Kodai More!

 Apologies. This is a duplicate post in error



Saturday evening,

(or at the least started then). We have had a really nice day in Kodi with a relaxed morning at the house and then a good guided hike this afternoon. We went to Dolphin Point, which is down a very steep and rough path and about 2km long dropping about 600 ft in that time. There were loads of small stores or stands selling drinks potato chips and other snacks, and unfortunately there is much evidence of packaging just thrown on the ground, which of course distracts from the connection with nature. 

 

 

Electricity seemed to be available for most of the houses and several had satellite dishes.

There were lots of other people hiking as well. The path that we took continued and you could see some small tightly packed villages several kilometers further on and our guide said that the only way to get there was by foot as the path was too rough for bicycles or mopeds. I did not see any donkeys or similar pack animals, as that would have been the only other option. The path continued down to the plains below Kodi, which was 35 miles by road and would have been a similar or possibly slightly longer distance. Produce like oranges are traded up the mountain from the valley and nuts and wood etc traded down the hill.

We went out to dinner this evening to celebrate Sriya’s birthday and she received many calls today from friends and relatives. 

 

  

  

Seems that abandoned  crofts are not limited to Ireland and Shetland!

Sounds like it is too late for this tree. Read the sign!

It is Vivek’s birthday tomorrow and he is joking that he will not get as many calls.

Vasthant a friend of Vivek’s from third grade, who is now the athletic director for the Kodi International School, joined us for dinner.

The school has been in existence for over 100 years and was originally called “The American School”.

It is a boarding school and has about 600 students and a teaching staff of around 130. About 60% of the students are Indian , and the others are predominantly from Korea, Bhutan, and Thailand with a small number from the UK, USA and other places. It sounds like a school with excellent academics and some good connections to top-flight universities, but also a fairly relaxed overall atmosphere. I was impressed with how enthusiastic Vasthant was about the school and how positive he is about the students and their capabilities. I know of a couple of people who were students and all spoke positively about their experience.

Vasthant’s wife, Malini is the school doctor and a former student.

There are many parallels with the High School I went to many years ago in England.
Apologies for the mixed font. Default is Ariel. Sorry Bruce!!

Kodai More!

Saturday evening,

(or at the least started then). We have had a really nice day in Kodi with a relaxed morning at the house and then a good guided hike this afternoon. We went to Dolphin Point, which is down a very steep and rough path and about 2km long dropping about 600 ft in that time. There were loads of small stores or stands selling drinks potato chips and other snacks, and unfortunately there is much evidence of packaging just thrown on the ground, which of course distracts from the connection with nature. 

 

 

Electricity seemed to be available for most of the houses and several had satellite dishes.

There were lots of other people hiking as well. The path that we took continued and you could see some small tightly packed villages several kilometers further on and our guide said that the only way to get there was by foot as the path was too rough for bicycles or mopeds. I did not see any donkeys or similar pack animals, as that would have been the only other option. The path continued down to the plains below Kodi, which was 35 miles by road and would have been a similar or possibly slightly longer distance. Produce like oranges are traded up the mountain from the valley and nuts and wood etc traded down the hill.

We went out to dinner this evening to celebrate Sriya’s birthday and she received many calls today from friends and relatives. 

 

  

  

Seems that abandoned  crofts are not limited to Ireland and Shetland!

Sounds like it is too late for this tree. Read the sign!

It is Vivek’s birthday tomorrow and he is joking that he will not get as many calls.

Vasthant a friend of Vivek’s from third grade, who is now the athletic director for the Kodi International School, joined us for dinner.

The school has been in existence for over 100 years and was originally called “The American School”.

It is a boarding school and has about 600 students and a teaching staff of around 130. About 60% of the students are Indian , and the others are predominantly from Korea, Bhutan, and Thailand with a small number from the UK, USA and other places. It sounds like a school with excellent academics and some good connections to top-flight universities, but also a fairly relaxed overall atmosphere. I was impressed with how enthusiastic Vasthant was about the school and how positive he is about the students and their capabilities. I know of a couple of people who were students and all spoke positively about their experience.

Vasthant’s wife, Malini is the school doctor and a former student.

There are many parallels with the High School I went to many years ago in England.
Apologies for the mixed font. Default is Ariel. Sorry Bruce!!

