Picture of the Day

A priest giving devotion to Hanuman; Monkey God who lead an army of monkeys to fight the evil demon king.

Capacity of my brain

Simultaneous capacity in India 2009 is too play 'Sweet Home Alabama (live version)' on 'Guitar Hero - World Tour' on Expert level and at the same time explain too Mani, the chef, what time I want the breakfast to be served and what kind of ingredients I want in my morning omelet!

Life is sometimes very though in India for an ex-pat like me......

Over and out!

Photo - Three of a Kind - Stone

This weeks photo challenge is about stones, both natural and man made. This is my contribution:

Krishnas butterball at Mahablipuram. Hard to say if it's man made or natural.

Rock carvings at Mahablipuram

Nandis on a row (Shivas bull) carved in stone at the Beach Temple, Mahablipuram

You can read more at the following link: http://fototriss.blogspot.com/2009/04/veckans-fototriss-sten.html

Picture of the Day

Karnatik dance at the factory inaguration.

I really like how the shadow is projecting on to the wall into two different layer of grey

Sweating like a pig!

Went up early morning today (05:30) to go to the golf range and hit some balls before work. Seemed like a good idea, early morning is so much cooler than afternoon, 27C compared to 39C. It's not really cold weather but at least it's better than nothing.

After 10 minutes of practice; the sweat was pouring down from my forehead, ending up on the tip of the nose; dripping down on to the rubber mat I was standing on. In the pen next to me; a Korean dude is hitting balls like crazy but not one single drop of sweat could be seen on his boulder body. I just have to accept the fact that Swedish people are not built for this kind of climate. It's a universal fact from now on and forever!

Even though you've spent two years of your life in India it's not possible to adjust the body for this kind of weather. Swedish people are designed to have no more than two weeks of good weather (max 27C) per year. The rest of the year shall be cloudy skies, rain or snow.

Over and Out!

Picture of the Day

Overload!

Picture of the Day

Priest at a small shrine

Fun in Varkalla

My sister and here friend has been in India for a couple of days now. Landed in Chennai, went to Keralla (Munnar, Allepey, Varkalla) and now back in Chennai again. I will retell one of many funny anecdote from their trip.

At the hotel in Varkalla my sister ordered an 'Ice Cream Sandwich' from the room service menu. She was kind of expecting ice cream with a sweet baked cracker on each side but of course this what not the case. What came into the room was ice cream but instead of a cracker on each side; she got normal bread with vanilla ice cream in the middle! How funny isn't that? First thing I asked was: 'Was the bread even toasted?' and the answer was: 'No, plain bread directly from the bag with ice cream in between'

Just imagine the brain storming between the two Indians doing the room service menu:
- When I was in Europe I saw that they had something called 'Ice Cream Sandwich'!
- Ohhhh, isn't that a very strange combination? Bread and ice cream?
- Nooo, noo....European very funny people......eating a lot of strange things.
- Ohhhh, very smart thinking. Lets put it on the menu, it will be a success I think.

Only in India my friends, only in India.....

Over and Out!

Picture of the Day

Peanut boy

Getting old

Man, I'm sore today after both playing tennis and golf this weekend. Even though we didn't play tennis for more than 25 minutes; we all were totally exhausted. One reason could be that the temperature was slightly over 39C and humidity close to 100%; another reason could be that we drank two beers just before playing. I think it was the weather........

On Sunday we went to the driving range to hit some golf balls. I'm quite happy with the way I spread the balls all over the place but most of the were OK. The funny thing was that we had too use one kind of balls for the driver and one for the iron clubs. The balls we used with the driver was inexpensive balls in case we sliced or hooked them out of bounds. I used one expensive ball together with the driver by mistake and got the evil eye from the supervisor. On top of that I pegged the ball in the wrong kind of surface and then he got really pissed off. How I'm a supposed to now that there's different surface to be used with the driver? I was about too tell him "In Sweden we have the same surface.." but stopped my self before it came out of my mouth cause he will probably not understand anything at all; been there, done that so too say.

