 types of ants in the house at a time, and I’m not talking about the kind that pinch your cheeks and kiss you lots.  There are small black ants that love sweets and grains. There are teeny tiny red ones that love bread and cereal.  Then there are the absolutely evil red ones that bite. *Shudder* Thankfully, those are mostly more interested in being outside hunting bugs and eating them. Because that’s what evil ants do. Occasionally we see them in the house if a bug has died somewhere. Another thing about ants is that it’s never one or two. By the time you notice them in the house, there are at least 500.

On to the disgusting part. In most Indian Hindu houses, there is either a dedicated room or at least a corner nook with statues and images of some or many of the gods, depending on how pious the family is. In my inlaws house, we have a dedicated room back by the kitchen. It does also happen to be a pantry/storage room. In honor of that being a religious room (a puja room) for the family, any type of shoes are not allowed. Most people (unless you are too poor to afford it, which is more people than you think) wear rubber type slip on sandals (cheppals) all the time, even in the house. This is because things get dusty and by the end of the day, your feet will be black otherwise. One night, I wandered barefoot into the puja room to grab a jar of jam. I did flip on the light but didn’t pay too much attention as I wandered back through the room. 

All of a sudden I felt some odd crunching beneath my feet and wondered what spilled. I looked down and the entire floor was crawling and moving rapidly away from my feet. Someone had spilled a little bit of whole grains in the puja room earlier in the day and the entire floor was absolutely covered with black ants. I literally have never seen so many ants in one place and I stood fascinated for a minute before I realized that I had many, many ants climbing up my legs. This was like a movie type action scene where there are so many bugs moving in one direction it looks like they are just spilling over each other to get away.  Ew. I still shudder thinking about it. It took a good 5 minutes of stamping my feet in the hallway before I got all of the ants off my legs, because I was wearing pants and couldn’t just brush them off. Let me tell you, I look down now before I enter a room.

Becky

Automobiles

Listening to: The World I Know – Collective Soul

Moving right along with the travel theme that I have going on is automobiles. Yes. I am aware that I shamelessly stole the movie title. 

Traveling around in cities is pretty easy, if time consuming. You have a few options.  Best option is having and driving your own car or having your own car and a driver. It’s not as expensive as it sounds. The next option is hiring a large car from a service that comes with a driver. This is a bit more expensive and better left for if you need to travel around with lots of people in a group. Option 3 is flagging an autorickshaw from the street. These yellow motorcycles with carts behind them are the quintessential Indian experience. You may find a few honest drivers, but most range from bat bologna crazy to just plain sheisty jerks.  They will however, get you from one place to the other for relatively cheap without running into anyone. Your heart may stop multiple times as they pass inches from other cars and even pedestrians, but they won’t hit anything. They also tend to know the city inside and out, but this won’t guarantee that you won’t be taken for a ride. Be very suspicious of a driver that looks at you blankly when you tell them the neighborhood you want to go to. You should have some idea of the streets or you will be driven around in a circle. The last option is to take a public bus. I would avoid this at all costs unless you are a man that likes to be shamelessly groped by other guys. Women just don’t take the bus for this reason unless they have no choice. Another thing about buses – the drivers are crazier than the rickshaw drivers. The bus only stops if a large amount of traffic gets in the way. There are no bus stops. You grab the handle and jump in, or just hang on, depending on how packed the bus is.

As I mentioned, traveling in the city is pretty easy.  God be with you if you decide to drive yourself, you should also know the streets. Idle autorickshaw drivers are surprisingly helpful at pointing you in the right direction if you ask in Hindi. Hiring a driver is also great because while they’re not as good as auto guys at knowing neighborhoods, they do have a decent idea of the city layout as this is what they do. Some are better than others because some only drive part time.  Due to sheer volume and chaos, driving across town takes about an hour. Some drivers are more aggressive than others too, and I guess what you want depends on how much craziness it takes to make your hair stick up. I don’t mind a crazy fast/aggressive driver as long as he’s not hitting stuff.

