IT'S HOT. AND HUMID. AND HOT. AND HOTTER...
These were my first thoughts as I stepped off of our 2 1/2 hour flight from Delhi to Chennai. Really, we had spent all of our time in air-conditioned airports and planes, so we were never truly exposed to the weather until today. We walked down the stairs of the plane and I was sweaty by the time I was on the ground. How I'm going to make it in this heat, I'm not sure, but I'm not the first to do it so I have faith! While waiting for our luggage, we took a bathroom break. Being an airport, I figured that we wouldn't need our travel toilet paper yet, but I was wrong. Welcome to India! At least I picked the right code on the door of the toilets: apparently the one that starts with an E is a toilet with a lid, while one with an I is a hole. We will be using holes from now on when we travel and definitely need to bring our own toilet paper, except in our hostel. We met our professor from India at the airport, and he had a van set up for us to ride back to the Hostel at the vet school.
I had heard that traffic in India was crazy, but I had no clue!
First of all, there is honking all over the place for what appears like no
reason - I think people are just either yelling at another person with their
horn or letting them know that they're there, but either way, it's noisy! The
traffic literally has no rhyme or reason to it. Where there are lines, they are
not obeyed at all. People may or may not stop at red lights. Motorcycles are
zipping in and out of everywhere, and half of them don't have helmets on! We
almost hit sooo many pedestrians, motorcyclists, public busses, and little car
taxis (which are adorable!), and it feels like you're going so fast just
because it's mass chaos. I literally feared for my life. No air conditioning in
the car, just windows, so we were all dripping sweat by the end of the ride
(the scary-ness of the road didn't help that either). It was very clear that we
are not used to this heat when, after a 45 minute car ride, we all stepped out
of the car and our pants were two different colors. NOT because we were so
scared we peed ourselves, but because our bodies were sweating so much, and
from places I didn't know there were even sweat glands.
On our ride to the hostel, we saw some new things, which will become very common-place soon. We saw our first "wild" cows. I'm not sure if they were really wild and wandering or if they were someone's tied up outside the storefronts - we were going to fast to really tell. Either way, cows in the middle of the city "sidewalk" or street, just chillin' there eating some sort of leaves. Saw our firsts of wild dogs that just wander around. Saw our share of the poor and a few rich. It's strange to see them so close together. There are a lot of areas where people are not living in buildings, but shack-type, thrown together housing. Abandoned, old cars just sitting off to the side - I'd imagine someone decided that it looked like it would be a better home than what they had. Laundry hanging up to dry everywhere! If it's not on clothesline, it's hanging on the pointy parts of fences. And, like I heard and expected, it is rather dirty everywhere. There is trash piled up on the sides of the street and as we drove by certain areas, a certain aroma filled the car. Some said it smelled like the stink bomb fireworks. I say it smells like sewage. Bad sewage. These are the times I wish I had a less sensitive nose.
Wasn't too hungry for "lunch" at 3:00pm, but we had lots of food! Wheat tortillas, a potato mixture, rice, yogurt sauce for the rice, chicken, and baby bananas. The chicken was somewhat questionable - I'm pretty sure they use ALL of the chicken, so it's not like it's chicken breast - there's gizzard, skin, grizzle, etc. It will be interesting to see how much of the meat I can handle. But everything else was good! Just a LOT of food. I feel bad, because I won't be eating as much as they had today, that's for sure.
The people at the school who we've met so far are extremely hospitable - they seem very happy that we are here. They seemed happy to be serving us, and always wanted to be sure that we had plenty of food on our plate. I had to turn down offers for seconds like 5 times just because I wasn't very hungry.
I guess we get the next few days to settle in, go to some stores, see the area, and catch up on sleep/jet lag. I was relieved to hear this because I wasn't sure about jumping into a ton of heat with no sleep and no adjustment period. So for now, I have to try extremely hard NOT to sleep so that I can try to adjust for tomorrow. Hopefully I can make it 3 hours to dinner!
