Monday in Chandigarh: A cautionary tale of lost and found.

This is a wordy blog today due to the internet being a bit flakey and so pics will come later.

So where do I begin

To tell the story of how great a day can be....

Started off with a lovely breakfast of omelets on toast, with poha, a rice with stir fried peanuts flavoured with cardamon. 

Followed by apple, grapefruit and pear slices.

The we (Chris, Anamika and I)headed off to the big city for some shopping and a bit of sightseeing with a somewhat vague plan. We were able to ride into town with Anya one of the daughters of the owner of Aura Pottery. 

My lovely friend Amritpal had told me that I must see the Rock Garden in Chandigarh so that was on the list for today. 

We started off in the Rose Garden which was a bit of a disappointment as it is totally the wrong season as the bushes are just starting their growth, There were a number with a few blooms but mostly    bare bushes.

 

But a fascinating place as it is the largest rose garden in Asia covering 40.25 acres with 825 varieties but with over 32,500 plants.

Saw some more of those lovely cute squirrels, boy are they fast.

There were some lovely trees in bloom

and an interesting fountain

and the rubbish bins were quite cute, though not used often.

We then headed across the road to the ‘Adventure Park’ where I was accosted by a young lad aged about 8 or so who wanted to shine my shoes. I was wearing my canvas shoes and luckily Anamika was able to translate and tell him I didn’t have leather shoes but he wanted to clean the soles and edgings. We managed to dissuade him and moved on. The Leisure Park was a bit of a washout but there was an interesting replica of the Eiffel Tower off to one side

and then we were distracted by a man riding a camel.

This was obviously a tourist attraction. We wandered over the road to the Natural History Museum but it being Monday it was closed. While we were outside the gate the camel, handler and rider came over and paused by the low wall. The rider then stepped off the camel onto the wall and then stepped down off the wall. Very clever. Using the wall rather then have the camel kneel on the road. 

So then we decided to walk to the Rock Garden but realized it was a bit far so we caught an ‘auto’.

Autos are essentially tuktuks the 3 wheeled transports often seen in Bali and Indonesia. They are everywhere here and a very common mode of transport. In Chandigarh the majority are green and yellow. 

So we haggled our price and got in. We learned to stay in the background while Anamika discussed the price as when they saw us foreigners the price rose considerably. 

Now traveling by road is a very interesting experience especially in an auto.....

road rules are fluid, give way when all other options have been tried, honk your horn to let people know you are here, travel in the opposite lane until you pass 15 vehicles or another vehicle comes head on towards you, head around the corner almost on two wheels and when pulling out into traffic just GO!

We managed to get to the Rock Garden in one piece, heaved a sigh of relief, paid our ₹30 entry fee each and headed in through a small door in a wall. 

!!WELL!!
What an amazing place. It was started in 1958 by a man who took rocks and waste ceramic materials home and started building a fantasy place where “Gods, Man and Beast could live together in harmony”.

The government found it in 1973 after he had built around 500 sculptures. They decided that instead of destroying it as it was illegally on government land, they gave him some workers and what an amazing place it is.
I will post up an album later so you can see.

2 hours later I got a phone call while we were heading out. It was Tavleen wanting to talk to Anamika. It tuns out that she had left her cell phone in the auto and her mother had rung and some strange man had answered her phone. So after some mixed messages we ended up heading out in our next auto to the closest Airtel shop where she cancelled her phones SIM card and then purchased a new SIM and transferred her phone number to put in another phone she has. She thought that as she couldn’t call the phone due to flat battery the phone was lost. So after we sorted out the new SIM and then headed off into Sector 17 to find me some clothes. As it is heading to winter all we could find were winter clothes and they were far too hot for me, we then managed to get another auto and headed off to Elante Mall where we went clothes shopping in The Big Bizzare.

Security here is very high and our bags had to be scanned and we were subject to wanding  going into the mall. This is a metal and explosives check. Terrorism is still very much alive here.
Luckily between Anamika and a great sales guy, I managed to purchase 2 collared shits, 2 polo shirts and 4 pairs of trousers (2 track pants and 2 cotton trousers) for ₹5000, this equates to $NZ110. Quite impressed as the quality was great.

So in the midst of trying on these clothes another phone call from Tavleen, telling me that Anamika’s phone had been found but we needed to get across town to pick it up before 4:30, so into another auto and off we went. It cost Anamika only ₹250 to get it back which was a lot less than she thought it would cost her. 

So by this time we decided that food would be a good thing so we headed back across town (each of these trips cost approx ₹100 for the 4 of us ($NZ2.20). Now these trips were around 20 mins plus in duration. 

Chandigarh has a population of 1,130,000 people and covers around 114 square km around the same size as Hamilton. A lot of people in a small area.

Map of Chandigarh

So back to Elante Mall and food!  We went into a South India restaurant for some food. 
We had dosa with idli and sambar.

Was  a lovely tasty meal. I must say I am getting the hang of eating one handed using the roti, dosa or whatever as a spoon. 
The back in the auto to meet up with Anya for our trip home at 6:30pm through the peak hour traffic in darkness.
It is dark around 5:30pm with twilight lasting around 30 mins. 
So a full on day and so I was quite exhausted so didn’t get this finished last night what with trying to upload pics and the like so up early this morning. Managed to get them into the cloud but with the internet playing up..... will get there eventually!

Safe travels everyone.

ਸੁਰੱਖਿਅਤ ਯਾਤਰਾ

Surakhi'ata yātarā

Sunday In Manakpur Sharif.

So today is Sunday and everything is as per every other day so far.   Monday seems to be the day off  around here.
So started off with a brisk walk around the property accompanied by the dogs, three times around is about 15 mins so will increase each day.....maybe!