Driving in the countryside/highways is totally different. Huge construction trucks (called lories) and diabolically insane buses rule the road. They do not stop, they do not yield, even if they hit you. The roads will most likely be in very poor shape (I recently ventured out of town in a rented van with a driver and there were potholes larger than me. Seriously.) and drivers are inclined to slam on the brakes quite often as the car in front of them will have just discovered a ginormous pot hole right before they fell into it.  Avoid this if at all possible. But maybe do it just once to assure yourself you never want to do that again. I sure did.

I’m pretty sure I’ll have much more to say about driving in India. After all, I’m moving to Bangalore – one of the worst cities in the world in which to try driving. I do plan to learn though. I just got my drivers license!

Becky

Trains

Listening to: Crazy Train – Ozzy Osbourne. Love me some Ozzy too!

A week after we came to Hyderabad, we decided to take a trip to Bangalore and see my sister in law and her family. My daughters had been missing their cousins a lot, so we decided to go. Of course, in true G family fashion, we decided this long after train tickets were not available any more. A few things about long distance travel in India. Planes are easiest, but you really pay for the convenience. Trains are cheap, mostly safe and comfortable, but take a long time and require some planning unless you’re very lucky – more on this in a minute. Unless you are butt monkey crazy, you just don’t drive a car long distances in India. If cities are the jungle to drive in, interstate roads are Mad Maxx apocalypse types. It just isn’t worth it. 

Ahem, back to our trip to Bangalore. So after deciding to go, we needed tickets that were sold out weeks ago. Enter the Indian side door route. There are a certain small number of tickets set aside called Tatkal. They are set aside for people like us who need to travel last minute. As I mentioned, there are very few, and they are very hard to obtain. You have to physically go to the train station at 7 am and stand in line and hope you are close enough in the line to get the class of seats you want. It ranges from miserable (sitting on a bench in a non-air conditioned car with no personal space to speak of) to luxury (one coach with one bed with air conditioning).  If you’re a man and really desperate, you can also fight your way into the unreserved last carriage and fight your way to a seat. Totally not worth it. Husband brought along Daddy G to the train station because he qualified for the senior citizen line (or que according to the natives). This got us the 2^nd air conditioned class we wanted. This basically boils down to 4 fold down bunks for sleeping per  coach. We managed to get three as our youngest doesn’t need one to herself, nor should she be by herself.  Most trains involve some type of overnight adventure, so securing a bunk for yourself is totally worth it.

Our train left at 6 pm and arrived in Bangalore around 9 am (it was a bit late). If you are interested in staring out at the country side (which I am to a ridiculous degree) you should pick a train early enough to leave some time for that. One of the best things about the trains is the snack vendors who wander around. We got some samosas (pastry filled with spicy mashed potatoes and peas and deep fried), deep fried chilis, tea, mango juice, almond milk, and coffee.  We decided to pass on the pani puri because we’re just not insane or have a death wish. Pani puri are very thin fried dough with a hole in the center. You pour in some totally questionable, hot, flavored water and pop the whole thing in your mouth. If you want the experience, you go to a decent restaurant, you never go to a street vendor or train vendor. That’s how people get typhoid son! You also should bring your own food and snacks and a huge bottle of water if at all possible. Sealed containers are best as I killed a few roaches trying to share with us. We ate our dinner from home and settled in to watch the scenery.  The Indian country side is very, very nice, especially between Hyderabad and Bangalore. We saw various cows, goats, sheep, lots of hills, and small villages. One less positive thing is that the railroad tracks are a bathroom for most people. First thing in the morning, people will be lined up shamelessly on the tracks peeing and pooping wherever. These are mostly people who don’t have running water at home. After a while, we folded the bunks down. They are the perfect size for an average adult without having extra space or being too small. When I say bunk, it means a metal shelf with a plastic coated foam mattress.The train provides 1 pillow, 1 sheet for putting down on the bunk, 1 sheet for putting on yourself, and 1 heavier blanket. With the AC on, it does get quite cold. You may want to bring sweaters.  From what I could see, the sheets and pillows are pre-washed and neatly packaged. The heavier blanket is a bit shadier, so be sure to use the top sheet. 

