Twelve Weeks in Delhi: Three

After having spent one of my two previous weeks in Delhi, feeling moderately bored, it was high-time that something exciting happened. And it sure did deliver.

My third week in this wonderful city was all about why I came to Delhi. I woke up excited on Monday morning knowing that I wouldn't be spending this week blogging about my modes of transportation in and around Delhi. And I knew that I would have experiences that I would keep with me for many years.

Again, a typical Monday, it started like all the others. YAWN. Instead of the usual mundane-Monday, at 3pm I was whisked down stairs and into an awaiting UN vehicle with one of the professional staff. We were on our way to an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Global Development Network joint event which was the launch of an article that my aforementioned colleague had worked on during his time at the OECD. 

We drove first to the Ashok Hotel for my colleague to register for the OECD World Forum which is a four day event, to be held form Tuesday to Friday. The Ashok is a five-star, state owned monolith of a hotel with Lutyen era architecture and ridiculously over sized chandeliers. Having been confined to a guest house it was some what un nerving (but becoming the norm) to have to walk through security and be frisked. Coming off the back of the bombings in 2008, it is no surprise.

For about half an hour we stood around frustrated waiting for the hotel staff to work out how to register my colleague for the conference. Sometimes (all the time) the littlest thing can be the biggest thing, 'Hello Sir, can I help you Sir? Please go that way Sir', only to be sent back in the opposite direction. Three times.

The highlight for me? It wasn't the grandiose chandeliers or the opulent decor. No, it was that I finally the mythical light blue passport - A United Nations passport! Aha! I thought to myself, they really do exist! 

Climbing back into the UN car we made our way to a far more understated but arguably nicer hotel, The Claridges.The event was amazing but my favourite part was definitely the free wine.... Here in India, wine is somewhat of a luxury and a very expensive one. It didn't take much for me to be feeling a little woozy!!

OECD & GDN Joint Policy Dialogue: Social Cohesion in a Shifting World. 

The following day, Tuesday, I woke feeling a little tired. I had not got home until 11pm which is a very late night for me at the moment. Add some wine into the mix and I was shattered. I got through the day and stuck around at the office until about 6:30. That night was the launch of an Australian festival that is held all around India for four months, Ozfest. Quentin (a French intern) and I bought the 'free' tickets a few days earlier so we went along. It was an amazing night. I had the opportunity to catch up with one of my husband's colleagues (why on Earth they did not send Pete, I will never understand!) and also my Dad's cousin who I have never met.

With Dad's cousin and childhood friend, Mark Atkins.

That evening was quite incredible, I did feel really proud to be Australian at that moment. The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard made an incredible speech (I am quite a fan of her public speaking; not a political endorsement!!). Mark Atkins played as well as Gurrumul and sitar legend, Anoushka Shankar. There was something very special about watching these beautiful indigenous instruments, from their respective countries being played against the backdrop of Purana Qila which was lit up by 3D projection.

 

As we were leaving that evening the typical Delhi transportation nightmare ensued. Well, I am sure it would have been ok if you were one of the expat's with a driver. For me, it was a little more ad hoc. with Julia Gillard's presence, all  of the roads were closed down. The traffic wasn't diverted, it was simply stopped. These long boulevards of emptiness (and enough sniper's to make any layman uncomfortable) were flanked by traffic jams. Added to this irrational logic was that there was no public transportation for the punters leaving the festival!  As Jule's made her way out we walked along the cracked and tired road until we could finally flag down a rickshaw. 150 rupees and 45 minutes later I was home.

Thankfully, Wednesday proved a little more quiet but amazing non the less. With our upcoming conference later that week, the Under Secretary General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of ESCAP, Dr Noeleen Heyzer  was coming to visit our office. To be honest, I had totally forgotten. However, something told me at breakfast that wearing jeans that day was going to be a bad idea.... I madly rushed upstairs and got changed into a skirt..... just my luck!  It was wonderful meeting Dr Heyzer and I quite liked her style of management; she is firm and all about the substance. Incredibly outcome oriented, I like that.

After a quiet Wednesday evening, ny phone went off at 6am the next day and I crawled out of bed. I was headed to the office to do some final printing before a major conference hosted by the ESCAP sub regional office (where I work). It was the 'high-level policy dialogue for regional cooperation and inclusive development in south and south west Asia'.

The report produced by my United Nations office.

Part of the purpose of the event was to launch a major report that the office had been working on long before I arrived. I was lucky to be involved in the tail end of the production of the report. We spent endless hours doing the tedious referencing, abbreviation, sourcing and editing tasks and this often spilled over into the evenings and weekends. Roughly 10,000 words long, it was the true definition of team work.