The best of all was their solution for how to collect the balls back again. Two teenage boys were walking on the range picking the balls manually in to a PVC-pipe. The only protection they had from the speeding golf balls was an old red umbrella that merely covered the back and head. If they were to closed we stopped shooting for a while but the Korean gentleman next too us just kept on shooting. Only in India my friends.

Over and Out!

Picture of the Day

Fishermen trying to catch some fish in the water edge

Picture of the Day

Cute ice cream truck at Fort Kochin, Verkalla.

Maybe I shall invest in one truck and use it at the beach in Mellbystrand, very cool indeed.

Elephant washing

Went to a elephant training center early Monday morning. The elephants are taking a bath in nearby river 8 o clock every morning were you can join and help wash the elephants.

Posing with Sunitha, female elephant, 33 years of age

Thirsty after the walk

Washing begins

I'm joining the washing procedure. An old coconut shell is used as a sponge to make the elephant clean.

Clean and neat

Side view

Ready to head back home

Todays adventure in pictures

Took a taxi from the hotel to Fort Kochin area. Fort Kochin is a not a fort; just a neighbourhood containing daily life of the Indian people. Showing some assorted pictures from the day.

Fisherman repairing his nets

The crew is pulling up the Chinese fishing net from the Arabian sea

Mikael, fisherman on one of eleven Chinese fishing nets in the Fort Kochin area

Crow waiting for fish leftovers

Chinese fishing nets

Indian boys taking a dip in the Arabian Sea

A boy watching his mother and sister feed the pigeons inside the Jain Temple

Visited a local laundry, huge amount of laundry was hanging all over the place

Sister and brother waiting for the mother to finish their laundry

Weekend in Kochin

Arrived at Ramada Resort early this morning without any problems. I was told by the my travel agent that it might by difficult getting a room during the Easter time but when I arrived at the hotel there was me and more person staying here, funny. Hotel is newly built and really fresh and modern; really worth the 6000 rupees I'm paying per night.

Tomorrow I'm heading for Kochin and surrounding areas to see if there's anything worth visiting.

Overview of the lake from the room.

Lonely, I feel so lonely.....

Pool area

Flowers

Flower

Feeling tired

I've felt really tired the last two weeks. Even though I'm sleeping almost 7-8 hours a day and even more on weekends; I feel tired every time the alarm clock yells at me early 06:15 in the morning. I'm snoozing at least two times a nine minute each before I'm getting up and hardly then I'm able to get up.

But I think I know the solution for this problem. In Sweden there's one cartoon called 'Bamse'. It's about Bamse, the world strongest bear, and his adventures with his friend. One of his friends is called Skalman and he's got a clock which tells you when to eat and sleep! No matter the situation; Skalman follows this clock (according to Wikipedia there has been some exeptions but that's another story).

Somehow I need to get my hands on a 'Eat and Sleep'-clock. I wonder where I can find one in India?

Skalman and his 'Eat and Sleep' clock

Credit: Rune Andreasson (R.I.P)

Picture of the Day

Stone sculptures of Nandi, Shivas bull, at the beach temple in Mahablipuram

Long weekend

Flight ticket and hotel are booked, flying on Saturday to Cochin, Keralla and spends Saturday to Tuesday at Ramada Resort situated just outside Cochin. Mostly sleeping and relaxing by the pool but I will also go for small excursions too see if I can take any interesting photos. Probably the hotel has some travel desk that can help me with that.

Relaxing at the pool means sunbathing and reading for me; went to Landmark and got some "new" books.

Roberto Saviano - Gomorrah - Book about the Italian mafia; just the fact that the author had to go underground to not get killed the mafia should be indicating that something in the book scares the shit out of the mob guys.

Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner/A Thousand Splendid Suns - Only heard about this two books that should be really good and emotional. Focusing on the daily life in Afghanistan and all the trouble that comes along with that. Just now I'm reading another book about the Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan, very interesting.

Arun Krishnan - The Loudest Firecracker - About growing up as a young boy in modern India. A poignant description of the Indian society which will take your Swedish mind a step closer to understand why this society is what it is.

Junot Diaz - The Breif Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - This book got great critics but I don't know much about it. It's taking place in the New Jersey, USA and is about a nerdy Dominican boy called Oscar Wao.

