Village Trip #2

PICTURES TO FOLLOW: INTERNET HAS BEEN TOO SLOW TO UPLOAD PICTURES :(

Friday 6/29/12

This morning we were invited to breakfast by a professor who lives in another one of the hostels just across from ours.  There were 3 veterinarians from the college there to talk with us and make us feel welcome.  We had some different breakfast foods, so it was good to mix it up, but they were all a little spicy for me!  It was fun to learn about some of the different things going on in the college that we weren’t aware of, learn about the professors, and teach them a little bit about American culture, too!  Then we went back to our hostel and packed for our weekend trip to Dharmapuri. 

We traveled by air conditioned train.  The trains in India, at least where we were sitting, were totally different from American trains!  They had “bunk beds” that you reserved, but there were three per wall, so there was very little space for lying down.  The middle bed folded down so that people could just sit on the bottom bed as seats if nobody wanted to sleep, which is what we did since it was a day trip.  I brought my book with me, but it was hard to read with the noise.  It got pretty crowded in our cubby at times – at one point there were 8 adults and 2 children in a space reserved for 6 people!  That’s India for you!  I’ve learned that the idea of personal space does not exist in India, and that people are rude.  Most people are very nice when they talk to you, but if you are in their way, you must move NOW even though there’s no room for you to move anywhere!  In check-out lines, there is no concept of lines.  It is whoever can throw their items and money at the cashier the fastest.  I would be so stressed out at a cashier with arms and money flailing everywhere.  I find myself getting very upset when I get pushed or get passed up when I was clearly waiting in a line.  I guess when you live in a country with 1.2 billion people, you have to learn to push your way around and fend for yourself!

We checked into our hotel, which was an old palace.  It was not quite what I was expecting, but we got a little taste of Indian royalty =P.  We traveled to some waterfalls that were about an hour away and got there just as the sun was starting to set.  On our way, we saw some wild monkeys for the first time which we were very excited about.  The area was gorgeous!  We rented these woven-boats and had a little Maid of the Mist-type tour around and under the falls.  To get down to the river in the canyon, though, we had to climb down these extremely steep steps.  I learned a few years ago that I am a bit afraid of heights, so this was a huge challenge for me, but I did it!  It was an amazing experience between the cliffs, and absolutely beautiful (perfect romantic float on the river in the canyon).  I described it as the Indian version of gondolas.  It was extremely relaxing.  There were some caves in the canyons, and the boat “captain” let us get out and climb around in them for a few minutes.  On our way back to shore, it was getting rather dark.  We looked up and saw all of these animals flying around in the sky.  They were bigger than any of the large crows we’d seen, so we couldn’t believe how big the birds were.  Then we realized that they were bats!  These are the largest bats I have ever seen, and they were flying in hundreds right above us!  Really neat – I wish I could have captured it with my camera, but it doesn’t have night vision.  Bummer!  We went back to the hotel and slept like babies (once we shut our bathroom door because our toilet had the habit of flushing itself every 2 minutes!!)

Saturday 6/30/12

Saturday was a day full of sample collection.  We visited numerous small dairy farms in the morning where we collected samples and some information for our mastitis project.  We had a veterinarian from the area accompanying us around to the different areas because she knew the farmers personally.  After some of the dairies, we went and visited one man’s chicken farm.  The chickens were housed in cages very similar to laying hens in the US right now.  He seemed rather innovative with his practices and is making quite a fortune off of the birds.  He grows his own feed on his land, which helps keep costs down too.  We had the “privilege” of watching semen collection for Artificial Insemination (AI) in the chickens and actually got to perform the AI ourselves.  After we saw all the baby chicks, we enjoyed some jack-fruit.  This fruit was extremely sweet, but then it left a strange after-taste in my mouth that I didn’t care for.  Otherwise, it was pretty good and a lot of the students really enjoyed it. 

We traveled back to the hotel for lunch, checked out of the hotel, and traveled back to areas with farms in the afternoon.  We collected samples from areas where there were a lot of farmers within walking distance of each other who all owned one or two cows.  We had a few crazy cows there – one of which we truly couldn’t draw any blood from because when we tried, it reared up on its back legs a few times like a horse.  I’ve NEVER seen a cow do that!  Especially when she’s supposed to be 8 months pregnant! In these areas, we started to get a crowd of children following us around.  Most were way too shy to talk to us, they would just look at us and giggle.   It was rewarding when we actually got to talk to them a little bit (some know English fairly well because it is taught in the schools) and got to take pictures with them.  They LOVED seeing their picture on the camera after we’d take it! Once we were finished in the villages, we went back to the hotel restaurant for a light dinner and waited in the bus office for our bus home. 

These buses are air conditioned and semi-sleepers – they lounge pretty far back!  They do not, however, have a bathroom so we try to avoid traveling in them if we can.  We knew this beforehand, so we all took a bathroom break before getting on the bus.  It was dark and relatively quiet, so I was laying there trying to go to sleep, and all of a sudden my stomach did a huge flip-flop and I felt sick.  Like stomach, I’m-going-to-throw-up sick.  And then the panic set in.  I’m in a bus with NO BATHROOM.  I’m in a bus where no one around me speaks English except my group, who are all asleep by now.  If I had to throw up, would I have enough time to run up to the driver and tell him to pull over on the side of the expressway?  Can he even do that? Would I fall over people's luggage in the isle on my way up and vomit right in the isle?  If I made it to the driver, would he know English well enough to know what I’m trying to say?  Would he understand my violent vomiting motions?  Or would I be up there, trying to tell him what’s about to happen, and it takes him too long to understand and he gets covered with my vomit?  Then I’d have a mad Indian driver on my hands, plus a mad bus because the whole bus would smell.  I laid there, just in sheer panic, all the while the pain and gurgling getting worse.  I finally decided my best option would be to open my backpack and get my tennis shoe ready.  That is the only container-type thing I could think of that I could use.  And then I spent about 2 hours “tossing and turning” in my chair, trying to tell myself that it’s all in my head and if I fall asleep, I’ll feel better.  Luckily, I did end up falling asleep and when we were at our stop in the morning, I felt much better! 

Sunday 7/1/12

We walked home from the stop at 5am.  It was the first time I had been out on the streets of India without a huge hustle-and-bustle happening.  We got back to the hostel, spent a little time online, and then went back to bed.  We skipped breakfast to sleep in and had lunch at 11.  For the rest of the day, it was relax/catch-up/post pictures/research.  We met our neighbors who had arrived over the weekend – VA Tech.  We weren’t aware that they were coming until a few weeks ago.  It’s nice to have some fellow Americans around!  We’re not the only ones getting stared at anymore!  I think there are a total of 5 Universities here now – lots of students from all over!  It truly feels like an International area now, with so many foreigners!  

In the evening, we got all dressed up in our saris again and attended a dance recital.  This was traditional Indian dancing, and it was the girl’s first solo performance.  It was wonderful to watch the different dances she did and was extremely impressive how long she could dance for (one dance was at least a half hour long!)  I really enjoyed this and appreciated her talent – I just wish I knew more about what the different dances/rhythms/moves meant.  After the dance recital, we went out to dinner at a pizza place to celebrate one of the professors, Dr. Kunnan’s, promotion he recently received.  It was a Papa John’s, and it was amazing!  They had the garlic butter sauce just like in the US!!  Delicioso!