Saw some wonderful birds so will try to get some photos tomorrow morning.
Noisy night with some animals, birds or other things making horrendous noises sounding like cats. Will ask what they were and let you know.
Also some of the trees are starting to drop their fruit on the roof at odd times during the day and night. Small hard round fruit make quite a noise.
We have a bunch of banana trees at the front door with a bunch starting to ripen.

Will be great when they ripen and they arrive for breakfast!

Chef Rajan

Rajan delivers our morning meal and our evening meal to the accommodation and brings our lunch to the studio. Rajan only speaks Hindi with no English. 

It is good we have Anamika now to interpret for us.

Off to the studio for some more throwing after breakfast and on the way spotted a squirrel running up and down the tree trunk.

Squirrel

Squirrel tail....

And a rather interesting day and managed to take some pictures, just as well my camera is waterproof. 

So spent the morning throwing, and finally managed to work out why centering was difficult. Was not creating a good connection between my clay and the batt. They use acrylic batts here and you have to ensure a good stick.

Chris has managed to finish off her box. She did some lovely slip drop feet.

Chris from the UK and her box

After lunch we moved over to slab work again for a bit of a change. 

I managed to find an awesome leaf and have created a lovely slump bowl (forgot to take pics of the big one) will tomorrow. Anamika suggested an awesome idea for the foot, but will leave that surprise for later.

Then we moved onto smaller leaves and did some interesting things.

Platters and leave thingies...

Anamika and her large leaf. 

Frederick enjoying the day

Tomorrow we are heading off to Chandigarh for some clothes shopping and a bit of fun.

Safe travels everyone.

ਤੁਹਾਡੀ ਰਾਤ ਚੰਗੀ ਬੀਤੇ

Tuhāḍī rāta cagī

(Have a good night)

Saturday already....

Well day 2 at the pottery retreat, today was a day of wheel work that was somewhat of a success and a bit of a failure.  I was throwing just to get some feeling back and was having trouble centering, but when I managed to Centre was managing to throw some consistent thickness in the sides and started getting my bases a good thickness.
But I managed to pass on my box techniques to Chris my fellow potter and she managed to produce a very fine box.
These are my yesterday’s work. The spirals were an abject failure as I waited about an hour too long and they were too hard and even spraying them didn’t help.

Then we had a surprise that we have a new potter in residence arriving today for the next six months here. Her name is Anamika and she is a 26yr old from Delhi. She is a raku specialist and has produced some lovely work, will post as soon as we can sort our pic transfer protocol.

Our pottery director is Tavleen and she was working on some tiles that she was going to carve.

So a rather exhausting day throwing pots after pots and cutting them to see how I was doing.

The food here is traditional Punjabi food, and I am thoroughly enjoying trying all the different curries and vegetables. All vegetarian.

Lots of geckos in the rooms tonight for some reason, possibly as there is rain forecast on Thursday.

Short post tonight with few photos, hard to take when ones hands are covered in clay, but will get there.

Safe travels everyone.

First day at the pottery retreat.

So awake this morning at around 5:30am and went for a wander around. The retreat is a bit of a work in progress in places but still nice and relaxed. There are 3 1/2 dogs on site, a Doberman, a Labrador, a cross between those two and a tiny Jack Russell pup barely 3 months old. Bit of fun, I have become the dog whisperer, they were all over me like a rash last night and today. Most of you know that I ‘tolerate’ dogs.
The walk before breakfast this morning up the road to have a look at the local kiln and brick works.
We wandered in and it looked cool the way they were making the clay on the bare earth in spaces. We didn’t get up to the kiln but I have been told that some of the staff will organize a tour for me.

 You can just see the men to the right of the trees, on the flat where they were making the clay. So if those were men at around say even 1.5m measure the chimney which was around 100 m beyond where the men are standing!
A couple of trucks came roaring up the road and I waved and got a huge smile and wave back from them both.
A lovely breakfast of eggs on toast with vegetable roti was delicious but will have to adjust my internal clocks as breakfast served at 9:30am, lunch at 2:30pm and dinner at 7:30pm. I will adjust.

Anyway so today I just had a play with clay, they have a very smooth grey colored stoneware that bisque fires to a lovely soft pink but then glaze fires white.
The clay needs some grog as it doesn’t work well for learner throwers as it softens quickly.
They also have another earthenware clay which I am going to have a go with, they don’t like it but I will try and see if it works for me.
I started a couple of boxes just to get the feel of the clay doing something I know just to start off and then started to make a 4 sided twisted vase, tall and slender similar to the pic below.

Will show the results tomorrow....forgot to take pics today.

After lunch we went for a wander down to the local village back on the main road where I was dropped off yesterday. 

On the way.....

So yes all those YouTube videos are actually true, great smile and waves in return for my smile and wave. I think I am going to meet some wonderful people here. They mostly seem very friendly and react to head nods, smiles and waves. The truck drivers are the best so far though. They have wonderful horns and so when I turn around to let them know I heard, I wave and the huge smile and wave back are great.

Right! I have just realized that I need to catch you up on last nights excitement, sorry for my FaceBook friends as I posted it on FaceBook earlier, so here goes.

There is a lovely English lady here as well, she has been here for 2 weeks with another week to go, so we were chatting away last night and the dogs started to bark like crazy. We thought that it was just because we wouldn’t let them inside, but I head out to see what they were up to and they have a snake bailed up in the garden.

So of course I go over and take a couple of pics......

Turns out it is a Russell’s Viper, only the snake responsible for more snakebites and deaths than any other snake in this country.....  mmmmm Frederick keep your distance!

So did well today, managed to keep going til 5 when I started to fade, so quite happy with the lack of jet lag. Now waiting for dinner to arrive then shower and bed. Another day beckons tomorrow.

Safe travels everyone.

Namaste.