Most beautiful Cape Town
I have almost lived my whole life in Cape Town. Just less than 3 years ago we departed the beautiful Cape for a 2 year stint in Johannesburg – and thereafter departed for India.
I have never regretted the moves because of the tremendous life experience I have gained from living and working in new places. And moving away from Cape Town has also opened my eyes to its true beauty that I have taken for granted for so many years.
During our most recent visit Marga and I often stood and stared at the sky many times in the day. It is a long time since we have seen the sky dressed in a magnificent blue that becomes darker in the evening as the light fades.
In India the sky is normally a greyish colour and we never see the true blue sky here. (We do see many other wonders and colours here, but the sky is more dull than at home)
We spent just more than a week in the Cape together and had the time to sneak a peak of Table Mountain from Blouberg beach.
Reflections on Terror
I’m home alone in Hyderabad and my options in the evening are to work, watch tv, have in depth conversations with Raju… or to blog …
I now also have time to think and reflect on life in India and the recent events that unfolded here.
Almost two months ago terrorists attacked Mumbai in a cowardly and headline grabbing attack.
Images such as the ones below grabbed the attention everywhere in the world and brought life to a standstill in Mumbai for a few days:
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Christmas in Hyderabad
Last year my mom, sister, brother and his fiancée decided to visit us for an Indian Christmas.
As they only visited for 11 days, our options to show them a bit more of India were limited, but we did have some memorable moments. For a true Indian experience, Theo asked Raju to organise two auto-rickshaws to Shilparamam, a handicraft village in Hyderabad and true paradise for shoppers and negotiators. The baby-to-be and I deemed it more comfortable (and safer) to take the less bumpy option with Sajid in our Innova.
Making the brochure
Another Christmas has sailed by, this time a bit warmer than our previous one.
Last year (2007) we had our first ever white Christmas, when we went skiing in Austria (at Zell-am-see). On this trip we made two new friends – Gareth & Roxy with whom who tore up the Austrian slopes.
But as Christmas time approached, Gareth and Roxy (who visited us recently in Hyderabad) sent us a very excited sms saying that the 4 of us made the Ski brochure for the next season.
Starring in a ski brochure!
Genuinely deserved affirmation that we enjoyed our skiing Christmas holiday to the maximum. This is an achievement which we are extremely proud of. We had so much fun that our snow adventures can be used as marketing material to entice others to tackle the same slopes.
Our Northern experience
Before leaving for my extended stay in SA at the end of December, Theo decided to organise one more of his amazing trips for the two of us – probably also our last holiday as a carefree, childless couple.
We headed North, to where it is notably cooler this time of year (in Hyderabad they also talk of their “cold season” this time round, wear jerseys over their sarees etc., but we’re still waiting for the average daily temperature of 30 degrees C to drop a little further!).
Rajasthan – Jaipur
Our first stop was Jaipur in Rajasthan (next to the Thar Desert) – India’s first planned city (and indeed, most of the streets are parallel to each other!). Although quite dry and neglected (as most cities in India), we were pleasantly surprised by its high hills, covered with wild plants. It is also called the Pink City, as one of its rulers had all the buildings painted pink in 1853 to welcome the Prince of Wales who was about to visit.
This time we could only stay in Jaipur for two nights and had one day to admire the city’s colourful and creative handwork and architecture, which almost has an old-world charm to it – but we are planning to go back … We visited the Rambagh Palace – also called the “Jewel of Jaipur” and occupied by the Jaipur royal family until 1957, after which it was converted into a luxury hotel. We were shown the room of the prince, which his mother, the Maharani of Jaipur (who is still alive), had built especially for him. Theo and I were astounded by the sheer luxury, size, lavish furniture and huge crystal chandeliers (not to mention the stunning marble, gold and crystal bathroom), and were disappointed that we didn’t take our cameras along!
We’re fine
There were terrorist attacks in Mumbai last night where several people were killed.
One of the hotels attacked is the beautiful and historic Taj Mahal hotel.
(We were there less than a month ago with my parents).
We are currently in Agra at the actual Taj Mahal monument – very far from Mumbai.
So we are safe.
Moving Up, Monkey-gate & Miles apart …
We have mentioned our driver, Sajid, in earlier posts. Admittedly he is a less colourful character than the ever present Raju.
Marga and Raju’s interaction are the stuff of legends and if the creators of Madam & Eve (a very popular cartoon in SA) ever want to expand to India, then Madam & Raju have the makings of a super hit. (And within previous blogs are the potential script for the first month’s worth of cartoons).
As a huge fan of Madam & Eve I just couldn’t resist throwing in one of the cartoons in this blog:
Moving on up
The main purpose of the blog is to give an update on our driver Sajid, who seems to be making some progress and moving up in the world. He is a very pleasant person and a total “padvark” (road hog), which makes him the perfect driver here in India.
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From hawkers and stalkers to palm trees and beaches
The week before Theo’s parents headed back home, we gave them a glimpse of the fast life in Mumbai and ended it off with one of my favourite places in India so far: Goa.
The hawkers and stalkers at the Gateway of India in Mumbai again didn’t disappoint, and Theo and I had plenty of opportunity to practice a few Hindi one-liners Abdul, our Hindi teacher, had taught us to get rid of them. Unfortunately most of them were so intrigued by these caucasian beings uttering their language, instead of feeling offended, they clung to us, trying to get us to talk more Hindi!
Theo had a long conversion with one of the hawkers about the size of his balloons. A few of our colleagues have been caught out by these balloon salesmen. They carry very large, blown-up balloons, but often when a tourist buys a packet of these, they turn out to be normal-sized balloons. Given that the conversation with Theo was in Hindi, the salesman proudly displayed the packets of small balloons (which he admitted he normally gives to tourists) and the packets of larger balloons (which are significantly larger, even when not inflated) that he said we would be receiving! We weren’t in the market for balloons, though …
Boom!!!!
We just enjoyed/survived our first Diwali in Hyderabad, and boy what an audio-visual experience!
Firecrackers have been going off for 3 days and on Tuesday it really felt like living in Baghdad at the height of the aerial bombardments! It is really difficult to try and capture Diwali in pictures or video because it is a 360 degree, 3-dimensional, surround-sound experience.
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Floating in God’s own country
As I’m writing this it sounds like I writing from the middle of a war zone. It is Diwali over here and boy is it bright and loud! But we’ll leave that to another blog.
We have guests:
My parents are visiting India and we are touring and exploring India with them.
Theo Scheffler