The ticket collector will shamelessly flip on the light in the middle of the night and demand your ticket. Have it handy and just give it to him. He doesn’t want to be up in the middle of the night either, but that’s his job. He’ll flip back off the light and you’ll go back to sleep fine.  Falling asleep on a rocking train is almost too easy.  Another thing to be aware of: I’ve heard lots of stories about suitcases being stolen. There are spaces under the bunks for luggage. If you are bringing some, they should be as far away from the center isle as possible and turned so the handles don’t face out. Shoes also should be stowed securely, as my husband once had his stolen.  Another word of caution: there are stories circulating about people offering others food laced with tranquilizers. Once the unsuspecting victims fall asleep, the “friends” help themselves to whatever they want from your luggage/person. It’s best not to take food from anyone other than an official vendor. Or better yet, bring it from home and just politely decline and say you just ate.  I spent most of the night staring out into the Indian countryside not sleeping.  Then I had more coffee after landing up. We’ll get to my Indian coffee fetish in another country.

I know you all like pictures, but I forgot the camera-computer cord and it got packed. Since we have 8 of them, my husband is refusing to buy another one. Hopefully I'll get my stuff soon so I can start posting pictures! More on shipping stuff later too.

Becky

Planes

Listening to:  Fall to Pieces by Velvet Revolver.  Love them.

Pardon me.  I seem to have forgotten I have a blog. Or I’m just lazy. Probably the latter. So no worries, mom, we are all still alive and kicking. 

We have arrived in India (or landed up, as the natives say) and have been staying with my inlaws for the past 2 months. We got lucky, my inlaws have a beautiful old free-standing house with enough room to house us and all our chaos and stuff. Knock on wood, only minor sniffles so far and no stomach flues or parasites or anything fun like that.

We took Etihad for our flight to India. We left from JFK in NYC and made a very brief layover in Abu Dhabi and on to Hyderabad. Etihad was a nice airline to fly on. There wasn’t much leg room, but then again, welcome to airlines when you’re cheap. We weren’t going to buy first class tickets.  Anyhow, the flight went well, the food was good, and went off pretty seamlessly.

The Abu Dhabi airport is crazy clean, neat and orderly, but it was a VERY long walk between our gates.  We ended up not even spending any time sitting in the airport after we got through security. We did go through another metal detector and body search even though we had just gotten off a plane from New York. Whatever, I’m all for planes not blowing up. We were transferred at the gate to a bus that went to our plane. Indian behavior started the minute we got on the bus. We were asked to check one of our bags by a random official before we got on the bus. This case happened to hold all of our passports/important documents/my jewelry. There was no way in Denver we were letting that suitcase out of sight, so we just pulled off the tag on the bus and took it on the plane with us.  This is the Indian way. Some lucky bugger also got a handful of my backside. I wish I would have caught him, but no harm done. We were in Abu Dhabi in the middle of the night, which was rather disappointing. I’ve been wanting to go there my entire life just because the name is so cool, but there was nothing to see beyond some far away lights. The plane from there to Hyderabad wasn’t as nice, but it was a short flight and the food was still good. I ended up eating more lamb biryani (what I had on the first flight) because they ran out of chicken, but it was fine because for plane food, that was some awesome biryani. Biryani is basmati rice with lots of spicy chicken/lamb/beef and sauce all mixed together. It is one of my favorite things on the earth to eat. In the past 10 years of knowing my husband, I’ve become somewhat of a spice junky.

