Of Beaches, Boats and Bangalore.

Greetings once again blog-readers. It’s now been 2 months since our last entry (on ‘health and safety’) and you may wonder what we’ve been doing. Even if you’re not, we’re going to tell you anyway! Those of you who read this site this time last year may remember our description of the long period of school closure, firstly for the monsoon and next for a string of festivals, culminating in Desai. Well, we pre-empted the lack of work this year and decided to take all our leave in one go and have a month long holiday.

The school closure came rather more suddenly than expected, however, when schools were closed nearly 2 weeks early because of the excessive heat. We were kept busy for a while though, thanks to the training that came along. Mel helped co-ordinate and run 10 days of Early Childhood Development training, here in Mahendranagar, whilst Steve headed off to Darchula, in the remote and hilly north of Nepal, to help give ‘proposal writing’ training to an NGO. During this time, we happened to speak with Lalitha, a fellow volunteer who was heading back home to South India for a month and invited us to visit. So we did:

Karnataka (Population: 53 million; Main language: Kannada)

Having booked our main train journeys by internet, we set off on the 10 hour bus journey to Delhi. After a day’s rest here (and a visit to the state emporiums, more of which later) we boarded our first train, to Bangalore in the Indian state of Karnataka. This journey took 36 hours but we were well catered for with food and drink vendors constantly calling by and the scenery was lovely as we moved from the northern, Gangetic plain into the Deccan Plateau. The scenery could be enjoyed all the more because on Indian trains you can open the door and lean out to get a good view:

At last, we arrived in Bangalore Station and were very efficiently met by Lalitha who welcomed us to Bangalore by night, before whisking us off to her home in the nearby town of Tumkur.

We had a very enjoyable week with Lalitha, her twin sister Latha and their father (whom we called ‘Tata’);

Our every need was catered for as Lalitha and Latha treated us to lovely, traditional South Indian food (some of which we even helped cook) and acted as our personal travel agents around Tumkur. We spent 3 days visiting schools and even went on a short hike with grade 6 from the school where Lalitha used to work:

Other highlights included; visiting nearby villages with their traditional homes and 400 year old temples, and, of course, chatting to Lalitha, Latha and their friends and family. We also enjoyed a visit to a privately owned coffee plantation in the forested hills. Anand, the owner, who is a keen naturalist, showed us around and pointed out some beautiful wildlife. Examples of these and other wildlife we enjoyed on our travels, can be found in the photo album.

Tamil Nadu (Population: 62.1 million ; Main language: Tamil)

Eventually it was time to say a, hopefully temporary, ‘goodbye’ to our excellent hosts and head off by over-night bus to Pondicherry in the state of Tamil Nadu. Here we got to spend time next to something that we have missed a lot in Nepal, the sea:

Pondicherry is an ex-French colony and has lots of French influences still. A highlight here, apart from the sea, was the European cuisine in the tourist restaurants, especially the French cheese! Not as good as Latha’s home-cooked Indian dishes, but still very welcome.

After a couple of days here, we hired some cycles and headed off up the coast to Auroville, passing through some traditional Tamil fishing villages:

Auroville (named after Shree Aurobindo, a yogic guru) is an unusual place which can best be described as a giant hippy commune. We had heard about this ‘city of unity’ from a book on eco-villages and we were keen to see its environmental aspects. Although we didn’t dig the spiritual side of it (with pride of place going to a large, golf-ball like temple dedicated to the founder ‘The Mother’) and had doubts about the ‘town’s’ inclusivity and sustainability, we met some interesting people and got to stay in a tree house:

After returning to Pondicherry, we caught a train across India to the West coast state of Kerala.