After day one of the conference had passed, it was time for the evening dinner. One thing I can confirm is that public funds are not being spent on alcohol! Despite this, I had so many engaging conversations with brilliant people that I went home drunk on excitement.

Final copy of 'the report'!

There were so many highlights of this conference that there would be too many to list here. There are two that I will mention.
The first is more of an observation. Each time a new session started I made a point of counting the women in the room. At no one time did I manage to find more than ten per cent of the delegates as being female. I know that gender development in the region is poor and until more women begin to move into positions of power within government and other high level think tanks, there will be no progress as there is no gender agenda.
The second is that the most engaging session of the event involved three women on the panel (and the discussion was not about gender). It was a discussion about the agenda beyond 2015 and how the region has fared in terms of the Millennium Development Goals. Without going into too much detail, what is interesting is the 'othering' that seems to happen between this region and the west. There are challenges in the relationship, particularly with the United States but I was quite disappointed in this. For me, I like the think of this world as one world and that we can make progress together. However, it is clear that mentality is not shared among everyone (from both sides...). I was incredibly impressed with dialogue between Professor Jeffrey Sachs , Dr Noeleen Heyzer, H.E. Dr Syeda Hameed (India), Dr. Hafiz Pasha (Pakistan) and Professor Jayati Ghosh (India). The session ended with a presentation by Mr Karma Tshiteem from the Gross National Happiness Commission in Bhutan. What was highlighted here for me is that these conversations are critical for sharing perspectives and strategies for development and that blame will only send us as a society backwards.

A much deserved relax on the lounge after the high-level policy dialogue.

My apologies for the rushed writing in this post, I am quickly falling behind on my blog posts and have another two to go to make up ground. Time is passing faster than I expected which is mostly to blame.

I will be back online with another post in the next few days, until then......Xx

Twelve Weeks in Delhi: Two

This week I have found it more challenging to write an update on what has been happening here in Delhi. Once the reality set in that I was here alone, I began questioning why I would choose to live here for three months - without my husband.

My week started like any other, I woke up on Monday and wondered where the weekend had gone. I had worked on both Saturday and Sunday so maybe I didn’t necessarily feel like I had an overly relaxing one. I had decided that I would start to explore my options for how to get to work each day. In Delhi, you have a lot of options to get around, however almost all of them are unpleasant.  So last week I walked, caught an auto rickshaw and caught a bus. The idea was that I would choose one that I would prefer and stick to that... The only positive thing to come out of this experience has been this blog “the commuters guide to Delhi: how not to travel to work each day”.

Travelling on the metro as a lady, certainly has it's perks. Carriage one is always "Women Only"

There are a lot of options for travel in Delhi. The best way to travel is with your own driver, however I am not sure that this would be an intelligent way to spend my money as I have no income while I am here. The metro is new, clean and relatively cheap. The first carriage on each train is reserved for women. This means that it is much less crowded than the rest of the train and unwanted attention from male commuters is avoided. The metro is also quite safe as you are required to go through security and have your bag scanned before you even swipe your ticket. There are always a few guards with machine guns deterring punters from not scanning their tickets; an effective means to reduce fare evasion! Might I add here, that the Delhi swipe card is more streamlined than Melbourne’s failed Myki system. The metro is my favourite way to get around Delhi, however there is no station near work. I am left with my three dreaded choices.

A typical auto rickshaw in Delhi. This is outside the malls in Saket - epitomising the city of contrast, gigantic malls parking BMW's in its Valet Parking, slums and broken down infrastructure litter the streets outside

Auto rickshaws are somewhat luxury when compared with walking or the bus, however they come with their challenges. Firstly, they don’t have any doors or windows and the pollution in this city is horrendous. I often have a scarf that I put over my mouth to avoid bits of ‘stuff’ getting in. More people wore face masks in Kathmandu than they do in Delhi, however I am not sure if this was because it was more polluted or people were more aware of the dangers of what was lurking in the air. The second, and most frustrating challenge of the auto rickshaw ride, is the initial haggle on price. This price depends on your skin colour, time of day, where you are going from and to, and a whole range of other variables. I know that I get charged more than the locals, but I also know that the auto rickshaw drivers are doing it tough. With fuel prices increasing dramatically, it is driving up prices but the people who use the autos are resisting the higher cost of travel. On my way to work it can be hard to get an auto so I often walk to the bus stop, wait five minutes then start walking to Malviya Nagar Metro where many autos often stop. As a white woman, the auto drivers will slow down and come right up to me if I am walking along the road. If there is an empty one, they will also come to me first over locals, mostly because they can charge me more money. It then usually requires a conversation with two, three or even four autos before you are prepared to part with your rupees. There are a few techniques that tend to work when haggling. You can offer below the expected price so you pay what you should or try whacking the meter and offer your price “or meter!!!!”. You can also just offer half of what they ask. Sometimes none of these work and you find yourself standing on the side of the road with ten autos in front of you and no ride home as they are all making it difficult. In this scenario, eventually one will meet your price. I won’t get upset about ten rupees, but I will over 50 rupees more than I should be paying. The third thing I hate about autos is the lack of safety. If we get hit, I will die.