We landed up in the Hyderabad airport, which was completely different from the last time we came because they built a new airport. I’m pretty sure this one would be a lot harder to sneak out of and walk out a back door that no one bothered watching.  Not that we did that or anything. Customs was relatively un-busy as we landed around 4 am local time. The customs agent that waited on us was tired, but polite and quick. Another change from last time – the last guy was incredibly rude and dismissive. All of our suitcases followed us again without a hitch. It still baffles me that they lose suitcases in the US, but we’ve never lost one internationally. We left without being mobbed by beggars and prostitutes too, which is yet another change from last time. A few Muslim girls started talking to me which was a little disconcerting because you always wonder what people want when they talk to you randomly, but I think it was just curiosity and my holding hands with a cute little girl (my daughter).  After an hour ride, we were at my husband’s parents’s home, safe and sound with all our luggage.

Since India is almost exactly on the other side of the world from the US, the jet lag is brutal. It took us almost a full week before we were able to go about our daily lives without randomly falling asleep every time we sat still.

Becky

Closing Up Shop

Listening to:  Ever present honking and fans

Mood: Calm

So, you’ve decided to leave. Now what? I recommend falling in love with excel and making elaborate spreadsheets with planning and things to do before you leave. At the minimum, you should have a trusty notebook to keep organized. My husband won the excel/notebook debate and is still reminding me that no one uses notebooks anymore. Meh; I still like paper.

I recommend having a running to do list. Add to it as you think of things that need to be done. If you’re feeling super ambitious and organized, you can even divide things up into general categories of when things need to be done.

Obviously, all of your utilities should be shut off as close to departure as possible. As most of these are phone calls, it shouldn’t be a big deal.  Other things to think about are trips to the bank, post office, and other errands that need to be finished off before you leave. Try not to leave too much for the last minute, as there will always be more than you thought there would be. I ended up going to the bank 5 times before we left. 4 of them were unexpected.

If you have a house to sell off before leaving, good luck to you. I have no idea how that all works.

You’ll also need to sell your vehicle before you leave if you have one. It will be a balance of not waiting too long before you leave and the inconvenience of not having a car and having lots of errands to do. If at all possible, pile on a friend to borrow a car for the time you don’t have one. One very generous friend of ours lent us his second car for 3 weeks before we left and it was a life saver, and a huge kindness to our wallet. It would have been way too expensive to rent a car for 3 weeks.

One other recommendation I have is to not wait until the last minute to start your housecleaning. As with errands, there will always be more than you thought and it pays off to do some heavy cleaning early on.

As I mentioned before, start sorting early to separate things you'd like to sell/give away and start as early as possible getting rid of them. This also will take much longer than you'd like.


I'd also recommend closing all of your credit cards with the exception of possibly one of them. This will help you avoid fraud, non use charges and other such nonsense. If you are able to condense your bank accounts that will be helpful too. The more things you leave open, the more worries you have about things going wrong with them.

Becky

Shots and Medications

 Listening to:  The ever present honking outside the window

Mood: Calm

One of the things that you’ll need to worry about a decent amount ahead is getting shots for yourself and your kids. You should be thinking about this ideally 2 months before you board your flight so the medication has a chance to get working in your system. Right now, the WHO recommends tetanus, Hepatitis B, and Typhoid.  If you’re going to get all rural, you’ll need to worry about malaria medication and possibly Japanese Encephalitis too. As we’re staying in a city, we were told not to bother. If you’re in any contact at all with animals, a rabies vaccine is also recommended. Unless you’re a vet, it’s pretty well advised to avoid close contact with the wild life here at all costs, including the strays that wander around. Tetanus and typhoid are pretty straight forward. The shots are nearly painless, although you will probably end up with a sore arm for a few days. Trust me; the sore arm is worth not getting typhoid or tetanus.  All of us had already been vaccinated for Hep B, but that shot is also relatively simple and almost pain free.  A small disclaimer here: This was our experience – you definitely need to talk to your own physician, or better yet a travel physician.  I recommend the travel physician if at all possible because they just know what they’re talking about and they do it on a regular basis. I did a lot of running around for our pediatrician to find typhoid shots that were readily available at the travel physician. It’s also worth noting that if you have yourself or have a child with allergies, you should speak with your doctor or the travel doctor about Epi-pens.  The medicine is generally available here, but doctors do not pass them out for personal individual use. This is especially true for people with nut allergies, as nuts are almost omnipresent in the food in India. You really don’t want to have to get to the hospital before you can get an epi shot. Most should be able to give you without a problem. Our travel physician gave a few for our daughter without even asking for a prescription.

