Kobus & Teresa In India: January 2011

Monday, January 31, 2011

Is it March yet!?

Just another week went by and one more week closer to March/October. You might want to know "Why March?", well that is when we go to the Maldives!! It was something we, especially Teresa wanted to do since we found out the first time that we will be in India for a year. We finally decided to go after it has been on and of the list of things to do. We will be going to Kandooma Island, it is a small island south of the Male Island where the airport is located. From the airport we take a 45 minute speedboat ride to the island where the resort is located. These islands are so small that there is only space for one resort per island. Our dates are 24 - 27 March, so stay tuned after that for lots of pictures and interesting stories.

Everyone would be pleased to know that our plumbing problem has finally been finished, well not without some "motivation" from my side. I finally lost patience with the maintenance office after two and half weeks of messing around.

We are starting to think that the foreign products available in some stores are rejects from those specific countries. We cannot think of another reason for the products to be in such bad shape. Canned products are rusted and dented and most of them are always very close to their sell by dates. I don't even talk about how dirty all of it is. It is amazing the condition of products you do get over here.

Oh yes, Saturday evening we had our first domestic disturbance problem, well not us but one of the apartments under us. It was around midnight when it happened, I was sitting in bed with my laptop and headphones in listening to music, surfing the World Wide Web and Teresa was sleeping when we heard this murderess shouting. It was so bad that about 20 or so people come out of their apartments trying to see where the shouting came from. Finally the security people came looking and calmed the people down.

We finally got to buy some meat, we went to the Novotel on Saturday for a foot massage and treatment and ordered some chicken and lamb while we were there from them. It is nice to know what you can buy at a place like a hotel. We also got some spinach and a cucumber, we did order some lettuce and beef but they did not have in stock. We are looking forward in having some meat again.

Some local traffic over here. This was a large group of Waterbuffalo we got on the way back from the hotel.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Is it October yet??

We started the week of like always, nice and early on the badminton courts pushing it a bit more to get rid of the calories we adopted over the weekend. After 90 minutes on the court we stopped at the maintenance office to ask them when they are planning to complete the leakage job and as always we received the same answer "Today sir, without fail". Well, it has been a week later and nothing! Again they promised me today so maybe I should find out if their meaning of "today" and my meaning of "today" is the same. I have it that today means it will be in the next 12-24hrs, please feel free to correct me if I have it wrong.

Teresa finally went for her last dentist appointment on Wednesday and she is all better. We were happy with the dentist and to our untrained eye it looked like he did a good job.

Thursday and Friday I went shopping for party snacks, we invited a couple of people over that we have had over previous times to enjoy the Saturday evening with us. It turned out to be a great evening, everybody was getting along nicely and the evening went by quickly. As always we over catered for the seven in total, that includes myself and Teresa but at least we had some left overs to enjoy on Sunday.

Sunday did not turn out the way we planned it, we wanted to go and walk in one of the large parks but our driver could not make it and the replacement driver could not speak English. We had him before and he could not even take me to the shop down the road. I still do not understand how a company who's biggest client is a USA firm and they don't bother to make sure their drivers can speak proper English. Needless to say we could not really communicate to the driver what our plans was and we decided to send him back and stay at home. Since Teresa has been working really long hours the last week or so and have had a couple of all-nighters she got some time to just sit and do nothing but watch television and enjoy a relaxing Sunday afternoon nap.

Unfortunately our nightmare with the replacement driver did not end there, we asked him to tell our driver to pick us up on Monday afternoon one o'clock. Well, at half past six this morning our driver called me reminding me he is still waiting for us. It turned out that the only part of the message the other driver got correct was "one". It is not fun being called at half past six in the morning if you only go to bed between one and two in the mornings. I was still far far away in La-La land when he called.

Some of the snacks we had Saturday evening.

The rest of the snacks, it took us a long time preparing all this.

My birthday presents.

Monday, January 17, 2011

One more week gone!