A typical bus at the intersection on my way to work. These are the most common, followed by the 'green' buses (basically, just a newer version of these), then the 'orange' air-conditioned buses. Catching a bus as pictured above usually involves having to listen very closely to hear what people are yelling out of their windows in order to know where they are going. 

From the auto rickshaw to buses, it just gets worse. There are two types of buses that I would consider getting on and these are the green or red ones. The green buses are non-air conditioned and always crowded. The red ones are air-conditioned and were introduced around the time of the Commonwealth Games. In India, it is normal to get on the bus through the back doors; there is no interaction with the driver. Just behind the door there is a man who sits there taking money and giving tickets. For me, it is about 10 rupees a trip. The problem with the buses is that they are so overcrowded that as a woman, getting on the bus is not a pleasant experience. There are usually about ten women and the rest men - think sardines, think 30 odd degrees, think poor hygiene…. The women sit in the chairs at the front on the left hand side. It is accepted that you can shoo men off the seats if they are sitting there. It is also acceptable for women to jump on at the front of the bus, which makes buying a ticket a challenge. I have been told that I can buy a monthly ticket for around 400 rupees which would mean I could discretely jump on and off the front of the bus. I am going to give this a go this week, it is my last and only hope. What I like about the buses is that they shield you from the pollution outside, however their schedules are so unreliable that it is painful to wait for one to arrive. One evening last week I was almost in tears at the bus station whilst I waited for a bus that I was able to get onto and still maintain my dignity as a married woman. It was getting dark and Vinod (another intern) walked past and said it was probably not a good idea to wait. He flagged an auto for me and I jumped in, feeling grateful that I had been saved. As the auto driver took off I realised that something was wrong -he was trying to take me somewhere else. I yelled at him as directly and assertively as I could and despite him trying to say that it was me who was wrong, he eventually turned in the right direction. His driving was so erratic, and eyes so puffy that I concluded that he was drunk or stoned (or both). He dropped me off at the metro and I dodged cars, buses, autos, motorbike, bicycles, beggars and hustlers to get across the road where I was shaking like a leaf. It was absolutely terrifying and that was the moment when I decided that I would walk to work in the morning. Stupid move.

Somewhat fashionable in Delhi, these practical shoes were to be my favourite ride...

On Friday morning I set out in my dorky open walking shoes (which are actually very common here) and began the three kilometer trip. I was feeling excited as I haven’t done any real exercise since arriving in Delhi . Now was my time to work off all of those aloo paratha’s! By the time I passed the metro station I had already made a fundamental error that turned out to be blessing in disguise. I ran out of road and the only option was a path between two fences. Not ideal. But crossing the road was a lot easier here and I ended up on a wide footpath that stretched all the way to my next turn. When I got there, I stupidly decided to cross. It took about ten minutes in total and I ended up on the right side of the road to get to work, but the wrong side for walking. I was trekking through a partially constructed footpath where whole families were working together, sans machinery. Cars, buses and motorcycles flew past me, I was walking with the traffic and I felt very uneasy. I was hot, sweaty and my lungs were full of pollution. My feet were dirty and my jeans (another stupid move) were sticking to me with what felt like clag glue. As I turned the corner towards my office I felt relieved that I had arrived and that I would be in the comfort of air-conditioning for the rest of the day.

The only decent footpath between my house and work. The lack of traffic can not be explained - possible taken on a weekend or at 2pm when we come back from lunch.

I guess the only conclusion I can draw from my experiences of commuting in Delhi is that it is hard work. But I keep promising myself to not go the easy route and get a driver. Whilst it would not cost too much money, what makes me so much more special than everyone else? Why can everyone else get to and from work in the same conditions but I can not? While I am in Delhi want to challenge this side of who I am. To quote what my father would say in response to my anguish - “it’s character building, Erin!”.

Twelve Weeks in Delhi: One

The best way to describe my perception of Delhi so far was put succinctly by my sister-in-law yesterday evening...

'Delhi is that it is everything that everyone tells you it is going to be. And the exact opposite'.

We arrived in Delhi on Saturday at lunch time. Our excitement was peaking as we had been chatting away to a 'Delhiite' on the plane whilst enjoying a glass of wine and our exit row seats. As we disembarked the plane I was underwhelmed by the heat and smell. Yes, underwhelmed... The impression I had from various sources was that I would be hit with a wall of heat and stench beyond belief and I would be left vomiting on the tarmac into a pile of rubbish. To be honest, it was all rather civilised. We walked through the air bridge and into a large, modern and very clean airport terminal. Not too different from Melbourne, Heathrow or Kuala Lumpur. In fact, the only thing different about this airport was that as we lined up in a queue of mostly men, us females were very quickly ushered to the front and sent on our way leaving scores of young Indian men in snaking lines at the immigration desk.

