Battle royale in traffictown

A peek into the slum near my house

Now that the weather is entirely manageable - it only this week finally dipped into the high twenties - it is a joy to walk the 3km to work every morning. I would love to be able to say it's peaceful and calm at 8am but I would be spinning a yarn; it is chaos. Clunky clanky school buses that look like they were birthed in the 1950s trundle along full of chattering children, excited for the day ahead. I often get a sea of small hands reaching out to wave to me as I pass, which is entirely sweet and smile-inducing. Ancient sinewy men sing out to advertise their steel pots of hot sugary chai, to be gulped down in tiny measures for a couple of rupees. Teenagers in school uniforms linger at the roadside, gobbling down greasy snacks before the academic day begins, staring wide-eyed at me as I pass.

These days I take a quiet road through the side of one of the slums, where livestock and barefoot children rush about giddily, squeaking and squawking, shrieking and squealing.


The nearby slum

It is not unusual for a young child to stop in their tracks when they see me coming; they point in curiousity and horror at this pale-skinned monster with a mound of fiery hair bearing down upon them. Sometimes they can be charmed with a smile, other times they flee in genuine fear. This never ceases to be hilarious. Over the last couple of weeks, are a trillion small fires daily, burning leaves and rubbish, creating noxious fumes that make for a chokey smokey atmostphere reminiscent of a soft-focus 80s music video.


The quiet back road at the start of my journey to work

Despite this, I love being able to get out in the hustle and bustle of the morning and battle for my own space on the road, which is what I wanted to write about today. Oh, the battle.

The roads here are truly a battleground of hierarchies, with everyone and everything struggling for space and supremacy. Trucks, buses, vans, jeeps, cars, tuk-tuks, motorbikes, cyclists and pedestrians... that is the descending order of importance on the roads here. You will notice that it correlates directly with the size of the vehicles. For example, a truck will happily pull out in front of a tuk-tuk in the knowledge that if there is a crash the truck will be fine. Similarly, tuk-tuks will weave dangerously close to cyclists, and cyclists have near-crashes with pedestrians daily. The long road from my apartment to the turn-off at Mayfair is paved but has no path, so the pedestrians are right in there with the rest of the traffic. I am quickly learning the balance between being assertive in negotiating my own space and also knowing when to JUMP OUT OF THE WAY when a vehicle is hurtling directly towards me.

What is missing from the above-listed chain of command is, of course, the cows. The cows rule the roads here in Bhubaneswar. They slumber happily in the middle of a thronged three-lane road, waking only to flick away some flies or lazily shift their weight in their sleep. All the while, two-, three-, and four-wheelers rumble rapidly and noisily down the roads, swerving carefully to avoid the cows. It is taken for granted that cows lie on roads. Even the busiest, most congested roads will feature cows, who are effortlessly smug in the knowledge that they are safe from all harm. The important thing to remember as a pedestrian is that cows rule, humans do not. Although a tuk-tuk will attempt an impossible manoevre to avoid hitting a cow, it will not afford you the same luxury - so get the hell out of the way!


Ah yes, a perfect place to linger; in the middle of the road

I asked Ravi one day what would happen if a car hit a cow. "Oooh", he said, visibly grimacing at the thought. "First there would be a beating", he mused carefully. "Then, when the bugger is properly taken care of, the police would come and they would also give a beating". Bloody hell. Suddenly the immense care taken to avoid hitting the bovine road users makes perfect sense.


Sleepy road cow

On my walk this morning, a speedy wee tuk-tuk came belting straight for me as I walked at the edge of the road. It was beeping incessantly and the driver was waving like a madman. Once upon a time I would have thought this perhaps meant "get out of my way" or even "be careful, you might get hit". Ha, not at all. This is the technique employed by many tuk-tuk drivers to convince you to jump in the back of their vehicle for a lift. As a general rule I try to avoid getting into the tuk-tuks that try to run me over to get my attention; this rule has served me well so far.

I haven't had the misfortune of witnessing any road accidents yet, touch wood. My American colleague Laura has only been here a matter of weeks and has already seen a motorbike crash as well as a bull and a cow making babies in the middle of the road. I think I had a lucky escape on both counts.

To celebrate a birthday in India is a lovely thing indeed

Thanks India for a great birthday! Martin somehow arranged with a local florist to deliver roses, wine and chocolates to my office which was received with many shrieks and much joy. I think he is still in shock that (a) they actually got delivered, (b) they came on the right day and (c) the delivery man didn't swipe half of the chocolate en route. Success!