These were my first thoughts as I stepped off of our 2 1/2 hour flight from Delhi to Chennai. Really, we had spent all of our time in air-conditioned airports and planes, so we were never truly exposed to the weather until today. We walked down the stairs of the plane and I was sweaty by the time I was on the ground. How I'm going to make it in this heat, I'm not sure, but I'm not the first to do it so I have faith! While waiting for our luggage, we took a bathroom break. Being an airport, I figured that we wouldn't need our travel toilet paper yet, but I was wrong. Welcome to India! At least I picked the right code on the door of the toilets: apparently the one that starts with an E is a toilet with a lid, while one with an I is a hole. We will be using holes from now on when we travel and definitely need to bring our own toilet paper, except in our hostel. We met our professor from India at the airport, and he had a van set up for us to ride back to the Hostel at the vet school.
I had heard that traffic in India was crazy, but I had no clue!
First of all, there is honking all over the place for what appears like no
reason - I think people are just either yelling at another person with their
horn or letting them know that they're there, but either way, it's noisy! The
traffic literally has no rhyme or reason to it. Where there are lines, they are
not obeyed at all. People may or may not stop at red lights. Motorcycles are
zipping in and out of everywhere, and half of them don't have helmets on! We
almost hit sooo many pedestrians, motorcyclists, public busses, and little car
taxis (which are adorable!), and it feels like you're going so fast just
because it's mass chaos. I literally feared for my life. No air conditioning in
the car, just windows, so we were all dripping sweat by the end of the ride
(the scary-ness of the road didn't help that either). It was very clear that we
are not used to this heat when, after a 45 minute car ride, we all stepped out
of the car and our pants were two different colors. NOT because we were so
scared we peed ourselves, but because our bodies were sweating so much, and
from places I didn't know there were even sweat glands. On our ride to the hostel, we saw some new things, which will become very common-place soon. We saw our first "wild" cows. I'm not sure if they were really wild and wandering or if they were someone's tied up outside the storefronts - we were going to fast to really tell. Either way, cows in the middle of the city "sidewalk" or street, just chillin' there eating some sort of leaves. Saw our firsts of wild dogs that just wander around. Saw our share of the poor and a few rich. It's strange to see them so close together. There are a lot of areas where people are not living in buildings, but shack-type, thrown together housing. Abandoned, old cars just sitting off to the side - I'd imagine someone decided that it looked like it would be a better home than what they had. Laundry hanging up to dry everywhere! If it's not on clothesline, it's hanging on the pointy parts of fences. And, like I heard and expected, it is rather dirty everywhere. There is trash piled up on the sides of the street and as we drove by certain areas, a certain aroma filled the car. Some said it smelled like the stink bomb fireworks. I say it smells like sewage. Bad sewage. These are the times I wish I had a less sensitive nose.
Wasn't too hungry for "lunch" at 3:00pm, but we had lots of food! Wheat tortillas, a potato mixture, rice, yogurt sauce for the rice, chicken, and baby bananas. The chicken was somewhat questionable - I'm pretty sure they use ALL of the chicken, so it's not like it's chicken breast - there's gizzard, skin, grizzle, etc. It will be interesting to see how much of the meat I can handle. But everything else was good! Just a LOT of food. I feel bad, because I won't be eating as much as they had today, that's for sure.
The people at the school who we've met so far are extremely hospitable - they seem very happy that we are here. They seemed happy to be serving us, and always wanted to be sure that we had plenty of food on our plate. I had to turn down offers for seconds like 5 times just because I wasn't very hungry.
I guess we get the next few days to settle in, go to some stores, see the area, and catch up on sleep/jet lag. I was relieved to hear this because I wasn't sure about jumping into a ton of heat with no sleep and no adjustment period. So for now, I have to try extremely hard NOT to sleep so that I can try to adjust for tomorrow. Hopefully I can make it 3 hours to dinner!
Our Hostel: Living Room, Bathroom, and our (2 girls) Bedroom. Note the Western style toilets for us! The shower is literally like the rest of the bathroom - no separation. So, the whole bathroom gets wet!
Yes, there is a name for the bathroom/shower combo but I forget what it is. They usually have a broom of some type to sweep the water toward the drain. If it is so humid I wonder how it ever dries out? Rest up glad to hear you made it safely.
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