Our nerves only started to peak when we couldn't see Sanjeev from our guesthouse that we were expecting to meet at the arrival gates. A few frantic phone calls and apprehensive looks around the airport we found him and his driver outside. We walked the long distance to the car and loaded all of our gear and only had to shoo away one pesky man trying to help out (and subsequently demand money for his 'services'). Already I was shocked at just how developed this city really is. We drove out of Delhi airport and despite feeling somewhat apprehensive given that we had just piled into a car with two men in a foreign country, we started to take in the sights of this incredible city and hospitable nature of the locals.

The view from the rooftop at Grace Home in Saket, Delhi. Qutab Minar is in the distance. The huge round, red sun sets on the horizon makes for a stunning evening with a cold beer up on the roof.

As we started to get closer and closer to our guesthouse we became acutely aware of how the scenery around us was changing. This time it was becoming wealthy. Very wealthy. The houses were grand, the cars were luxury and the malls were extravagant. We finally arrived at a four-story guesthouse on a beautiful street and whilst we still felt quite strange about the whole experience, we also felt at ease. We had not been scammed, somewhat of an achievement according to the guidebooks! Our lunch was ready when we arrived but we were first ushered into the lounge room to be shown through their son's Bollywood wedding album. It is this kind of hospitality that I have come to get used to it the last week. Every day we are welcomed by the Nagpal family yet left to go about our day as we choose. Perfect. The guesthouse is everything you imagine an urban Indian home to be in an upper middle class area. The ceilings are high, the décor is stunning and the rooftop has the most spectacular views over Delhi. You can see more than 180 degrees around and at night the giant red sun sets over the horizon with Qutab Minar ever so slightly in the way yet perfectly positioned. Christiane and I would sit up there and chat until late at night and often try to speak in broken English and Hindi to one of the two housekeepers. They are both from rural India and have left their families to work in the city to send money home. They support their whole families on their income. Whilst it can be difficult to communicate now, we are planning to teach each other their respective languages. I have decided that one of my plans for tomorrow is to buy them a Hindi to English dictionary so that they can practice with the guests. Mrs Nagpal said they are not very educated so it must be a simple dictionary. Despite their lack of education and my considerable amount of education we are just as hopeless as each other when we can’t figure out what each other means. It always ends in a good laugh and being rescued by Mrs Nagpal who speaks fluent English and can translate.



My street in Saket, Delhi. A security guard crosses the road.

I probably don’t need to explain what it is like for a westerner to move to a city like Delhi. We have all seen the documentaries, read the books and for some people, vowed never to visit. The thing that I find the hardest to adjust to is that there is always someone to do something for you. Whether it is open a door, drive you, carry your bags, cook you food or bring coffee to your desk. The workforce is set up in such a way that everyone at my end of the social spectrum relies heavily on others around (or 'beneath') them. The beauty of it is that it creates jobs and I need to remember this every time someone takes my laundry, or offers me a driver. Granted I am paying money, but at a hotel in Australia you pay your money and it is fend for yourself all the way. Not here. And it is weird.

This week I have settled into work relatively quickly. My first day I was offered a driver by the Nagpal’s and we picked up one of the other interns on the way. Helene and I had met the night before which made me feel more at ease about getting to work the next day. I didn’t know what to expect but as you can imagine it is very ‘UN-like’. We are away from the main UN estate in Delhi, which is located at a place called ‘Lodi Estate’.  I believe the offices there are very formal where as we only have one agency (us) and it is very relaxed. The thought of wearing a suit in this city horrifies me! The actually work content is very similar to what I have done for the last few years and I am happy that I do have skills to offer the team. As is to be expected, there is a very international team. Out of 5 professional UN staff and 4 interns we have Australia (x2), USA/France (x1), Thailand/France (x1), France (x2), Sri Lanka (x1) and India (x2). You can only begin to imagine the accents and cultural differences that I am encountering on a day-to-day basis! Even asking about something very simple can often be challenging as we all try to understand each other. The office epitomises the phrase 'lost in translation'. I can see how this experience does prepare you to work in a truly international environment. It is very different to Australia and the UK where I have worked previously.


At the Red Fort in Old Delhi. We were asked for photos here because of our light skin which is considered beautiful in India.

