Three Weeks In

It's already been a week since my last update, and boy, does time fun when you're having flies (or vice versa)!

I've been relatively busy the last several days meeting with people, reading articles, and trying to brainstorm my potential projects. I have two potential projects that my mentor tells me are both very interesting and feasible, so I'm going to stick with them. I won't go into details yet, but one project is a survey on alcoholism, and the other is an educational intervention for diarrhea prevention. I'm starting with the alcohol project, and I have to submit an IRB application (basically to get permission to do research on human subjects) by the beginning of September... which is in one week! So I'm going to have to work really hard the next few days. Hopefully once things get going on that project, I'll start working on the second one. I will talk more about each project as time goes on.

Thankfully, it has not been all work the last few days. This past weekend I went to Chennai with a bunch of international students to do some shopping, eat at (relatively) nice restaurants, and watch a movie (Inception!) at a movie theater. Chennai is a much bigger city than Vellore, and it can be quite a hassle trying to get around by rickshaws. It seems they are much more used to having tourists and charging ridiculously high rates. If it's raining or late at night they would charge double or triple the normal rate! Thankfully we all got around safely despite the fact that one of the drivers was smoking pot before he drove, and another drove full-speed against a one-way street.

There were 20 or so of us all together from all over the place (US, Canada, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Nigeria, and Malaysia). It was a lot of fun traveling with them. It's sad that many of them are returning home soon, and some of them have already left. I suppose I will see a lot of people come and go in the next 9 months while I'm here. In any case I'm thankful that I get to meet interesting people from around the world, and make lots of new friends.

Here are some photos from this weekend:

We took a private bus from Vellore to Chennai.

On our way to Chennai.

This is where we stayed over the weekend.

Eric and I shared a room.

Our toilet and shower for the weekend.
You can't expect much for Rs 250 per night.

Annelie and Laura, two German med students

Xin-You and Vicky from UK/Malaysia and Netherlands.

Craig from Canada, and Fiona and Cionr from Ireland.

With Khalid from UK.

Idel from Ireland and Malcolm from Scotland.

Eric from Nigeria.

"Nachos" without nacho cheese?... um, yeah, nice try.

Grilled tenderloin! First time I had beef in India! They used a LOT of pepper on this.

Shopping at Spencer Plaza Mall

We found Subway at Spencer Plaza. They have two separate lines for vegetarian and non-vegetarian.

Fiona and Rozemarijn at Subway.

Eating my "Italian" sub with lamb salami and lamb pepperoni. 

Trying on some hats.

Three Danish girls and a German girl traveling by rickshaw.

Crammed into a rickshaw. There were five in the back, and I shared a seat with the driver.

With Sofie from Denmark at Copper Chimney Restaurant. Food here was really good. I highly recommend it.

Vigga and Anne from Denmark.

Eric, Idel, and Clionr.

Anne and her chicken kabobs.

My prawn curry. It was delicious.

Brownie with ice cream at the movie theater... yummm...

Getting breakfast at Vasanta Bhavan on Sunday morning.

Ghee roast for breakfast. It's basically a thin crispy crepe.

Annelie, Eric, Idel, and Clionr at breakfast.

More photo from breakfast.

With David and Warren from Northern Ireland.
This one is for Laura, our mutual friend in N. Ireland, whom I met in Haiti few years ago.

On our way back to Vellore.

We took three buses to get back home.

Not sure who she is, but billboards like these with her faces were everywhere for several miles on our way back from Chennai.

A colorful building with the same lady's face posted all over. Can someone tell me who she is?

Some random signs we found at the mall:

  

Luggage

I got both of my checked bags today! I had to take a 5-hour round trip to Chennai on a cab, but clearing customs was relatively painless. They put zip-ties on zippers of checked bags and wrap them in these huge plastic sheets here. I suppose it's to prevent people from stealing stuff out of the bags.

Thank God I have clean underwear now.

Traveler's Nightmare

After a series of unfortunate events, I'm finally at my apartment in Vellore!! But my luggages are still in Mumbai...

So the past 40 hours or so of traveling has been an example of what NOT to do when you travel to India (or most places abroad). Basically, I missed my flight from Mumbai to Chennai, bought a new ticket, and waited until morning for the next flight. When I arrived in Chennai I realized that I had left my checked bags in Mumbai! I guess I didn't realize how absent-minded I could be after a 15-hour flight from Newark to Mumbai. So before you ask "What were you thinking?" let me answer you in advance: I wish I knew!

I'll spare you the details but will share with you some of the lessons that I learned:

1. Keep your carryon-bags under 40 lb. Otherwise you maybe forced to pay extra and/or get a 5-min lecture on why having a heavy carry-on is dangerous (I got away with just the latter).

2. Keep your checked bags under 50 lb (or whatever airline's limit is). Usually you can get away with 2 or 3 extra pounds, but some people are very picky, and will ask you to take stuff out until it's exactly 50.0 lb.

3. Be aware that you can become very disoriented, absent-minded, and careless after a long flight. Try to think straight, and don't assume things. Don't forget common sense.

4. When traveling internationally pick up your luggage from baggage claim and clear customs at the port of entry (e.g. Mumbai), even if some Continental Airline staff tells you that they will go straight to your final destination (e.g. Chennai).

5. Don't exchange currency at the first foreign exchange booth you find. Find couple others, and compare their rates. There can be huge differences.

6. In some parts of the world (e.g. India), you can't checkin to your flight until couple hours before the flight, and some flights have designated counters. But just because the flight doesn't have a designated counter number, don't wait until 30 minutes before the flight to see if you can check in. You have to check in at least 45 minutes before the flight, and you can go to any counter as long as the flight is open for checkin.

7. Don't put cash in a clear ziplock bag and put it in the outside pocket of your luggage. And don't be careless to think that it won't get stolen, because it will. Keep cash with you.

Learn from my mistakes and hopefully you won't have to go through what I did!

In any case, praise God I've arrived safely!