Fort Kochi

One of the places I wanted to see while in Kochi, is Fort Kochi. There is a lot of history here as it was a major port for hundreds of years, and many cultures from around the world had some influence. For example,  the ancient  "chinese fishing nets" can only be seen in this area. There is no other place in the world, other than china, that still has these ancient relics. I really wanted to get some pictures around Fort Kochi, and Sajiv was kind enough to take me there. It was Friday night, and as luck would have it...the sun was setting.

 

I wasn't able to get to many pictures along the beach, but we did stop by a store to see what they were selling.

 

I will let the folks at IdentityMine comment on the gods being represented here, but one is an overweight and chubby elephant that uses a rat for transportation. I'm sure there are a number of folks on the Jenny Craig diet that are envious of someone who is hefty, and yet still light enough to ride a semi-large rat side saddle.

Later, we had dinner at one of the few vegetarian only restaurants in the city. Most restaurants serve meat and veggy dishes, but this one only served veggy. Sajiv had me try some different types of Chaat which is a north India dish. It was very good. Here is a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chat_food

After supper we stopped at the local equivalent of Baskin Robins Ice Cream where you pay by weight...I think my bowl weighed in at the small sumo wrestler size.

During the drive home we had fun talking to men who had too much to drink and pretending to be lost asking everyone for directions. Since being lost is somewhat normal in a place without street maps, everyone is happy to help give you directions.

 

Here is more info on Fort Kochi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Kochi

http://www.cochin.org/history.htm

Hill Palace

There are a number of palaces in India, and Kerala is home to a number of them. Near Kochi, one such palace is the Hill Palace which was built in 1865. The Kochi Royal Family took residence here until royalty went out of style during the modern age.

There are 49 buildings on 52 acres, and the largest archaeological museum in Kerala is on the grounds.

Savi, Franklin and Vijay were kind enough to take me there. They had never been tothe Palace, and so it was a new experience for all of us.

I was allowed to take pictures outside the grounds, but there are no pictures or video allowed within the Palace. So, if you want to see what's inside the palace and museum, you need to be here to pay the entrance fee, which might be why the don't allow pics or video. The four of us debated this issues for a few minutes, and we came to the conclusion that the topic wasn't worth debating...it was more important to spend our time checking out the palace.

Here is the basic 101 entrance sign found at most semi-world wonder sites. If you get a thrill by reading semi-world wonder signs, then click the pic below for a better pic you can zoom into.

 

Here are the steps that lead up to the palace. The girls in the photo have on very nice colors, yellow, purple, blue and green. Click on the pic below to get a nicer pic. I'm sure these girls called each other, and talked for over an hour to make sure they were not wearing the same colors, and who would look better in blue or green.

 

This pic is the entrance to the temple. You can see Vijay, Savi and Franklin in this photo, but I'm not going to provide a high resolution pic of them, because they are so photogenic other girls might want to date them, and I don't want my blog turned into a dating site. On the other hand, I do accept dating e-mail  from very rich widows, but if you have seen my picture on this blog, I doubt a rich widow wants to marry a monkey...even if it's a cute monkey.

 

Here are a few more shots I was able to get outside...remember, I was not allowed to take pics inside. There was security everywhere, and I thought the strip search was a bit too much, but apparently that was only for tourists because Franklin, Savi and Vijay said they had not been "probed".

 

At this point, we went though the palace, and it was great. The museum was nice. We found a vault where a lot of gold jewelery and the king's crown were held. There was also an old Temple on the grounds which had traditional paintings. I was told by someone the architecture was from the Mogul Empire. The comment from the guys were, "There is a lot here. I didn't expect it to be so big. Wow, this really was worth 20 rupees". ..(20 rupees is about 40 cents USD.

Here is another pic:

Yes, this is a T-Rex in the picture, and how it got there, I have no idea. Perhaps the palace guards tracked it down, killed it,  stuffed it, and then used it to scare of potential enemies. Or perhaps, no good museum is complete without a T-Rex for the kids.

Overall, there was a lot to see, and a lot of history and architecture.