 I seem to be easing my way into the swing of life here. I get up early and have my breakfast downstairs. I take an auto rickshaw for 40 rupees which I negotiate by saying “metre or 40!!”. I know I should be paying 30 but baby steps… (by the time I edited this and posted it I was struggling to get an auto rickshaw for 50 rupees, petrol prices have risen, but I doubt this is to blame). I am going to start walking once the weather cools down. For lunch we go to a college a few hundred metres and one major road crossing away. Just going to get lunch makes you break out in a sweat – a combination of playing chicken (with buses, cars, auto rickshaws, the occasional donkey, motorbikes and bicycles), the super hot curry and the walk in the heat of the day circa 35 degrees. My lunch is 40 rupees and is a thali set. I have stopped asking for rice now as I don’t need so much food. One thing that strikes me as both ironic and heart breaking is the food wastage. As people who have money, we are served gigantic meals while young women beg in the street whilst holding their naked, gaunt and sick babies.

Lunch is a thali set from a local college. At 40 rupees it is 74c and I have to ask for no rice, as it is too much food.

I try to avoid coming home any later than 6pm when I am alone. The area I live in is fine to walk around and in fact, many of the houses on my street have their own 24 hour security guards which gives me great comfort.  Once you venture further without some kind of transportation then the streets can become quite confronting. Scores of men sitting around fires, families asleep under tarps on the side of the road and a city where no one would flinch if you screamed can be nerve wracking.

Next time you are in peak hour in your car and feel like complaining, think of me stuck in this. My daily auto rickshaw ride to work.

Fortunately, staying in a guest house means there are always people around and it offers a sense of security. On one hand it is a safe place to stay, on the other it serves as 'rent-a-friend'. On Saturday night Sanjeev (the son of Mrs Nagpal, Sanjeev and his wife live on the second floor) and his wife took me and another guest who they have known for many years to an Indian classical dance show at the Old Fort. The stage was set up in front of a beautifully lit, ancient building and scores of expats, tourists and cultured (and wealthy) Indian's came to watch. As with anything here such as going to a mall, catching the metro or going to a movie we were required to be scanned on our way through. Security was lax there, we didn't have to put our bags through an x-ray machine! That evening when we arrived back at the guest house we all had dinner together and then I went to bed around 11pm after drinking a cool beer. My side-kick/wing-woman/sister-in-law left on Friday night and I had already noticed a significant difference in how I was feeling about Delhi. But nights like that where I was taken under the wing of the family at the guest house, at no cost, makes me feel comfortable in this crazy city.

At India Gate. Designed by Lutyen. This part of New Delhi is known as Lutyen's Delhi - created to house the expats away from the 'real' Delhi otherwsie known as Old Delhi.

When you read the Lonely Planet guide or any westerner's blog, there is always the obligatory mention of being scammed whilst in Delhi. Other than paying foreigner prices for auto's and anything else you can haggle for, I have managed to avoid any major scams. The only time we came close was whilst looking for the government tourist office in Janpath which is in central New Delhi. We asked the auto driver to take us there and as per the Lonely Planet we were taken to a private company which was a tiny hole in the wall down a back street. Now, I am not expert but my impression thus far of government extravagance told me that we were in the wrong place. Using our intitution we decided to not go in and walk towards another major road. Of course we were intercepted by a local promising that he was 'selling us nothing' and 'just talking'. Trying not to be ride we pointed to the monolithic gates next to us and asked what was behind them, 'ah the Imperial Hotel', he tells us whilst diverting back to asking us where we were going. We gave in and told him we were looking for the government tourist office. He reassured us he knew exactly the direction to point us in and we duly followed his lead. After walking through a string of backstreets, which were concerningly empty, another 'kind' gentlemen pointed us towards a different agent, just two doors from the one our other new friend told us to go to. This time, we actually went it. It wasn't until I took his business card that we realised that we had dodged a bullet. This was not 88 Janpath! Despite the government tourist office actually being closed that day after all (once we found it!) we found a nice bar and had some mega hot chilli veggies and a cold beer. Across the road we found shopping heaven and we spent the afternoon haggling to save 20 rupees on a 100 rupees t-shirt. Sometimes seems silly, but it is the thrill of getting the merchant down in price.

An afternoon in Hauz Khas village enjoying a cool beer and dinner. Hauz Khas is the Melbourne of Delhi.

As you can see in this one blog, Delhi is a city of contrast. The rich and the poor, the hungry and the indulged. It is chaotic, it is dirty and at times it is scary. But I love this city already. There is so much life, so much history and so much culture that we do not encounter in Australia. It makes me sad to think that often we don't welcome Indian's in Australia the way I have been welcomed here.

An extravagent mall in Delhi. It is actually three malls that are all joined at the hip. The rise of the middle class in India brings the west to the masses.

I am sure by next week I will have some more ramblings for you from this wonderful city. Until then, hug your loved ones and tell them how you feel. You never know when you may end up a world away and wishing you could do that every day.