Over and Out!

Photo-Three-of-a-kind - Dots

This week's Photo Three-of-a-kind is about dots. The images should show the pattern dots in some way. This is my contribution to this weeks contest.

Matrimandir at Auroville, Pondicherry, India.

A glas of champagne with bubbles forming on the inside of the glas

Small flowers that looks like dots

Read more at the following link: http://fototriss.blogspot.com/2009/04/veckans-fototriss-prickigt.html#links

Crocodile Bank

Visited the Crocodile Bank which is just situated down the coast of Chennai. Well worth the 30 rupees in entrance fee cause there were a lot of different crocodiles and wasn't that depressing as normal Indian zoo's can be.

Don't remember the name of this crocodile species. It got this long and small nose or whatever you call it on a crocodile. They look pretty cool.

Smaller type of crocodile relaxing in a small pool.

Piling up on each other.

Boring! Crocodiles resting as usual. What can I do to get some action?

Hmm, you can buy meat from the Crocodile Bank and feed the crocs, why not? I bought 1 kilo of meat for 60 rupees to feed them. It wasn't really a feeding frenzy but at least they started to move and got angry at each other.

Cuddling with the python

BTW, I booked a flight ticket to Keralla again, gonna spend 11th to 14th of April in Cochin and surrounding areas, a long weekend with a lot of book reading and photographing.

Mango update

Current Mango counter

Previous count: 3 pcs + todays Mango milkshake + above shown plate with 2 Mangos

Total Mangos: 6 pcs

Oh Happy Day!

I don't know what kind of people that reads this blog; soo I will explain everything from the beginning. I work for a company that decided to have factory in India and for that they were looking for some crazy person to move down here and supervisor/train people and set up parts of the factory. That person is me!

When building a factory in India; it's not exactly the 'Plug n Play' option that is available. You have to do everything from scratch i.e. no power will be given unless you follow up 50 times with the EB-people (Electricity Board) and no sewage line is given to take care of all the human waste which is created on daily basis (here you think spicy food and you get the picture). Instead you need to build your own very nice STP (Sewage Treatment Plant). STP consist of different pumps, motors, pipes etc; so that the poop and pee pee can be transported from the toilet to a big tank; basically a lot of technical stuff that needs power.

If you have daily power cuts your technical stuff that needs power doesn't work so good and that's exactly the case today. We have a gentle aroma of human feces surrounding the factory this Friday, such a lovely place!

How is your morning in Sweden? Any human poop and pee pee smell?

Over and Out!

Picture of the Day

Boys watching the fishermen pull up the net after a long day of fishing

Mango counter: 3 pcs

Mango, mango and mango

YES! My dear friends, mango season is upon us and Chennai is virtually exploding in mango gluttony. I will have a mango counter on this blog too keep track on how many mangos I can eat in seven weeks. My goal is too eat at least 50 mangos in 49 days so when I move back to Sweden I never want to see a mango in my whole life. Sounds very smart doesn't it?

Alphonsa Mango aka King Mango, my favourite in the mango djungle

Current Mango counter: 2 pcs

Picture of the Day

Man in his round shaped boat caught in the reflecting beam of the sun

My final time in India

My time in Chennai is coming to its end. I have now, in this moment, been living and working in Chennai for more than 20 months on a total 24 month contract. First two month of my contract I spent in Sweden since things were not going that fast as expected with the project but we finally relocated in September 2007. Since I will move back a little earlier than expected due date of the contract I have now only seven weeks left, yeeaaahh!

In this final seven weeks I want to visit following places:
- Visit Andaman Island over a weekend.
- Visit Munnar in Keralla, hill station with tea gardens and fresh and cold(?) air.
- Visit Crocodile Bank. I don't really know why I haven't done this yet. Anyway, it's on my route to Ideal Beach. Probably I'll visit this Saturday.
- If possible, go to Varanasi and experience the most polluted river in India, Ganga River.

That's it, this will probably keep my busy for the last seven weeks and hopefully time will pass by very fast.

Munnar Tea Gardens

Over and Out!