All the Hill Palace pics are here

 

If you want to know more, go to these links:

http://www.webindia123.com/monuments/museums/hillpalace.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrippunithura

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochin_Royal_Family

 

Note: One thing to notice about the WebIndia link is that they don't have pics on the inside either. Also, I  think my "palace steps" picture is much better...if you think so too, make a comment, and we can get a petition and perhaps have a million man march to change their ugly pic to my nicer pic.

Note 2: A petition which leads to a million man march comprises of 3 people and a used sticky note. The key is marketing as in all things sold.

 

 

 

Snake Boat Race

 

When I was told about the 54th Nehru Snake boat race on Punnamada lake, I was told it might be hard to see it because it was a very popular event, and people were scrambling to get tickets to one of the top 10 events in India. Once again The kind folks at G.O.C. holiday Maker  (e-mail gocholidaymaker@hotmail.com) did their magic, and they found V.I.P tickets at a pavilion located on the water at the finish line. Anil, founder of G.O.C. and his new business partner James, joined me, and it was great to meet them.

The tickets were available from Punnamada Resort, and I was able to take a few pics at the resort before we left on a boat to the pavillion.

 

Here is a type of boat that is in the race. Click on the picture for a detailed look:

 

You can see that there are almost 100 people rowing in the boat. This is not an ordinary boat race. There are thousands of people in attendance, and the winner gets the Nehru Trophy and 3 lakh (1 lakh is about $2,000 USD).

The boat categories were:

• Exhibition Rowing - 18 boats participated
• Thekkanody Vanitha - 3 boats participated and 10 foreign women joined the Chellikadan team for the win. It was the first time women have participated in a competition item.
• Churulan B Grade - 4 boats
• Churulan A Grade - 4 boats
• Iruttukuthy Grade B - 12 boats
• Iruttukuthy Grade A - 7 boats
• Veppu Grade B - 4 boats
• Veppu Grade A - 8 boats

That's a total of 60 boats in the race. The official start was around 2:30 pm, and the final champion race ended around 6:00pm.

There are actually a lot more boats, but previous elimination matches had been held days if not weeks before until the final 60 boats were left to compete for the prizes.

We did see one boat sink, and they had to pull it out of the water. The good news is that the boat did cross the finish line.

The distance traveled is about 2.5 kilometers (about 1.5 miles). I didn't get the times, but if someone knows the times, please post them in the comments section.

At this point, you are probably expecting a lot of pictures of the race.  After the race was over, someone commented that "what happened here could not be described." I agree with that statement. It can't be described with words or pictures...but what about video?

Click on the link below to either download or watch the video I took of the event. Everything you see and hear was taken at the event, and I have done some editing to make it all a bit more entertaining. The link below is a low quality video, and if you want the higher quality version, contact me.

SnakeRace_LQ.wmv

You can see all the pics here:

My co-workers at IdentityMine gave the following links in case you want to know more about this event.

http://www.nehrutrophyboatrace.com/

http://nehrutrophy.nic.in/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehru_Trophy_Boat_Race

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallam_Kali

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chundan_Vallam

 http://www.keralatourism.org/index.php?source=audio&zone=4&audioid=51

 http://malaysianincanada.blogspot.com/2006/06/vallom-kali.html

 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year...

If you are in Kerala India this week, , you were treated to the new year according to the Malayalam calendar. We had drummers outside of IdentityMine who were part of the festivities. Here are some shots that Vijay took of the drummers.

The drums are wood with leather tops. Also notice the small knoms on the drum strings which are used to tune the drum. We had two groups of drummers pass through, and they were very good. What I found interesting was that no many people took much notice of the event. The comment I got from the folks at the office was, "This happens every year", and then they yawn and go about their business...although a few did sneak a peak out the window to watch for a while to see if the drummers had any dance moves. Apparently, the two groups of drummers we saw were playing modern songs versus the golden oldies. Since most people in Kerala find that Jan 1st is really the new year, I think the lack of excitement for this local cultural event has lost it's flavor due to another event called globalization.