Erin Xx

The Story of Human Rights

 

I'll admit, I cried watching this video.  I seem to be a little behind the eight ball, three years in fact.  However this message is timeless.

On that note....

Xx

How do you define yourself?

 

Just recently I have got to thinking about how we define ourselves as people.  So often people say to me "what do you do?",  increasingly I find this question difficult to answer.  I feel like I do lots of things; would you like to know what I do to pay my bills?  what I have studied when I submit an assignment?  what I want to be when I grow up?

I tend to satisfy people by defining myself as a PhD Candidate, although sometimes I am not sure that the people who ask really knows what that means.  They probably just think I am a poor, hippy uni student who can't be bothered getting a real job.

Regardless, I have started to think less about tangible things that define me as an individual.  Consider the above quote.  What do you think?  By what means do you define yourself and your life?

 

Moments in Nepal

** By the time I finished writing this (and uploading, sigh) I realised that this blog post is probably more about my random thoughts about our trip to Nepal rather than just about videos I took while I was there.  Oh well, enjoy!! Xx

I was perusing through my photos of our time in Nepal last year and came across some videos that I felt are otherwise wasted if not posted and shared with the world.

The first video was our flight taking off from Pokhara to Kathmandu after our ten day trek. As we had taken a bus from KTM to PKR (9 hours to travel 200 kilometers!) this was our first experience of the tiny planes that ferry people around Nepal.

This is the amazing view from the cockpit on our Mountain Flight up to see Mt Everest.  As we had not been able to fly into Lukla (hence the re-routing to Annapurna) we decided to take a scenic flight up on our last day in Nepal.  Rotten and hungover for the first and only time on the trip, we had to wake up at 4am to get the airport transfer on time.  It was horrible.  However, as you can see, all of that was long forgotten as the Everest region of the Himalaya's appeared in the distance.  I highly recommend this flight to anyone who travels to KTM.  It is about $160 USD per person.

This is a video of Mt Everest from the mountain flight.  It is a bit clunky as I struggle to see over Pete and Greg's shoulders, probably much to their annoyance. 

MOUNTAIN FLIGHT! MOUNTAIN FLIGHT! (May I never hear these words shouted over a 1980's style PA system in KTM Domestic Terminal...)

I took a few videos of us cruising around KTM from the comfort of our "Tourist" bus. Here's the first. Ever apprehensive to put myself in the tourist category, it is unavoidable in Nepal!  All the buses that transport foreign travellers around have huge TOURIST stickers on the back, while some may think this makes you a target, it is quite the opposite.  A legacy from more violent times in Nepal, having TOURIST on the back of your bus avoids a bombing which has been a regular occurrence on public modes of transportation.  Regardless, it is nothing to worry about, except that you feel guilt enjoying the lap of luxury in one of the world's poorest countries.  As you can hear in this video, we passed a market where more likely than not knock of North Face gear was being sold.  My favourite was of course, "Thorn Face".

Here is another video of us driving around KTM......

One thing I have neglected to mention about Nepal is the pure awesomeness of the FOOD.  On our first night in Nepal we stayed in a pretty "swanky" hotel, Hotel Manang which was the hotel for our trek through G Adventures.  The trip from the airport to the hotel was pretty harrowing for me in particular but I am the first to admit that I suffer from culture shock.  Even when I travelled to London I swear I was a victim..... regardless, I was pretty shaken up from our midnight hotel transfer adventure and most of all I was STARVING.  We were lucky that the hotel would give us a meal and beer so late at night; in fact we stayed up until about 3am chatting to the security guard and other hotel staff (who of course I was convinced were going to harm me, turns out they're just a hell of a lot friendlier than most people in the western world).  This is a photo of my first supper in Nepal and it was something pretty special.  Coming in at around $6 USD I was getting totally ripped off, but it was worth every penny.  This is a rather fancy version of the local cuisine, dal bhat takari.  Dal bhat is the staple food of Nepalese people and while it is absolutely divine, it can be tiresome when lacking choice.  The quality and style varies and usually one element of the dish shines over another, however I have not had a meal that I have not liked!!  It is usually served with pickle, sometimes spinach, flat bread of some description and sometimes yoghurt. Nom!!

Something I love about travelling is the little quirks you notice about other countries and their culture.  In Nepal, there is no yelling or waving at people in order to help them reverse their car without causing damage, simply a bang on the roof of the car!!  Nepal is rather hectic so I am guessing this is the only method that would be effective amongst the chaos!!

 ...and it wouldn't be Nepal without a crazy intersection.  Although I am not 100% sure that they were as crazy as I thought at the time. 

A Kathmandu taxi.....