What is there to say about the past week? Our plumbing issue was sort of sorted out, let me put it this way, it is not leaking anymore. The one hole in the bedroom wall has been patched up but not the big one on the balcony. But trying to arrange dates and times with the maintenance people is another story and I am not going to go into that now.

We had a pretty ordinary week, Friday was a holiday in India. It had something to do with flying kites or something like that. They started the celebrations off on Thursday evening making bonfires. Saturday everybody was flying kites.

On Saturday we invited a friend over for a fondue that turned out rather nice, just a pity South Africa had to go and loose a cricket match. We got really nice cheese samosa's, potato bites, chicken nuggets and some sausages that we used for the fondue.

Sunday we went over to the Novotel again for lunch and just some sunshine peace and quiet next to the pool. We went to La Cantina, the Mexican themed restaurant at Novotel. There we each had a delicious mocktail, Teresa got a four cheese pizza and I had the Chicken Fajitas with some Nacho's and Guacamole on the side. Since it was Sunday lunch and we just had a really nice and relaxing day we each sinned with some homemade ice scream and may I ad that it was some of the best ice scream I ever had. Teresa had the Cappuccino Ice cream and I had the Dulce Leche, that is the flavor of boiled condenced milk for those that do not know. It was real creamy and smooth ice cream, the only other ice scream that comes close to it is the frozen custard you get in the USA.

I do not have anything else to write about but that this week we are planning my birthday party for next Saturday but that you will have to wait for until next week's blog.

The bonfire they prepared for their Thursday bonfire celebration

The danced/walked around the fire throwing something that looked like popcorn in it

Our table for our Saturday Fondue

Busy preparing for our Fondue

Sunday at La Cantina, our mocktails with snacks they provided

Teresa sipping on her mocktail

One of the decorations at the hotel for the weekend festival

My Fajitas with Nacho's and Guacamole

Four Cheese Pizza

View of the swimming pool from our table

This was me playing with the camera

The Cappuccino on the left and Dulce Leche on the right

Monday, January 10, 2011

So This Is 2011

Our first week of the first month of 2011 in India has come and gone. It has been an ordinary week and pretty boring considering the previous couple of weeks with Christmas and our New Years trip. We did have one or two things that happened the past week that I can tell you all about.

Teresa started getting a really bad toothache the week before our trip and went to the dentist hoping it would be a quick fix. Like our friend Murphy would have it, that did not happened. The Dr. ordered a Root Canal and prescribed her some pain medication until he could do it. That all happened the last week, Teresa had two appointments the past week and all went well to date. She is just waiting for them to let her know when her last appointment will be for the final phase of the procedure. We were lucky and found a nice dentist that studied in the United Kingdom and he is certified in the United Kingdom, United States of America and Moscow. It sure looks like he has done some traveling.

Saturday was a fun day, we made an appointment for the two of us to go for a couples back and neck massage on Saturday morning and had a delicious lunch at the Novotel afterwards. The massage was great but both of us are still very tender in our lower back around the spine area. We do not know if that is normal but we hope it is. The lunch was great as usual and we just had a great midday overall. Saturday evening we attended a farewell party for one of our good friends we made in a very short time. It is someone that works at the same company where Teresa is and they have been in India for just over three years and he will be leaving in March but his wife is leaving on Tuesday January 11. We will definitely make a plan to visit them in New York once we have returned to the United States. The farewell was at News Cafe and we had the opportunity to meet more very interesting people. We finally got home at two in the morning and I really felt bad for our driver having to sit in the car waiting for us while we were having a good time. I guess that is why we tip him and we do tip him very well.

Sunday was as uneventful as you can get, Teresa had work to do and worked the whole of Sunday. I just threw myself in front of the television and watched some movies and a couple of shows on the Travel Channel. The internet helped out when ever there was not much to watch on the tele.