If you want to know more about the Malayalam calendar, wikipedia will com to your rescue. The link is below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayalam_calendar

 

 

 

Operation Infopark

One of the reasons I am in Kerala, India is because they have a very fast growing IT industry here. One example of that is the InfoPark complex in Kochi. Here is a quote from their site- " The Infopark is spread over 100 acres now and still growing, making it one of the largest and advanced locations for the Information Technology industry. The master plan envisages 2 million sqft by 2008."

There are some big company names in the area like Infosys and Wipro which are the largest IT companies in India. The link below is an article from USA Today telling how important Infosys is to the world IT market: (there are over 52,000 employees...that's big)

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-07-30-infosys-india_x.htm

When I found out that InfoPark was in Kochi, I wanted to visit the place to see where all the big IT companies have offices. The closest I had come to seeing the buildings and offices was from the Infopark web site showing the project schedule of the building that are there and what buildings are being built.

http://www.infoparkkochi.com/schedule.php#sdf

Ok. these are nice pics, but I wanted to see this for myself to get a real sense of how big this place is. When I talked to Jobi, Vijay and Franklin, who are my co-workers at IdentityMine, about taking some pics at Infopark, they told me security is very tight. It may not be possible to get pics of the inside, but I could get pics of the outside. As we continued to discuss the situation, a plan was devised to get me inside of the buildings at Infopark. This took weeks of planning and preparation as the execution would be critical. There were numerous guards to avoid, motion sensor's, security cameras...an entire security network that need to be avoided. It was tough work, but when the day came for the break in, we felt really prepared.

 Phase one - Entry

Getting onto the Infopark campus grounds was not that difficult as security was very lacking. As we drove through various security check points, we posed as vistitors who were here to see a particular employee. We knew that security would not check if the employee existed or not, but we did use a valid employee name just in case. We also did surveillance on this particular employee because we knew he was going on vacation. Once the employee was on a plane to Mumbai, we were ready to act on our plans to infiltrate Inforpark.

Phase two - Thapasya

Our first building to penetrate was the Thapasya building. This was the oldest building in Inforpark, and it would be the easiest to breach.

 

You can tell from the pic of the Thapasya building, that we acted on our plan after dusk to make it more difficult for security to recognize us. We were hoping this would be the easiest building to break into because the employee that was on vacation was in this building. So we boldly walked right up, and headed toward the elevator as if we owned the place. The security guard on watch, called us out, and we quickly explained who we were going to visit, and then hurried onto the elevator in case he checked his computer...which he didn't. At this point, we had access to general lobby areas, but nothing to serious. During our planning, we knew that to get into the confidential areas, we needed more than just a ruse like the one we used to get through the first security check at the entrance of the building. So, we looked and found, an inside man. We hooked up with him on the 3rd floor, and because he had a badge, we had access to a lot of areas.

 

 

We got access to Genfocus Infotech and Charter BFO solutions.

 

We easily sneaked into the Smart Solutions Centre which had numerous small companies that rent affordable space. This was not a high espionage area for us, but these small companies do work with larger firms, and we thought it was worth the risk to check it out.

 

With the inside man by our side, it was going so well, we stopped to see what was on the menu at the cafe in the building. We also did some analysis of the ATM security system. We didn't want to trigger any alarms at this point, and it was not part of our main objectives. So, we kept our distance from the ATM and stuck with our plan - "deviating from the plan is when bad things happen", my mentor always used to say.

 

Phase 3 - Vismaya

Once we gathered all the information we could from Thapasya, we headed to the Vismaya building. Our inside man bailed on us at this point. We understood his position, and we let him go. The Vismaya building has the tightest security in the entire compound, but that's where the best kept secrets are as well. This was going to be a tough nut to crack, but things were going well and we were on schedule. We pushed on.

 

As you can tell from the pic above, we waited until dark to access this building. Again the parking security to the building fell for out "visiting an employee" story. When we got to the entrance, we walked right past the security guard without even blinking or looking at him. He did his job, and tried to stop us to ask what we were there for as he noticed we didn't have credentials. At this point, our previous rehearsals and weeks of planning paid off. Jobi and I continued walking, and turned left when we reached a hallway to get out of site. All the while, Franklin and Vijay pitched the "visiting an employee" story. If the guard called the office of the vacationing employee at this point, Franklin and Vijay would kicked out of the building, but Jobi and I were already inside snapping pics.