The house at Kodai and the wall project

Building project at the house in Kodai

Sriya’s parents have owned the property for about 25 years I believe, and it sits on the edge of the mountain with a spectacular view of the valley below. The front of the house faces southeast so the sun cascades into the house in the mornings particularly..
Syria’s mom loves to work on the house and has made many changes over the years. The downstairs, where my bedroom is has been remodeled and expanded in recent years. There are beautiful hardwood floors and a huge window in the lower living area and a very nice grassed outside area. It is a beautiful house to be at for the weekend.

 

  

 

There is some construction going on at the house. There is a retaining wall that is being rebuilt on one of the terraces and the crew was there today (Sat) and the project is getting close.

 

  

 

Team is 6 people. Two appear to be the masons and there is a lady who mixes and carries the mortar. She also helps another guy who is breaking up the rock (which must have been hand carried to the site) to move the rock to the wall for final trimming and placement.

World of Concrete India style

Two ladies who are moving the backfill from the lower level in sacks that they carry on their heads complete the crew. We estimate that there is 60 to 70 pounds of fill dirt in each bag.

It will take a lot more bags to complete the backfill. I do not know what they earn but a reasonable estimate would be between $2 and $4 per day per person with the masons making the top end of that scale and the laborers the bottom end.

 

Lead mason on his cell phone lining up the next job!

It is all very labor intensive, but there is plenty of labor who need jobs and money. For this particular job it would have been very difficult to use any machinery because of the access issues.

Up to the Eastern Ghats. A mountain home visit

Friday

Travel to KodaiKanal

Before I tell you about the journey to Kodi and what a beautiful place it is I want to take a few moments to describe some of the aspects of living abroad for work, and share a couple of pictures.

India is a large country but only has one time zone. The history behind this decision is that the decision was made as a unifying strategy after independence from Britain in 1947. Anyway it is 10 ½ hours different from US Eastern time and 2 ½ hours different from Beijing.

This means conference calls at all sorts of times day and night. Two countries is fairly simple but if you try to get India, China the US, and Japan it is next to impossible and often involves late night calls. The day I arrived my good friend Vivek had such a meeting at 9.30 at night.

The photos show him in his executive office (aka bedroom) with his hand crafted teak desk and executive phone!!

There are no doubt some great advantages and opportunities for personal growth. For example their 3 ½ year old daughter speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese, Tamil (one of the Indian languages) and of course English. She is able to switch between them effortlessly and does not know any different!!

Kodi

For this portion of the trip I had made no specific plans and Vivek and Sriya had arranged to spend a long weekend at Syria’s parents house in Kodi. It is what is called a hill station and used to be a refuge from the summer heat.

I believe Kodi is about 7000 ft elevation and is a 9 hour drive from Chennai. The last 35 miles or so take you from the very fertile plain up a sometimes narrow but always winding road. Kodi is also something of a tourist spot so there are local busses, tourist busses, trucks and the usual assortment of cars, mopeds, bicycles and ox carts. Lots of horn blowing on sharp bends and curves and the occasional need to back up and let a bus around the corner. It takes about 2 hours to cover the 35 miles, but nobody gets bored!!.

 

  

We actually flew from Chennai to Madurai, which is about 100 miles south of Kodi. It was a 50-minute flight on Paramount Airways one of the many excellent carriers in India. They are Chennai based. Babu who is the senior driver for Sriya’s parents in their very smart BMW X5 diesel SUV met us.

It was an Embraier 170 jet and very comfortable, and they managed to serve a 3 course lunch (very tasty) in the allotted time. The flight attendants hustled but did not rush you. A little nostalgia for those of us who fly domestically in the US!!

We arrived around 5.30 and were welcomed by Kumar who cares for the house on a full time basis. 

I was going to continue with the description of the Kodai housebut will do a seperate post for that hopefully later today (Wed)

Shore temples. A post visit report

Yesterday I talked more about drivers and driving style, but not much about the visit itself.
We drove down to Mahablipurham to see the Shore Temple, which is a World Heritage site and worthy of that. There were originally 6 temples and all of the others have been swallowed up by the sea at various times and the remaining temple is now on a point in the sea and the beach on both sides is 50-60 meters further inland.

All of this area was impacted by the 2004/5 Tsunami and evidence of that could be seen on the way down. The temple area itself has been protected by rock (rip-rap) did not appear to have been impacted substantially and is nicely laid out.