Kerala: the coconut state (Population: only 32 million!; Main lanaguage: Malayalam)

In Kerala, we stayed in a lovely home-stay in the town of Alleppey. Kerala, and particularly Alleppey, is famous for its miles of canals and lakes, known collectively as the ‘Backwaters’. Our homestay cottage was right on the Backwaters and every day we got to watch the traditional (and some not-so-traditional) boats plying up and down. In particular, the large house-boats made from wood and palm fronds were a spectacular sight as well as the Snake-boats. The Snake-boats are large canoes carrying about 120 people and whilst we were there, they were trialling for an upcoming ‘Snake-boat’ race which is a major event here (kind of like the Henley Regatta meets the Mardi-Gras!). Here is a Snake-boat:

Other highlights were cruising on the backwaters in a small kettuvulam (canoe) and visiting the near-deserted, palm-shaded, tropical beach (Now we’re sounding like a tour-operator!):

After 3 days, we took a bus north to the capital of Kerala, Ernakulum. Here we got to see some traditional dance/theatre called ‘katakali’:

We also visited the old Portuguese fort at Cochin where we saw medieval, Chinese fishing nets as well as old cathedrals and a synagogue. Kerala has ancient trading links, going back to pre-Roman times and so has a lot of European and Arabian influences. After Cochin and Ernakulam, we headed north again by bus, back to Karnataka.

Karnataka ... again

First stop was a rest day in Mangalore. Not much to see here except more nice beaches, oh yes, and a large restaurant selling only varieties of ice-cream!

From here, another 5 hour bus ride to the evergreen hills that make up the ‘Western Ghats’ and a town called ‘Madikeri’. Here we splashed out a bit and stayed in a small cottage on an organic spice plantation, known as ‘Rainforest Retreat’. The name says it all. Here is the view from our veranda:

Here we got our first reminder that we are in the monsoon season (elsewhere, the monsoon has been very weak this year) as it rained hard every day. Undeterred, we set out on walks round the plantation and surrounding woods. Not even the numerous leeches could keep us indoors! With the stay completely catered, we were able to spend 3 lovely, relaxing days, before returning to the hustle and bustle of Bangalore.

Delhi, (Population: 13 million; Main language: Hindi) then home

Back to Delhi on the train, where we discovered that our plans for gift-shopping were scuppered by the fact that it was ‘Indian Independence Day’ and then Sunday (you’d think we might have been able to predict that one!) We wanted to return to the state emporiums (large shops, one based on each state of India, that sell handicrafts produced in that state), so we ended up staying 3 days. During that time we visited the national museum, Jama Masjid (an impressive 17^th century mosque supposed to be a forerunner of the Taj Mahal) and saw some traditional folk-singing. We also enjoyed lots of trips on the swanky, new Delhi metro and a visit to the cinema to watch a Bollywood movie!

Finally though, our holiday had to end and we took the night bus back to Banbasa and then across the border. Despite encountering flooding on the Indian side of the border, we learnt on arrival back here that, the monsoon has, so far, been almost non-existent this year. Does that mean that there’ll be another environmental themed blog coming up? Don’t bet against it!

Another day, another danger!

Hello all,

Sorry it’s been so long since we last blogged. Since then we have been to yet another conference in Kathmandu! We can’t groan too much about this one though, as Steve was one of the organisers. Actually, it was a lot more interesting than the usual groans about the hardships of being a VSO volunteer!! The theme of the conference was ‘young people in Nepal’ so there were lots of young speakers and participants. These young people were involved in politics, young people’s rights, volunteering or education. Many of the young people were inspiring speakers and we also took part in a really good youth led workshop on HIV/AIDS.

In between our two quite recent visits to Kathmandu, schools have not been teaching because of exams, the inaccurately named ‘Welcome to School’ programme, and generally taking a long time to get going for the new school year. We kept busy, however, mostly by giving training. Some of this was at the Education Training Centre (government run centres for in-service training). We also had fun at some nursery school training organised by a local NGO. This involved learning and teaching some new silly songs and games. We hope to be doing some more nursery training soon.

Since we returned from Kathmandu a few weeks ago, we have been taking advantage of the fact that schools have been open and running (at least half time – the very hot weather means that teachers are quite happy to shut up shop at any slight opportunity). Two weeks ago, the temperature reached 43° Celsius – the hottest ever recorded in Mahendranagar. The heat on its own is not unbearable. It’s the humidity which is really uncomfortable! As the monsoon approaches, the humidity builds up over a week or two weeks and then is finally broken by the rain – a great relief for a day at least. Then the rains get closer and closer together until it rains on most days.

