This week I got out of dodge with a much-needed trip to the big city. My friend (who was leaving here to travel around the rest of India) and I left Monday morning for two delightful days of shopping, sightseeing, and good eating and drinking (read: we were going to get to actually choose what and when we ate) in Pune. The car ride was uneventful (or as uneventful as any car ride can be in India). When we asked to make a pit stop, our driver diligently pulled off to the side of the road, hell, men pee everywhere, why can’t women too? Equal rights baby! So off we go to hide behind a tree, all was well until my walk back to the car when I stepped on a thorn that went through my flip flop. Ouch. Thank goodness for my tetnus shot, no permanent damage done.
So we arrive in Pune around lunch time and check into our hotel. It is at this point that I get a call telling me that, oh yeah, its actually election day tomorrow and everything (all shops, etc) are closed the next day. Oh really. So off we go to do a full afternoon of shopping to make sure we get everything. Of course, the first order of the day was a trip to the “German Bakery” for a latte. This little restaurant is right next to Pune’s big “meditation center” which is filled with Westerners (mostly older from what I could tell) who go to learn yoga and do who knows what (you have to take an instant HIV test before even entering…something tells me more than yoga is going on in there…).
After lunch we went to a department store (who-hoo), book store, western grocery store, and mall. It was great, 4 weeks without any retail therapy had been tough, luckily I rectified that and made exciting purchases like coffee and soap. At the grocery store we had intended to buy a little wine to celebrate our trip, it was at this point that the bomb dropped. Monday and Tuesday were DRY days. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? We quickly learned that yes, the entire city was not selling any alcohol on Monday or Tuesday because of the elections. Apparently Indians + drinking + elections = lots of violence. Our dreams of a nice cocktail at dinner were quickly dashed, what the hell kind of place is this??? After an hour of hating India, we got over it and also learned that dry day was up at 5pm on Tuesday, whew. Plus, we thought, what better way to spend Tuesday than to go sit by the pool at one of the nice hotels. Great idea, way to make lemonade out of lemons!!! So, we went on to enjoy a nice dinner out. It was about 10pm when the monsoon hit. What the heck? Someone up there must not like us. So with the pool out and nothing open, we wondered what the heck to do the next day.
So on Tuesday, we went to the zoo, which thankfully decided to stay open despite election day. It was actually a pretty nice zoo, lots of green space and plenty of room for the animals. No commercialization like you would find in the U.S., in fact you couldn’t even buy a bottle of water if you wanted. But there were about 25 toilets, more than I think they have in the rest of India. I saw a leopard up close. He was fat. I didn’t know leopards could be fat but this guy was. They also had a snake park which was cool/terrifying. They also had an “extinct animal” graveyard that actually had graves of animals that had gone extinct with a picture up. Then there was an open hole in the ground for the White Tiger, which I guess is on the list…sad.
After that we headed to the upscale hotel in Pune for a nice lunch and to sit and chill (and pray the sun might come out). It didn’t, so I got a pedicure while Simone read in the lobby. And finally, 5pm rolls around. After putting on our Sunday best, we headed to this area called “ABC Farms” which is popular with the students. Basically it’s a little alcove populated by a half dozen restaurant/bars. Most of them didn’t open until 7, but since we were such eager beavers we were there by 5:45pm. Luckily, the Iranian jazz bar we had planned on going to anyway happened to be open for business. So there we went, and there we stayed for many hours. It was lots of fun. As is typical in India, we ended up chatting with some locals, who also happened to own that very cool bike on which I took my first (and probably last) motorcycle ride. Eventually we left ABC Farms and walked down to what they said was “a cool bar.” As we approached and saw a giant pyramid that read “Hard Rock Café” I thought, ooooh no. Won’t do it. Luckily, the place we were headed was behind there. It was so cool – I literally thought I was in Vegas (minus the fact that it was a Tuesday night and closed at 11:30pm.) They had pools in the middle and loungy couches everywhere, the downfall was the prices were just like Vegas too…
All in all a great trip. Simone went on her way Wednesday morning and I headed back to the village rejuvenated. I have spent this week working on marketing materials and an abstract submission for a global health conference. I had been scared of submitting abstracts but they really aren’t so bad.
Tonight is the start of Diwali, the biggest holiday in India, the “festival of lights” – that sounds familiar!
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