There is an entry fee and a great example of differentiated pricing (see photo)For reference there are about 50 rupees to the US dollar.
We enjoyed some fresh coconut milk, delivered direct from the coconut. Very refreshing and guaranteed fresh as the guy hacks the top off the coconut right in front of you!!
l

We decided against the Walls Ice cream (Walls is or was a well known UK brand. This one may not be the same!)
Also saw this kid playing in the sprinkler. They are the same world wide!!

On our return we stopped at Fisherman's Cove which is a smart Raj (hotel group) resort and there were many foreign tourists enjoying good food a very nice beach and a swim up bar at the hotel swimming pool. I thought of my daughter Sara at this point, and know she would have enjoyed that!!
We came on back and went to the athletic stadium to pick up the credentials for JS"s guests and watched some of the competition. Basically it is a senior sytle games and the youngest categories are 40-45 and they go up to 75+. Js's guests are in the discus, shot put and hammer throw. One is in the 75+ class. (he is a supple 78 years old) and the other in the 65-70 group. The winners here will represent India in the Asian games in Maylasia in December. I spoke with one family who had travelled from Assam in the far north east for the Mum to compete in the hammer throw. I asked and they told me that they came by train... a three day journey. That is dedication.
Nice dinner of fresh fish at the rooftop restaurant at the Raintree with black Dal and cold beer per Bruce's recommendation!!
We are off to Kodi Kanal a hill station in the morning and I suspect no Internet, so the next post may be a few days. We are back on Tuesday (It is early Friday morning here)
For those going to the Hibernian tonight have a cold Highland Gaelic for me!!

Shore temples and Indian driver software!!

Well it is my second morning here and I am waiting for some friends to stp by and pick me up. We are off to Mahblipurham (sorry if I screwed up the spelling) about 80 km south of Chennai. They have an amazing shore temple and there are 5 others that have already benn swallowed up and now lie in the Bay of Bengal. The town is also a center for stone carving and sculpting. 

I am going with JS Bhangoo a former Cat colleague and two of his cousins who are from Punjab but here for some regional sports competition. Suffice it to say that one of them is in the shot put competition and was the National runner up a couple of years ago in his age class  70-75!! He is competing in the 75+ category this year!! We met them for dinner at the Madras Cricket Club last night. Good food and some good discussion.

I was reminded again yesterday on the way to dinner about the driving style that prevails here, and I suspect much of India.

It is not an aggressive style but most certainly “edgy”. The only way to make progress is to appear not to notice the myriad of other drivers in cars, large and small, trucks, busses, and of course, auto-rickshaws motorcycles and mopeds. I would say that all of the motorcycles are under 250cc, but seem to carry multiple passengers. I saw one with a young family, dad driving, Mum on back with a two year old between Mum and Dad, and a five or six year old sitting on the tank. I will get photos maybe today.

All Indian drivers/Riders must have some conflict resolution software built in. It always looks like you are (or they are) headed for a certain collision and yet it always seems to get resolved within the last few inches or cm if you like. At one point yesterday I was convinced that we were going to hit a car turning from our right. We got within the prescribed 3 inches and finally gave way to him. I recognize that if we always gave way we would be sitting still. Horns beep constantly and rear lights on trucks busses or anything else seem purely optional and there are many vehicles with no lights at all.

Pretty much all expats have a car and driver assigned to them and these guys are experienced at the whole process, and we are able to sit back and observe the process.

There are over a billion people in India which, while a large country is not close to the same size as the USA. I just checked and it is roughly 1/3 of the size of the USA (including Alaska) so the population density is about 10 times the US if my math is correct. That presents a whole different set of challenges and opportunities.

There are some very very wealthy people here and a growing middle class but a huge urban poor population and a huge rural population who’s living standard is very variable by state. Some states like Kerela in the southwest are very good with literacy and general living standard, and then there are states like Bihar that are consistently poor and making progress at a slower rate for multiple reasons.

Arrived in India

Short post.
I arrived in Chennai in the middle of the night, about an hour late but here. Good flight that came down over Turkey, west of Lebanon, and over Saudi with a left turn over Bahrain (yes Jen I waved at Rick on the way past but he did not respond!)
Vivek and Sriya have a great place here and I am getting settled.
More with photos and comments in a little while