Despite the heat and humidity, Steve continues to cycle for up to 3 hours to reach his schools and tries to avoid cycling at the hottest times of day. As school times in this season are 7am-12.30pm, he sometimes leaves the house at 4am or stays in the villages overnight to be able to get to school on time the next morning.

The house update is… the builders are still here making a racket and a big mess, but despite looking around for a smaller place, we haven’t yet found anywhere that is as good for birdspotting and seems worth the hassle of moving.

We have heard that the British Prime Minister is facing some problems. We in Nepal now have a new Prime Minister, whose name, somewhat confusingly, is Mr Nepal. About a month ago the previous Prime Minister resigned, leaving us slightly worried that in the absence of a Prime Minister, anarchy would break out. In fact, the opposite happened. For weeks, there were few road closures and strikes because no one knew who they were complaining to! With Mr Nepal now in office, things are back to normal with strikes and bandhs as regular as ever.

Now onto this week’s theme:

This blog is dedicated to Mr Steve Briggs, health and safety officer in Student Services at De Montfort University… and all other Health and Safety folk out there, many of whom often had to put up with our complaints (about filling in endless risk assessments when we want to leave a building or walk down a street, for example).

Now, we’re not promising to give up our moaning, about the excesses of caution that we experience in Britain, but some of our experiences in Nepal have reminded us how lucky we are in the UK to have enforceable health and safety laws. The lack of laws, lack of law enforcement and belief in fatalism (what will be was already meant to be), means that Nepal is unlikely to win the gold medal for health and safety.

Here are a few examples of daily hazards in Nepal:

Taking a walk down the street, especially in Kathmandu, can be dangerous here. If you’re lucky, you will see potholes, uncovered drains and metal wires sticking up all over the place. If you’re unlucky, for example if there is a power cut or the monsoon rains are covering the street, you won’t see the hazards, and fall into one. Two volunteers have had serious accidents just by walking down the street:.As well as there being plenty of work for road repairers, electricians also don’t need to worry about lack of work anytime soon!

The law in Nepal says clearly that the driver of a motorbike must wear a helmet. However, it doesn’t say anything about whether the helmet has to be done up, or how many passengers can be on a motorbike, their age, or their safety. As a result it is a common sight to see 4 or 5 members of a family, including babies, on a motorbike without helmets (apart from the driver). Motorbike accidents and injuries are very common.

We have conflicting feelings about the access of children to dangerous materials here. On the one hand it can make the children more skilled and careful at using tools and dealing with things like fire – we have yet to see a child injure themselves on the razor blades they bring to school to sharpen their pencils (from the age of 3). On the other hand we have heard of a number of children drowning in rivers and child mortality here is high.

One of the biggest dangers here and the cause of a lot of illness and some deaths (especially of young babies) is the lack of health and hygiene rules for food and drinking water. This is a daily problem for us as we need to boil, cool and carry with us all our drinking water and try to eat in restaurants where the food is served piping hot. But this is not always a possibility and Mel’s stomach can testify about the results! On the other hand, the government is now attempting to test drinking water supplies for arsenic. This powerful poison is found in much of the water in our area. We don’t know what happens to pumps that fail although Steve was recently told that the water from a village pump had a certificate to show that it had “5% arsenic levels” (although there may be some translation or mathematical reading error here!)

This overloaded vehicle is just one hazard when it comes to road travel. Lack of laws to do with bus and lorry driving means that one bus driver can be driving a bus for the entire journey to Kathmandu (more than 18 hours). We don’t take those buses by the way, but break our journey into two instead.

A bit closer to home, a ‘safety at work’ policy would be a welcome start for the builders at our house, which can seem pretty hazardous with frequent chunks of cement and bricks falling and being chucked off the roof.

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So, health and safety issues allowing, we’ll try and blog again soon.

P.S. For photos of a slightly more colourful and maybe more interesting nature, don’t forget to check out our latest photo album which you can access on the right of the page.