As part of the module Services Marketing, we're supposed to watch a movie called Everybody Says I'm Fine.

I'm ten minutes into the movie and this is the look on my face ever since it started.



The entire cast is Indian but they speak English with variations of the British accent and the lead is a hairdresser who can hear peoples' thoughts as he cuts their hair.
Seriously. What the hell am I doing here?

I thought I'd better put down my address and handphone number since some of you have been inquiring.

Handphone number: +91 9727472836

Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad
Shela
Ahmedabad -Pin- 380058
Gujarat
India

Yea there's no street name or any other details buttttt....I'm sure the letters will arrive! This is how it works here..order in chaos. Btw, I'm 2.5 hours behind Singapore time, and in case I haven't mentioned it before, India is the only country in the world with a 0.5 hour time difference from everyone else.

The best souvenirs I got from our Udaipur-Mt Abu trip would have to be the collection of life stories told by amazing people we met along the way, which both inspired and humbled me at the same time.

We had the privilege of meeting...
the 31-year old Kiwi lady in Udaipur who was travelling around India for three months by herself,
the couple from Belgium who are spending a year in India to learn about the secrets of Ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine) so that they can set up a mobile Ayurvedic clinic back home,
the Isreali guy whose first trip out of his country is a two month trip around India alone,
the mom and her two-year old from the UK who have been travelling buddies even before this two month stay in India,
the Kashmiri shopkeeper in Udaipur whose cousin married a Singaporean traveller
...among many others who made our own stories pale in comparison.

Our first mini victory (and I know I keep repeating this but it's cos I'm really proud of myself) happened in Udaipur when we haggled down the auto price from the quoted rs50 to rs20. heehee. I was working on mini victories so the next one came when we were able to locate the guest house we planned to stay at, as recommended by Lonely Planet. The view of Fateh Sagar lake from the balcony outside our room was excellent.





Though the room itself was nothing to shout about...





We endured the cold shower for one night before moving out to Hotel Ganguar Palace. Nowhere near palace standards, but at least we got our hot bath.

My first meal after the 6-hour journey on a suspension-less bus was cheese tomato spaghetti and my favourite soft drink here..LIMCA!!



At Jagdish Temple.







And of course we couldn't escape from bits of Karma Sutra carvings..



Boat ride along Lake Pichola.





The famous Cafe Edelweiss, always brimming with budget backpackers every morning who are suckers to the description provided by Lonely Planet: "..little piece of Europe that appeals to both homesick and discerning travellers." Perhaps the only piece of Europe you can get there is seeing other angmohs cos the food is just expensive and not that great.



Holy cow!



Holy cow dung! (Kash stepped on a pile before. Heehee.)



City Palace Museum, where we didn't pay the camera fee but still took photos anyway.





There was a Muslim festival going on during the time we were there, not sure what it was though. But it was pretty scary cos boys/men were running along the streets and shouting. It could pass off as a protest. There were policemen for crowd control as well.





The street where we could get silk scarves for S$4 and shawls for S$8, depending on how fiercely you bargain.



We managed to catch the Dharohar performance at Bagoreki Haveli just in time. The entire audience consisted of foreigners and we sat on mats for the one hour performance which cost a total of..........S$2.30!! (I took down accounts for everything.)





This woman was amazing. She didn't pile on all those pots at the same time so everytime she added more the crowd oohed and ahhed. She even danced on broken glass with those pots on her head.



Kash got a nose stud despite my warnings about the hygiene levels and inappropriate metal used. Oh well, she lost it in the bathroom when we got back so maybe it's for the better.



Treated myself on the last day in Udaipur with a massage at Tiger Spa where I was marinated with Ayurvedic oils while folksy music played softly in the background. Thankfully mine wasn't as 'intimate' as the one Marine got though I think I was still a little tense as a reflex defense mechanism.

After a gruelling 6 hour bus ride up to Mt Abu, we only managed to reach there at about 3pm, which meant that we missed the city tour and other sites were closed by the time we were ready to get out of Shri Ganesh Hotel. Mt Abu is more of a weekend getaway for locals so there weren't as many foreign-looking tourists as compared to Udaipur.



Saving grace came in the form of...Cafe Coffee Day! (CCD here for short) The strawberry shake was heavenly but I couldn't fully appreciate it with the weather being the way it was. I keep forgetting it's freezing outside so I always order cold drinks and suffer the consequences later.



The next day was much more eventful. We first visited the Brahma Kumaris Spiritual Musuem and had the weirdest experience ever. Even weirder than the WYWI session.



WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?? THE PUZZLE OF LIFE IS SOLVED!

We were made to sit in pitch darkness with a laser beam aimed at our foreheads while a voice fed us with lines like:
"God is like this point of light. He is in every one of us."
"Everyone is intrinsically good."
"Om Shiva"

They even offer a three day course about this philosophy which calls for acceptance for all religions because God is the same for everyone, He just takes different forms. Followers wear white and have (or seem to have) a certain kind of calm about the world.

A little too confused for me though.

Later in the afternoon we went on two treks up the hill (mountain?), which was more walking than I ever did in the entire year before. The first one was 4 hours long O_o and promised bear or panther sightings, though this was what we actually saw...



I forgive them even if they made the scratch marks themselves as a kind of "if all else fails" back-up plan.









There was a bigger group for the second trek, which was fortunately less physically taxing and only two hours long.



Meet Baby Ada and Supermom Amy. They've been around the UK and Spain and now they're here in India. Whenever I am faced with problems over here, I just need to think of them and it'll all seem so trivial.



That's it! For the first time in three weeks I was actually happy to see the gates of MICA. I guess it takes going away to miss familiarity.