We also had a leak in one of our bedrooms, it is a leak from the outside wall to the inside of the bedroom. The maintenance people have been here a couple of times and decided this morning to take drastic action. They started at ten this morning and just about broke down the whole place. See attached pictures. There is a pipe inside the wall that looks to be the culprit. It is a bit of a mess so I hope it does not take to long to fix up.

Until next week!!

The Spa @ Novotel

Massage Bed

The decorations are great and they played some really relaxing and soothing music

Sunday Lunch, some Nacho's

The hole inside the bedroom

This is on the back balcony

Big mess!!

Monday, January 3, 2011

It's all about Singapore!

Let me start by saying Happy New Year to all! We hope that 2011 would be a great year for all.

Singapore was even better than we hoped it would be, from the minute we arrived at the airport to the time we got home. Singapore itself is extremely clean, safe and just a fun place to be. We arrived in Singapore early Thursday morning, got to the hotel at about 8:30am hoping to be able to check in early. We were greeted by friendly staff that tried their best to accommodate us from the beginning. We wanted a room on the river side but that would have only been available later the afternoon. They then booked us in another room until later that day until a room with a better view was available. This allowed us to shower and catch up on some sleep after spending the whole night at airports and on the airplane.

We got our room at 2pm and took to the streets straight after settling into the new room. We walked from one mall to the other until we arrived at the Singapore Flyer. We arrived there just before sunset and by the time we got our tickets and stood in line it was dark. Our planning worked out great since we wanted to ride on it just after sunset. The whole ride takes about 30min and gives you some very nice views of the city. From there we just took a nice stroll back to Clarke Qauy where we had a lite dinner and headed back to the hotel for a nights rest. Not that I slept much, we went to bed at about midnight and I got up at 4am staring at the view and taking pictures.

Friday started off nice and early, we had breakfast in the lounge and left for Chinatown. We were a little stiff from the Thursday afternoon walk, we did around 7-8 km's. We walked down to Chinatown but not to much was going on before 10am. After walking through all the little side streets we took the train to Orchard Street. It is something similar to 5th Ave in New York, with lots of big brand name shops and fancy malls. There we had a nice lunch at a Swiss themed restaurant. We walked around a little more and got back to the hotel at about 3pm where we just relaxed some before the evening activities. Since we stayed in one of the Priemier floor rooms we got invited to spend the evening in the Premier Floor Lounge where drinks and snacks was provided. They had the perfect view from there of all the celebrations outside.

We slept a little later on Saturday and had a slow start to the morning. After a lite breakfast we took a train down to Harbour Front and from there the Monorail over to Santosa Island. It is a small island with lots of attractions and things to do. Universal Studios is also on Santosa Island but we decided not to go there, we would rather spend the time doing something else in Singapore and visit Universal Studios in Orlando, FL. We just walked along the Island and went to Fort Siloso, an old British Fort they used during WWII. They lost and surrendered to Japan but got the island back after Japan lost the war. It started raining really hard just as we finished our tour and took the island bus back to the Monorail. It rained the whole afternoon and we just took a train ride along a big part of Singapore to see more of the country rather than just the city. We went to a Scottish Pub for dinner where Teresa had a steak and I enjoyed some bangers and mash. After tasting the steak Teresa had I was a little disappointed that I also did not get a steak, it was good!

Sunday morning we had a late breakfast and went down to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel where we went up to the viewing area. We got back to the hotel and relaxed until we had to check out, luckily they allowed us a late check out and we did not have to spend too much time at the airport. Not that we would have minded after we saw everything that there is to do, with lots of shops and an entertainment area that includes a movie theater. Our flight back to India was uneventful and immigration was a breeze, we were the only flight that time of night and it took us 20 min from landing till our driver picked us up. It beats the 2 hours it took us the first time we arrived in India.

I will post some pictures we took with the two cameras but there was to much to post on here. I will try and put most of them up on www.flickr.com later this week and will post a link up on next week's blog. That is for you that is not on my Facebook. For those on Facebook, be on the lookout for some more pictures soon!