 

Luckily, the guard didn't follow through, and Franklin and Vijay met up with us about a minute later. While taking the shot above, the same guard at the entrance followed Franklin and Vijay to tell them they were not allowed to take pictures. Jobi and I were almost seen, but we managed to hide from site until we knew the guard was back at his post.

At this point, we were once again inside. But getting confidential information was going to be difficult without an inside man. So, we went from office to office looking for the vacationing employee. We thought we were home free when we reached the top floor, and there must have been a dozen security guards at this point. So, the gig was up. We managed to get the elevator door shut before they could reach us, and we got off on the 5 floor. At this point, the alarms were going off and security people were scrambling everywhere.

Phase 4 - Escape

 

I was able to take these shots as we ducked into a storage room, and after that we were checking the stairways. Sometimes we had to go up a floor as echoes of shuffling feet came from the lower stairwell. We knew we had to get out of the building fast. The longer we stayed the more chance we could get caught. What saved us was that other employees started exiting their offices which created enough chaos that we slipped back into the main entrance lobby without being seen. But as we quickly walked out the entrance, the security guard remembered seeing us, and we were on a flat run to the car at that point. It was almost pitch dark at this point, and we knew that would help us if we had to make a quick escape.

We got to the car, and Jobi, who was our driver, cranked up the engine, revved it once, dropped into first gear, and floored the gas pedal. The wheels squealed and the backend was fishtailing which threw us around for a few seconds until Jobi regained some control. When I looked back, all I saw was a few dozen flash lights being aimed in our direction by the security guards who were giving chase on foot.

 

I was able to get the pic above while we were were whizzing by at break neck speed dodging other vehicles. This is the Leela Infopark building which is the newer building. While we were casing the Infopark weeks earlier, we didn't target this building because only a very few number of companies had moved in. I only hoped we made a good choice going to Vismaya instead of Leela.

The problem at this point was that the electronic security gates could close off the entire compound, but we knew that it took almost 30 seconds to close them. Also, they could only be closed by the security personnel at the entrance of the Infopark compound.  I could only hope that there was enough chaos back at Vismaya, it would cause a delay in closing the gates. If the gates were closed, we would have to reach a very high speed to crash through it, and anything can happen after that...a punctured tire, the driver could lose control...a lot of bad things can happen. As we got closer to the Infopark entrance, we saw the gates closing, but they were not completely shut yet. Jobi kicked in the nitro tank, and all of us were slammed back into our seats. In a matter of only 1 or 2 seconds, we reached the gate very quickly, but the gate was closing just as quick. I heard the shattering of glass, the car floated a little bit, and I thought we might flip the car, but the car came back down. When I looked back, the gate was closed, and the cars two side view mirrors were laying on the road. The security guard was waving his fist in the air, and then went to the security phone to tell his peers what just happened.

Once we reached a main crossroad we turned left, and started running though back alleys. It was touch and go, but after about an hour, we made it back to Riverdale Resort.  Jobi, Vijay and Franklin headed back home as they needed to make sure their alibis were covered. Overall, it was a successful operation in the fact that we achieved the mission without casualty or a compromise of identity - mission accomplished.

Note: Peoples names have been altered to protect the guilty.

Here are some more links in case you need to case the joint for your own purposes:

All the Infopark pics are here

http://www.infosys.com/home.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infosys

http://www.infoparkkochi.com/atoz.php

 

 

Alleppey Beach

In the previous post, I blogged about the Alleppey Backwater. I mentioned that the backwater comes from the rains in the mountains, and it fills the lakes and canals before reaching the sea. This begs the question, how far is it from the backwater to the sea. The answer is not very far, less that 3 kilometers. I think you know what happens next.