Til the next adventure.

First of all, thanks for all the birthday wishes from Sunny Singapore!!! Argh, the year-round 30 degrees celsius temperature has spoilt me. Looks like the entire upper hemisphere is now out-of-bounds for me.

It still hasn't sunk in that I am now legally allowed access to a lot of things. Oooh oooh..I no longer need a parent's signature for excursions. Heehee. Hello World : )

I've bought myself a polarfleece adidas jacket in desperation. Ignore its pinkness, they ran out of black. It was this or a padded trenchcoat, which would have been ridiculous come to think of it.



I've been getting relatively warm sleep the past two nights. Never underestimate what many thin layers can do. And my stomach is getting better too, no more puking at least. Leigh and Erwin just got diarrhoea...will Kash be the only one among us who will make it past the one-month mark without getting sick?

When we eat we have to concentrate really hard on the food in front of us and not the processes before and after cos if we did, we would have starved and that would bring about a different set of problems. Just now I ordered a chocolate tart at Micafe (one of the two on-campus cafes, the other one being Chhorta) and the boy took it out from the fridge with his bare hands (dubious level of cleanliness), then while finding a plate for it he placed it ON TOP of the fridge. Fortunately it wasn't bright enough for me to see what the top of the fridge looked like but my imagination told me it would probably be caked in dust, old crumbs, oil, a few dead insects, among other organisms. Oh god. But the tart was good.

My skin looks like it belongs to an old woman. I'm guessing it's either the dry weather or harsh washing detergent. Or both.



These are abrasions on my thighs and legs caused by my jeans rubbing against my dry skin. I can't wear anything thinner because I'd rather suffer these abrasions than be cold.





Yes yes, my entry on Udaipur-Mt Abu is overdue. I'll get it done once I have the time and before I forget the facts.



For now I gotta sleep cos tomorrow I have class at NINE AM. I almost missed today's 9am class cos I accidentally switched off my alarm instead of snoozing it. It's madness, we have 5 hours of the same class, with only 15 minutes breaks every 1.5hours.

I've resorted to using my hairdryer to warm myself up.


It's so darn bloody cold at night I can't sleep properly!!!!! Haven't been catching proper uninterupted sleep for the past few nights cos I'll be freezing just about this time. I'm so pissed off and miserable now. If you wake up cursing the weather, you know it's time to do something about it.

I don't care if I have to blow my last 200 sing on warm clothes and a good blanket (maybe even gloves). It'll be a worthwhile investment if it lets me sleep for the next half a month before the temperatures increase.

I HATE THE COLD. I HATE THIS HEATERLESS ROOM.

The equator is starting to look very good to me at this point of time.

I'm typing this entry with prune fingers because I've just HANDwashed the following items:
- 10 pieces of underwear
- 7 tops
- 2 scarves
- 1 towel

And I've got 2 sweaters, 1 scarf, 1 towel and 1 pair of fisherman pants more to wash after I come back from dinner.

Due to the unpredictability of the dhobi man (laundry man), I've been HANDwashing all my clothes except jeans. And I've been wearing crumpled clothes for three weeks, which is fine here cos people aren't too conscious about fashion. (Think socks with sandals.)

Anyway, I'm back and alive from Udaipur and freezing Mt Abu. Funny how there's relief in just surviving the trip. Gotta go to the mess before the food is cleared, will blog later!

Leigh and Erwin left for Delhi this morning so here I am now holing up in my room spending some alone time with the Carpenters on iTunes. Woke up particularly early and had a long hot shower before walking two rounds along the school compound with my iPod plugged in, giving me temporary comfort in the familiarity of the songs.

Kash and I are as ready as you can get here with the planning of our 6-day trip to Udaipur and Mt Abu. Bought bus tickets and called up budget guesthouses with not too much trouble, except that there's always that lingering sense of uncertainty. A guesthouse I called up assured me that there was no need to leave my name or contact number for the booking of a room...all I needed to say when I got there was that I am from Singa-poor.

It helps to reassure yourself by reducing it down to the essentials: Cash, passport, handphone. As long as you've got those, it should get you places.

Now I've got to practice my "don't mess with me, I'm not even gonna give you ten rupees more than the market rate" face. Romain has been very helpful in imitating difficult autodrivers so we get practice haggling.

I spent Rs700 (S$27) for a getaway at Dasada wildlife sanctuary- inclusive of buffet meals, one night stay in a tatched roof chalet, 2 safari rides and a WYWI (Who are You, Who am I?) sharing session. It's not mentioned in any of the guidebooks so I have no idea how 2 retired angmohs we saw there discovered the place.









The hotel allowed people from nearby villages to sell their craft in the compound. Check out the nose ring.











Chasing after wild ass. We know we could have easily ripped a photo off the net but it's in the thrill of the chase man.



And because we got up at 6am, risked our lives in a doorless jeep on a bumpy road, swallowed tons of dust and braced the chill of the wind...we HAD to snap the sunrise.



More sunrise..



More.



The whole area we were on was the former sea, or something like that. So we were standing on salt basically. If you stretch your imagination, with the help of the cold weather, it can pass off as snow.



Benetton ad. Complete with rojak races.



Director: "Come on jump! Don't worry, I'll catch you." They tell us not to walk on the grass on campus because there are snakes and they scare us into thinking that venturing out into the city is a dangerous affair, but yet there is the director of the school telling a student with an existing back problem to jump from a salt mount. Makes total sense eh.







30 seconds exposure to capture the starry night sky. But of course it doesn't beat looking up and seeing a blanket of them twinkling back at you.