Excuse the bad photo, taken with my phone in my office

The roses were beautiful, deep deep crimson red beautifully wrapped and tied with ribbon. To add the obligatory Indian twist, the flowers were sprinkled with silver glitter, the same kind you use as a child to make handmade cards. I now have a glittery work desk and found a piece of glitter on my face this morning when I woke up. Ah, the joys of glitter.


You can just about make out the glitter - plus the wine!

The best part of the delivery was the card - it's hard not to love oddly placed speech marks. Happy "birthday" indeed!



I also received a fantastic package from my parents with some essentials from home, including CHOCOLATE COINS. Holy bejeebus, it's a bag of chocolate coins. My Indian colleagues had never seen these before and they were all devoured pretty quickly. Our driver speaks minimal English and is therefore difficult to communicate with, but was clearly enamoured with these chocolates; I found him turning one over and over in his hand muttering 'looks like five rupees, hmm' to himself.



My new colleague, Laura, also spoiled me silly. On Tuesday she took me to The Breeze restaurant where there is the most spectacularly delicious all-you-can eat buffet. We had some gorgeous chickeny cabbagey garlicky broth followed by an enormous plate of spicy chicken, corn cooked in spinach, paneer butter masala, fresh naan bread, jasmine rice... wowza. It was a lot of food. We were totally stuffed but managed to squeeze in a bit of dessert as you can see below... beautifully delicate creme caramel scented with cardamom and sticky sugary gulab jamun, which is a sort of Indian version of a deep fried donut soaked in sweet syrup.


Lunchtime desserts; so decadent

To continue the spoiling, Laura later presented me with a gorgeous bag of gifts from my favourite shop here, Fab India. Included in this is my first dupatta which is a type of Indian scarf; I'm delighted about this as it will be invaluable on my trip to Ireland next month.


Gorgeous goodies from Fab India

Last night I went for a delicious meal with Juliet, Claudia and Katti, and we were joined by a Frenchman named Leo and an American tourist (a tourist! In Bhubaneswar!) named Joe. We had gorgeous big plates of Chinese food and I thoroughly welcomed the break from Indian cuisine for a night. I've no photos of the evening but it was marked by lots of good food and laughter. A quick pint in the Mayfair pub on the way home (the restaurant didn't serve beer - quite typical here) brought a close to the evening and put a grin on my face. Wonderful birthday, wonderful people. Thanks everyone!

Bali Yatra, the filthy fair of the East

Welcome to Bali Yatra

I had hoped to visit an elephant reserve this weekend, but plans for such a trip were quickly scuppered when I was quite candidly told by the tour operator that the chances of seeing any elephants (or any animals at all) in the reserve were slim to none. Hmm. Instead, Laura (American), Claudia (German), Juliet (English) and Katti (German) and I decide to take a trip 25km north of Bhubaneswar to visit Bali Yatra. This is touted as the biggest trading fair in the east of India and has been hyped in the newspapers all week. It looks like a good opportunity to do some Christmas shopping and explore another part of Orissa, so off we go.

We take the bus from Bhubaneswar to Cuttack, which in itself is almost a feat worthy of praise. Taking a bus here can be difficult in a group, as demand is high and seats therefore scarce. Upon arriving at the bus stop (or 'bus stand', as it is known here), we find a bus destined for Cuttack - however it is clearly VERY FULL with no available seats, despite the driver telling us otherwise and trying to usher us onto the bus. He gets quite aggressive when we tell him we'll wait for the next bus, and begins shouting in our faces; if our minds weren't made up already then they sure as hell are now. We shout back 'jao, jao!' (my terrible attempt at spelling the Oriya for 'leave, leave!') and after another bout of aggression he relucantly leaves us and the bus rumbles off. PHEW.

We just about squeeze on to the next bus, so 15 rupees (€0.21) and one hour later we arrive in Cuttack. In terms of aesthetics, it looks very similar to Bhubaneswar, albeit a little older and more dated. It has a sort of ramshackle visual charm tempered by a strong smell of urine that makes it doable for a daytrip but perhaps not pleasant to inhabit long-term. The roads are squishier and smaller than Bhubaneswar and the crowding more pronounced, though admittedly we are arriving on the 3rd day of Bali Yatra so a throng or three is to be expected.