The kind folks at G.O.C. holiday Maker  (e-mail gocholidaymaker@hotmail.com) in Kochi set me up at the Alleppey Beach Resort which was a 3 star resort. The prices are more modest here for the average tourist. I talked with the owner, and he said the place is for those people who love the beach, and therefore it's not designed to be glamorous or fancy like the 4 start resorts because the focus is on the beach. I will say that the restaurant is 4 star as well as the service. The fish masala was amazing, and the chappati almost melted in your mouth like a fluffy hot biscuit. You can get a room with A/C or without, and there are different sizes to fit all.

All the room pics are here

As you can see, the room is more basic than the Lake Palace Resort room, but the stay here is much more affordable for those on a middle income budget. Also, it's really not about the room. It's about the beach. So, let's head out to the beach through the resort grounds.

All the grounds pics are here

Once we walk through the gate we are on the top levee area of the beach. Here is a view from that location.

All the top bank pics are here

Only a few meters away is the bottom levee which is only about a meter high down a sandy slope. There were crows hopping around looking for leftovers, and a couple of dogs that were sun bathing. If you sat still in places where the birds went away, the small crabs would come out of their holes and try to find food or do housekeeping on their tunnels. It's always amazing to see how slow and stealthy a crab can be, but when a bird fly's over, it becomes a cheetah back to it's sandy hole. The following pics were taken as I headed south down the beach.

All the day pics are here

There were a few fishing boats going here and there, and I noticed some fishing nets about 30 meters out into the water. You may have noticed that there are no people in the pictures. I would see locals from time to time walking up or down the beach, but generally, there wasn't a lot of activity. Every now an then some kids would want me to take their picture. I found it interesting that they knew I had an LCD screen on the camera because after  I took their picture, they wanted to see what they looked like.

All the people pics are here

Too the north, there is an interesting rusted away pier that I was told was not that old, but it wasn't being maintained after it was built. I actually took these pics on another day, and that is why the surf is much higher.

All of the other day pics are here

As the day moved into late afternoon, I started getting excited because it looked like I might have a chance of seeing a sunset. There were not many clouds, and I was hoping for the best.

All the late afternoon pics are here

As the sun began to set, the fisherman began to pull in their nets from shore. I never saw any large catches, but the occasional fish here and there. Since there were dozens of nets all along the shoreline, I guess all the small catches accumulated to something they could sell at the local market.

I didn't think I would get a good sunset picture when I came to the resort. I was going to be happy to get a few good shots of the beach, but mother nature blessed me with a spectacular show of her beauty which I was more than happy to document with my camera.

All the sunset pics are here

One thing that occured to me as the fisherman were gathering their nets during the sunset was that these people see this spectacle many times during the year. Yet, they too stood and watched the final fiery glory of the sun sinking into the ocean. At that moment, fisherman and tourist, where nothing more than spectators to the end of another day from the centuries of long ago.

 

 

Alleppey BackWater

One of the problems with working in India is that I'm not on vacation, and I really only have the weekends to explore.  That may seem like a restriction that would have me watching the 3rd grade parade down main street or stuck watching the high school play for entertainment, but the state of Kerala has a lot to offer the weekend tourist. There is great pride here around the amount of diversity and splendor that exists within the borders of Kerala.

To find out what was available, I contacted G.O.C. Holiday Maker (P) Ltd. here in Kochi. You can e-mail them at gocholidaymaker@hotmail.com . G.O.C. stands for Gods Own Country by the way. The first trip they helped me with was the Back Water trip to Alleppey. It was really amazing...but don't take my word for it - look at the pics and judge for yourself.
 

After arriving at Alleppey, I was dropped off on to a boat that would take me to the resort I would be staying in. I was staying in Lake Palace Resort which is only accessible by boat. The boat ride started through a canal out to an open water area called the Vembanad Lake, and then we turned right to dock at the resort. It was about a 15 minute trip, and it was a good introduction to the backwater.

Boat to resort pics - click here to see all the pics to the resort. You can also click on the pics below to see a more detailed image.

 

The Lake Palace Resort is a 4 star resort. So, lets see what make it 4 stars instead of 3 stars. First, here are pics of lobby area.