And back to the food again.... Standard fare on the ABC trek is the following:

Breakfast: Tibetan bread, hard boiled egg x 2, black coffee.  Tear off half Tibetan bread, fill with egg and enjoy.  Repeat one more time.  Take second piece of Tibetan bread and smother in honey.  Enjoy with black coffee.

Lunch: Egg veggie noodle soup.  Alternatively, veggie noodle soup OR egg veggie fried noodle OR veggie fried noodle.  Lather in hot chilli sauce.

Snack:  Snickers and can of sprite (roughly $2 USD....each.)

Dinner:  Dal bhat takari OR egg/veg noodle soup/fried noodle.  At ABC we "treated" ourselves to pizza, don't do it, stick to the local food as it is FAR tastier (and cheaper!!).

If someone can find me a supplier in Melbourne of this green chilli sauce that I ate with every single meal, then I will be eternally grateful!!

Sleeping on a trek in the Himalaya's is somewhat challenging without the right gear.  We were lucky/smart enough to invest in proper North Face sleeping bags that would keep us alive in minus 40 degrees celcius.  The rooms in the tea houses are small but generally at lower altitudes you can get a simple double/twin room (by simple, I mean a bed and a clean sheet and pillow).  As you go higher the rooms become more crowded.  To give you an idea about how close you'll be sleeping to your fellow room mates, here is a shot I took with the light of my head torch one evening.....

Here is a better idea of what you're in for, this was our first tea house and we were actually quite impressed with the standard of accommodation.

 

Pete assumes the recommended sleeping position...all limbs INSIDE the sleeping bag...

Here is our group after the last major day of trekking....rice wine and beer ensued.

Finally, my favourite photo from Nepal of my husband and I at Machapuchare Base Camp, about to depart for Annapurna Base Camp which is 4130m above sea level.  It is a challenging walk up to ABC from MBC although not that far in distance.  This was the first and only time we really noticed any effects from altitude on our bodies.  People were breathing heavy and there was an unusual amount of snoring coming from the rooms that evening!!!

I guess the only question is now, when do we go back again?!

Xx

Women Deserve Better.

I came across this YouTube video this evening on Facebook.  It was posted by the Fiji Women's Rights Movement via The F-Word who are a "contemporary women's rights movement".

It brought a tear to my eye.

I need not tell people how to feel about many of the issues that are referred to in this video, but I do encourage you to watch it without the need to walk away and call this woman, or these people, crazy feminists.  This woman has a point, and a it is a point that I would like to share.

Enjoy x

You get out what you put in

This morning my alarm chimed (beeped, blaired, wailed...) at six am.  By ten past six I was out of bed and by six-thirty I was at my personal training session.  At seven-thirty I left with my arms shaking and my legs fatigued.  I bought my coffee, went home, made vegemite on toast and sat out on the deck with my dog and watched the rest of the sun come up.  By the time I arrived at university today I had already accomplished more than some people do in a day.


So why did I feel the need to search the Internet for some inspiration to keep me going?  If I read what I had done this morning in someone else's diary I would assume that motivation was innate within them and that at no point would they be required to dig deep in order to get on with their day.  I am learning that such an assumption would be wrong.


We all can do with some inspiration in our lives that helps keep us motivated.  I know that If I have people within the community that I look up to and can be inspired by, then I feel motivated by the knowledge that I can achieve my goals if I work hard.  And that all our hard work, will not be wasted.


One thing I keep playing over in my head recently as I concentrate on university, work and a plethora of other extra curricular activities is this - "you get out what you put in".  It reminds me why I bother, why I should work harder, why I should continue to be open to new opportunities and why I should get out of bed every day.


In my quest for motivational videos I found this one.  It is an advertisement for a gym but it is worth looking beyond that at the message.  It's key message is this -


"Pain is temporary, but quitting will last forever."


Sometimes I find the most powerful pieces of inspiration come from people's stories and I will post more of these stories on this blog.  I hope you enjoy and get as much out of them as I do x

Kony 2012

I mean, really, how could I not go there?

I was listening to Triple J Hack today and just to clarify early in the piece, this is not my main source of news as it is to some young people.  While I think Hack does an amazing job at bringing information to what is now an increasingly commercial audience (saved purely based on the fact they don't have pay-for-advertising...) it also fundamentally pisses me off the second Tom Tilley opens his trap.  He never lets other people finish what they're saying before butting in and cutting off prominent guests on his show...

Rant over.

Hack's show on Friday evening is called The Shake Up and this evening's topic of conversation was Kony 2012.  In case you have been living under a rock for the last 24 hours (or are a victim of the digital divide, which doesn't explain how you are reading this...) then you would know about this social media phenomenon called Kony 2012.  If you haven't heard of it, I suggest you watch the film which I have posted here for your convenience.  