Another thing to be aware of is getting enough medicine to travel with. This is basic travel 101, but it bears repeating. You should have enough for your trip, and then some. Most common medicines are found in India, but again, ask your travel physician what they recommend. The medical industry is not all that well regulated in India. It’s not uncommon to find all kinds of medicine at the corner shop being dispensed without regard for need or dosage. They just pass you the bottle or the pills. It definitely pays to keep your doctor’s phone number handy for any questions you have about medication.

Becky

Visas and PIO's and OCI's - Oh My!

Mood: Calm

Listening to: Scooby Doo

If you plan to have any type of long-ish term stay in a foreign country, you will probably become intimately acquainted with sending lots of papers back and forth to and from that country, or at least the embassy of said country.

Having grown up a Canadian born naturalized US citizen, I always thought that we were paperwork happy. I now realize that probably isn’t true. The US isn’t so much about the quantity of paperwork but the quality of a few key documents. This is patently untrue of India. The sheer amount of papers completely overwhelm any semblance of keying in on important proof.

Like most other countries, you have to have permission/a reason to go and stay in India on a long term basis. You can get a 10 year visa for India, but you will not be allowed to be in the country for more than 6 months at a time. This leads to expensive trips in and out of countries and is generally not worth the hassle unless you plan to stay less than 6 months. However, in the grand scheme of things, it is the easiest, cheapest and most likely quickest to obtain. It is possible to enter India on a visa and then apply for another form of permission if applicable.

If you happen to be married to an Indian or be the child of one, you have the option of obtaining a PIO (Person of Indian Origin) card. This card allows you to stay in India indefinitely, but with fewer rights than an Indian citizen – i.e. voting, owning property, etc. The catch for this is, you have to be either  a spouse or child of an Indian citizen. Persons over 18 also have to register at the police station every 6 months which may or may not be a major hassle – more on that to come. This is the option that our family chose for me and my two daughters. It’s worth mentioning that this option is not all that cheap. It cost $200 per child for my children and $350 for me. That’s a large chunk of change.  You should also be prepared for a buttload of paperwork too. Not only are there lots of documents, 2 copies of every single document are also required.

Another option if you are a child or grandchild of an Indian citizen is to obtain an OCI (original citizen of India) card. This is largely like the same as obtaining a PIO, only you need to already have a PIO to apply for an OCI, it’s more expensive, and there’s even more paperwork involved. You are also free of the obligation of visiting the police station every 6 months. It also takes longer to process than a visa or PIO card.

A note on the Indian embassy. Anyone who is at all familiar with the Indian bureaucracy is familiar with the way that simple things just become more complicated than necessary. You need to start this process a good 2 months prior to departure for a visa and PIO and 3 months for an OCI or you really roll the dice as to whether it will get done or not. The embassy itself has hired a private company to collect applications and money so you will never actually talk to anyone at the embassy. The company is for the most part efficient and professionally run. We almost had papers returned to us because we were missing copies of a document and the company failed to notify us until 2 days before our whole application was returned. If you have your application returned, you do not get your money back, but you can apply (and start the process all over again) without paying again. My husband is one of the most meticulous people on earth when filling out paperwork, but we still missed something. So..start early and triple check.  Be sure to double check the number of fingerprints required and assure that they are ONLY in the boxes provided.

My husband, the key to us all staying in India, is already a citizen there (more on this later too) so he doesn’t have to apply for anything. Lucky bugger.

Becky