Here are all the lobby pics

As you can see, this is a very nice place. Granite and marble floors and very nice wood work through out along with intricate stain glass work. The craftsmanship is definitely at a medium high end level which was a bit of a surprise given the resort is in the middle of a lake. The restaurant is up the stairs, and they serve a buffet for breakfast and dinner. This gave me an opportunity to try a lot of different things I have never eaten. Since I have been here for over 2 months now, about a third of the dishes I have never tried. The food in general ranged from Indian, Chinese and English. For example, they had potato salad and cantaloupe which I never expected to see here.

While I'm talking about food, here is there menu. You will find that prices are more expensive here than the RiverDale Resort Menu. Click on the picture to see all the pictures of the menu. You can download the pics, and zoom in if you have a hard time reading them.

 

With a full stomach, a little heart burn and a bathroom break, we can walk around the grounds of the resort to get some needed exercise. Here is a panoramic view from the second floor of the lobby. Click on the picture for a more detailed image.

There is a small lake in the middle of the grounds, and in the middle of that lake is the swimming pool. So, the swimming pool is inside a small man made lake, which is in the middle of Lake Palace Resort, which is in the middle of a Vembanad Lake, which is part of the entire Back Water eco-system...and yes, I'm in the middle of the swimming pool.

There are some great flora and fauna within the grounds, and parts of the roof architecture can only be found in the state of Kerala.

Here are all the grounds pics

Walking around has probably made everyone a little thirsty and hot. So, let's go to the room and relax. My room was facing Vembanad Lake, and there was a nice breeze off the lake that day. There is A/C in the room if it gets too warm, but sitting on the porch and watching the boats go by was very relaxing.

Here are all the room pics

With a bit of rest and relaxation and a lack of any stress levels, it's time for the finale to our symphony - a sunset tour of the back water which will take over 2 hours. As I've stated before, I'm in India during monsoon season which means almost no tourists. This really worked very much to my advantage as I was the only person to join on the nights sunset tour of the back water. Normally, the hotel puts people on a large boat, and they cruise the different lakes. But since there were only a few joining on this night (one to be exact), I was placed in the small boat. The significance of the small boat is that it can travel through the small canals where people live their daily lives in and around the water ways. It's like traveling back in time as women are beating their clothes to wash them, men are rowing canoes with merchandise to sell to a local supplier, and kids are bathing and washing themselves.

Before we start the journey through the back waters, I should mention that all the water you will see is all fresh water . There is over 80 kilometers of fresh water ways and lakes which exist within the eco-system. The backwaters is a creation of nature and man. The rainfall from the high lands rushes toward the sea only to be stopped by the myriad of lakes. Over time, people have extended and redirected waterways to isolate pockets of land where rice is grown. At the end of the blog post, I have links to help you learn more about the back water eco-system that claims its home in Kerala India.

The boat you are about to travel in has a small prop engine to get you around, and it looks like this:

 

We started off across the lake, and followed a house boat down a large canal to the next lake. These large house boats are for rent, and you can stay on them as long as you like. After that we went through small canals to get to the next lake - note the small bridge over the canal.

Here is a nice pic in one of the canals. One thing to remember is that the bigger boats can't go into these canals.

There were restaurants and small shops along the route. The isolated rice fields were vast in size. They seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see.

Locals were shuttling produce to local markets via canoe. Hopefully they didn't have far to go because it would be easy to get lost in the maze of canals. Major water way areas have signs to help people navigate the area. In this case, it's 17 kilometers to Takazhi.

Toward the end of the trip, we stopped off at someone's house, and they gave me a tender coconut to drink and eat. These are young coconuts which are beginning to mature. The water in them has a sweet flavor, and the meat is very tender. Along the way back, I saw a floating crane that was clearing the bottom of a canal. Like I mentioned before, the Back Water is a creation of natural and man made events.

Here are all the back water pics

 

This concludes the Alleppey Back Water trip. I hope you enjoyed the experience...if you happen to stop by this way, make sure it's on your adventure to do list. Here are some other links if you want to know more about the area. If you have other links you would like to share, feel free add them to the comments section.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleppey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alappuzha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_Backwaters

http://alappuzha.nic.in/

 

If there are specific pictures that inspire you to the degree of wanting the original, let me know, and I will send it to you - support1@therhogue.com .

