Turnin' 35

(29 Aug) On my 35th birthday, I invited my friends over to help me celebrate. After five days of College busy-work, it was a welcome end to the week.

With Manu, Chris and Jasween

Picture with the ladies: Front row, Vanessa (Australia), Hilde (UK), and Nirosha (Sri Lanka)
Back row, Min-hee (Korea) and Tera.

Teaching each other guitar songs.

Birthday cake.

With Gautam, Rohit and Job.

Min-hee, Gaby, Jazna, Jose and Ki-nam.

With Naeem and Amin (Afghanistan)

A Sri Lankan Hoedown!

Trip to Madurai

(17 Aug) For our second term break, I traveled seven hours south to the famous temple town of Madurai. Seven hours on semi-suicidal Indian roads may not seem like much of a break, but trust me, seven hours between me and the College were just what I needed. While there we visited the famous Sri Meenakshi Temple. The temple gets renovated every twelve years and you guessed it, this is a twelfth year. Despite the palm scaffolding covering the massive temple towers, it was still fascinating to see devout Hindis doing their pujas. For those of you who have traveled with me before, you'll know that scaffolding seems to follow me wherever I travel.

Street market

Entrance to Thirumalai Nayakar Mahal

Arches

Standard Indian traffic

The only un-scaffolded tower

Posing with Shiva and a bunch of scaffolding.

Golden Lotus Pond

Puja for the Nandi

I actually have no idea what's going on here...

On the way home from Madurai, we stopped at another famous temple town called Palani. We climbed hundreds of steps in the scorching heat to reach the Dhandayudhapani Temple.

Crowds below the temple.

Temple minder

Beginning the climb.

Ornamentation atop the temple.

View of Palani from the temple top.

Uh, monkey.

More Parties...

For the purpose of maintaining our sanity, the foreign officers at DSSC tend to throw a lot of parties. You'd be amazed at how a few drinks and commiserating over that week's silliness at the College can get you through another week. Here are some pics from Chris' Singapore Day party and Jeff's party for a visiting friend.

Back: Me, Alex (UK), Tim (UK), Ruwan (Sri Lanka), Riva (Indonesia), Naeem (Afghanistan), Lanka (Sri Lanka)
Front: Amin (Afghanistan), Ahmed (Saudi Arabia), Ki-nam (Korea), Mohammed (Egypt)

Mohammed, me, Celestine (Nigeria), Jerome (Lesotho), and Michael (Zambia)

L: Vikas (India), Crusher of Children R: Tim (UK) learns the finer points of sari wear

Phady (India), Dave (Australia), and Mohammed

Michael, Celestine, Shamim (Bangladesh), and me

Group photos

An Aussie B-day

My friends Dave and Vanessa from Australia held a birthday party for their son Thomas' third birthday. What would any Aussie three-year old boy want for his birthday? Apparently, a slightly homo-erotic snake charmer/fire dancer...

More Hikes...

One of the better activities organized by the College is a monthly hike. There are tons of good places in the area to hike, and they do a pretty good job of finding scenic routes. These walks are generally a good opportunity to not think about the ridiculous amount of busy-work that gets dumped on us.

Me and Alex with some Indian classmates.

With Amin (Afghanistan) at the viewpoint.

Tea workers

Tea plants carpet the valleys.

Wild bison roam the tea.

Hiking above the clouds.

On the path.

Quick break.

View of a village in the valley.

Me, Hilde, Leslie, and Alex.

Kodanadu viewpoint.

Monkeys there be.

Trip to Mysore

(11 Jul) Our first term break from DSSC was a three-day weekend in July. This being our first break, we opted for a fairly short excursion north to the city of Mysore. Comforted by safety in numbers, about ten foreign officer families caravaned together for the four-hour drive.

Along the way we stopped at Bandipur, a large wildlife reserve. While driving through the park we were fortunate enough to catch some wildlife sightings...

Standard monkey antics...they tried to break into our cars

And some non-standard monkeys...these kind of freaked me out.

Elephants on the roadside.

After Bandipur we pushed on to get to Mysore. This entailed driving on possibly the worst road in India (and the competition is stiff). Apparently there are plans to build a new road to Mysore, so they've decided to just let the current road slowly fade out of paved existence. The road is doing its best to hang in, though, so there remains a two-foot wide section of pavement along about a fifty-mile stretch. To add to the entertainment value, the remaining paved section weaves back and forth between lanes so cars coming from both directions try to stay on the pavement and play chicken to see who'll weave off onto the gravel first.

Four lanes of traffic on one lane of pavement.

And you never know who's coming from the other direction...

We did, however, finally make it to Mysore where we enjoyed some city amenities like fast food and hotels, and caught a few sights. Best of all, we got to forget the daily grind of DSSC, at least for a few days.

Singaporeans, Australians, Chileans, a Brit and me with our tour guide at the Maharaja's Palace.

View of the Palace from the main gate.

Me, Alex (UK), and Natalie, Gregory, and Chris (Singapore)

Chamundeshwari Temple: (L) Alex and I at the temple; (R) Me and a statue of Mahishasura

Worshippers tend to the huge Nandi on Chamundi HIll.

Tera, Me, Alex, Lily, and Leslie at Daria Daulat, the Tipu Sultan's palace in Sriringapatna.

The Jumma Masjid in Sriringapatna.

The Gumbaz: Tomb of Hyder Ali and the Tipu of Mysore

Marker on the Srirangapatna city walls showing where Tipu Sultan was killed in battle by the British.