I think what annoyed me the most about callers who phoned in to Hack today was that they said they got to go to bed at night (or some thing to that effect) feeling good about themselves because they bought the Action Kit available from Invisible Children.

Something I notice all too often with people who want to volunteer overseas, or contribute to a project in a developing country is that the reason they are doing so is for short term self gratification and not for a long term contribution.  Similarly with the Kony 2012 campaign, there are many people who went to bed last night thinking that they had in some way contributed to "fixing" another country's problem and that they where genuinely making a difference.  Enter clever post I found on Facebook this afternoon.....

To piece this piece of writing together I would like to introduce a woman who was a guest on Hack today and argued that the Kony campaign while doing good in terms of raising awareness, it has done not much more than that.  Jeanette Francis believes that the campaign lacks substance and aims to solve a problem that for starters, we don't even know if the Ugandan's want solved.  You can read more about her perspective HERE.  But I tend to agree with her.  While 65 million people have seen this campaign and each and every one of them has been touched in some way by this film it really feels as though it is merely feeding the need for self efficacy of those in developed nations.... 

In 2008 I attended a Sociology lecture that was about social movements in an e-society.  It was a powerful lecture by a PhD Candidate , Rheya Linden*.  Rheya spoke about how the internet was used as a vehicle for social movements to drive their campaigns and how the internet has changed the way social movements operate by comparison to when the Internet was not readily available.  At the time, Rheya described how people use the internet to par-take in so called activism and while they may "like" a Facebook page, or "join" a mailing list they are only doing just that.  In other words, slacktivists.  An old school friend of mine actually just updated her Facebook page and has coined the term Hacktivists!  Pure brilliance in light of my previous mention of Triple J's current affairs project, Hack.

Keeping all the aforementioned in mind, I would like to conclude by saying that I wonder if this video is truly a medium to bring about change or merely a phenomenon that will be spoken about in lecture halls as the video that changed social media, and not the world.  This is what frustrates me about the developed world's ignorance and I hope that if anything Kony 2012 has enlightened people to seek out information about the atrocities that occur every single day on our planet because after all, awareness is the beginning.


*  On a side note, Rheya's lecture's content about animal rights movements was so powerful that I have not eaten red or white meat since that lecture 3 years ago....

Samar Badawi

Despite the short nature of this post, it is by no means a reflection on the size of the issue that I am about to talk about.  In Saudi Arabia it is illegal for women to drive.  Over the last 12 months the awareness of women's illegality to drive in the Kingdom has become a matter of heightened awareness in the western world and it has regularly received media attention.

It may seem obvious that with some enlightenment the King could simply make it legal for women to drive however the way in which Saudi society is constructed prevents this.  Why?  For exmaple, let's say a woman has a car accident and requires medical attention, the paramedic that arrives at the scene is not allowed to touch the woman.  This is made even more problematic because of the lack of access to education for woman preventing women from becoming paramedic's themselves and able to attend to female drivers.  So while it may seem simple on the outside, it is far more complex and unless systemic oppression of women is removed from Saudi society, it will continue to function this way.

There is an amazing Saudi Arabian woman who has been tirelessly campaigning for women's rights in the Kingdom.  Her name is Samar Badawi and she received an International Woman of Courage Award on International Women's Day for efforts in a country where tolerance for questioning your human rights is limited. Samar is the type of woman who will change the experiences of this world for an entire society, for the better.

Unfortunately I can't locate the YouTube video of Samar receiving her award, however HERE is the link to the video.  You can also see the Facebook group for "Teach me how to drive so I can protect myself" HERE so you can follow this campaign.

* I would like to give special thanks to my friend Donna who lives in the United Arab Emirates and enlightened me about the complexity of simply allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia.
** I just realised that this wasn't short as I expected in the beginning but I did write it quickly, so my apologies for any grammatical errors!

International Women's Day

Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend (for free, yay!) the International Women's Day Luncheon at Monash University Clayton. 

At the luncheon Dr Cordelia Fine gave a keynote address in which she talked about her recent research that examined how gender stereotypes pervade neuroscience research. As such, her most recent book, Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex has gone straight to the top of my Amazon wish list.  
Cordelia's background is impressive.  Alumni of Cambridge University, Oxford University and University College of London, you can only begin to imagine the achievements section on her CV.  Cordelia is the kind of women that young women need to be able to see in the media as per my previous post about the documentary, Miss Representation.  With role models like Cordelia visible in every day media, would women change the way they think about themselves, their abilities and perhaps begin to challenge gender stereotypes that have been entrenched within our society for so long?

This YouTube video was presented by Cordelia and received a huge laugh at the luncheon yesterday.  After considering this for some time I can't help but wonder if as women we are required to be more masculine in order to begin to break down gender stereotypes?  Do we need to lose femininity in order to prove our worth?


Happy Thinking x