 

 

Facial Reactivity

I was in the Mithra store today, and I was talking with the manager...I think it was the manager anyway - very nice guy. We were in a lengthy discussion while I was being checked out, and he asked how long I was going to be here in India. I replied, "Until May of next year". At that moment I got a typical reaction, and I thought folks should know what they look like when I make that statement to them.

The first thing that happens is the eyes widen and bulge out, and then there is a gasp of air that is released repeating my last words in the form of a question "next year???". So the typical reaction is a wide eyed gasping burp of sorts. It's very funny, and I try not to laugh.

For those of you who have told others about my story, you may have seen the same facial reactivity (yes, reactivity is a word. Look it up if you don't believe me). If so, please comment and post pictures of the reaction. I really don't have the nerve to take someone's picture during this odd facial expressive moment.

I'm noticing that the people I work with, who have had similiar facial moments, are now accepting the reality of my visit like a stray puppy who sits on your door step every morning looking at you with its sad eyes. Over time, you can't help but feed the poor helpless beast, which is of course the worst thing to do. I guess this is a warning to those folks around me right now...do not feed the stray foreigner as it will only encourage him.

There are a few other facial expressions I've seen from those who don't know my story. One is the head tilting, squinty eyed, ebrows pulled down "who is this person, and what are they doing here" look. There is the "what the ****" look, and we all know that look. Another look is a "what is that laying on the ground, and should I touch it" look. Yet another is the constant stare, "I've never seen that before, what is it, and where did it come from." look. The best look is the jaw dropping, dumb-founded, blankless expression, while rubbing the eyes "It's not real. It's not real, no, no, no, keep saying it, it's not real" mantra look.

I think the moral of this story is that if you are living an interesting life people will always look at you in the strangest of ways. I know that when I bicycled from Seattle to Orlando, the facial reactivity meter went off the chart.

While I'm on the subject, here are some other facial reactivity moments:

"I'm at the Police Station."

"You missed our anniversery."

"Honey, I'm pregnant."

"Dad, I'm pregnant."

"I'm at the Hospital."

"I told you that milk was bad."

"Is that your car alarm going off?"

"Didn't you lock the door?"

"Is that gas I smell?"

"Now is the time to use your cushion as a floatation device"

If you have a comment that has caused massive contorted facial reactivities (yes,reactivities is a word also)...Please post it in the comments section.

Real Men don't Drive

Fact: In India, the real men don’t drive, they cross the street.

Have you jumped out of enough airplanes to find it is now boring? Is bungee jumping off tall bridges now old and tiring? You’ve done extreme sports, but would like to find something new.

Try our new XCrossing to the Max tour in India to get that sense of excitement and adrenaline back into your life. We go to the most dangerous road intersections in India, and you try to cross the street. There are no crosswalks or lights to protect you, and you are at the mercy of local drivers attempting to avoid you. Here is a video from one of our clients:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9DLlMMXhKg

 

Here is another area we make you cross the street. We have a figure 8 pattern for those who want to push the limits :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjrEQaG5jPM

 

In this video you will see some occasional XCrossers who are refining their skills in upcoming tournaments:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUV7lh-Oo4E

 

We also have different tournaments for those with a truly competitive spirit. Our highly professional Judges not only time you, but give you points for getting “way to close”. Of course, getting hit is a penalty. Our local ambulance will be nearby to rescue you, and they are professional Cross Walkers. So, you are in safe hands when trying to get back to the ambulance while on the gurney.  You must have proof of medical coverage before you can enter a tournament or participate in any XCrossing activities. You must also sign a waiver that we at “XCross Walkers Inc.” are not liable for any damage done to a vehicle.

Put some excitement and risk back into your life by walking across the street. Join us along with thousands of others who are participating in this fun and enjoyable new age sport.

Note: in a previous post (give link) I mentioned that folks in India don’t have drivers license. That is not completely true. Each person is required to take a drivers examination to get a drivers license, but passing the examination is not a requirement.