Cuttack is the old capital of Orissa, before Bhubaneswar claimed the moniker in 1948. It is famous for it's delicate filigree silver so I am looking forward to some jewellery shopping. It is my birthday this week and I have been given money to shop for gifts for myself; vunderbar!

The 5 of us somehow pile in to a tiny tuk-tuk which fortunately comes with a tiny driver; as you can see he is hemmed in from all sides.



Arriving at the fair, we realise we may be slightly early. It is almost 2pm but many stalls are not yet open; some stall holders are clearly not ready to start work yet.




The fair is a vast expanse of commerce with a staggering variety of stalls. Crockery, handmade shoes, cooking oil, ice-cream, handicrafts and children's toy stalls are all jumbled and muddled together, seemingly in no order whatsoever. I do enjoy seeing this stall which is manned by a rather stern looking woman in a sari; I wonder what she thinks of my inadvertent giggles as I snap a quick photo. Whoops.



I should mention at this point how HOT the weather is. It has been cooling off lately and I find myself needing a blanket at night, so I am completely unprepared for the sweltering heat in Cuttack. It is mid-thirties and I am sweating. Just browsing the stalls is exhausting. Luckily there are wonderful places to get fresh fruit juices to keep us going.



It is also worth mentioning how absolutely bloody filthy the place is. We stop for ice-cream at one point and then realise there are no bins in which to put our rubbish. This no-bin rule seems to extend to the entire fair. This is in spite of the fact that the fair has been planned for months and the organisers knew to expect over one million visitors over four days. There are mounds of rubbish everywhere; empty juice cartons, plastic bags, old newspapers and of course the obligatory cow shit. I don't see any toilets during the whole day either, and it appears that people are using the banks of the nearby river for this purpose. I am unfortunate enough to see a man's bare arse as he stands up after relieving himself. This place is literally a shithole.

I have a good rant about this to Dad on Skype on Sunday and on Tuesday this piece appears in the newspaper... it is nice to see an Indian paper reporting on lack of sanitation as it often seems to be accepted here and taken for granted. I'm not sure why my photograph was put alongside the article but nevermind!



After some rather muted meandering in the hot hot heat, we finally find our way to the area where handicrafts are sold. Many of these are run by SHGs (Self-Help Groups) and by tribal women. Just finding this area is enormously difficult as the fairground literally stretches for miles and miles. In this area are some truly beautiful items. Bronze vases, handmade rugs, carved rocking chairs, delicate jewellery boxes, bed linen, even ornamental elephants.









We take a break for lunch and enjoy some phenomenally greasy noodles for 25 rupees a plate (€0.36). By this stage we are hot, tired and slightly market-weary. We cannot for the life of us find where the silver section is and getting directions in English is near impossible. Eventually we give up and pile into a bus for the trip back home. My shopping was minimal though I did get one or two bits for people back home. On that note, less than five weeks until I'm back on Irish soil... get the Guinness ready there, barkeep.

Put the yum yums in my face hole

Paneer butter masala

I've been enjoying the food here a lot lot more than I had expected. I was more worried about the food before I arrived than anything else due to my low (see: wussy) tolerance of fiery chilli. I shouldn't have been so concerned. In Orissa the food is heavily spiced without being overly spicy; big on flavours without burning your face off. There is still the odd time I'll order badly in a restaurant and get something overly fiesty and infused with heat. This typically results in me leaving the restaurant still partially hungry, with a crimson face, suckling on a bottle of chilled water and rueing my menu choices.

I have a fantastic kitchen here, with a two-stove gas burner that has had a lot of action lately. My evenings are quiet and usually consist of Skyping and laughing at episodes of Community (so, so good) so I have plenty of time to cook and experiment with food. I invested in three cookbooks here; one on general 'Indian cooking', one for paneer (the local cheese - sort of like a firm cottage cheese that you can fry), and one for pressure cooking (this deserves a blog entry of its own). I can now happily while away my evenings cooking different recipes with a variety of spices, making my kitchen into a giant but delicious-smelling mess. Here's some of the meals I've been concocting in the past week... there has been a lot of paneer as I bought a kilo of it and I'm slowly working my way through it. Luckily it goes with everything and is super super tasty.



Creamy curry with paneer and peas



Potato and paneer koftas in a yogurt and cashew nut sauce