The Indian Adventure

So Thursday (12th) began somewhat early because I could not get back to sleep. After Alex woke up he invited me to go up to the roof to eat breakfast. Breakfast was a mango and some delicious mini-bananas that apparently do not exist outside of India. I'm pretty sure that I have eaten more bananas in the 4 days I have been in India than I had the entire first half of the year. After chilling on the roof for a while I eventually came back downstairs and then plans were made to go to Lal Bagh, which was a well known botanical garden in southern India, and allegedly the second biggest botanical gardens in India. In order to get there I had to be introduced to the joys of tuk tuks. I wrote in an earlier post how much the drive from the airport to the guest house had terrified me the day before and so it was not something I was hugely looking forward to... but, strangely enough, sitting in the back of a tuk tuk is less scary than being in a taxi. They are not designed to fit 3 Westerne...

I arrived into Bengaluru International Airport around 12.30 on the 11th (only about 15 hours later than I was supposed to but who is really counting). My first impression of India was that it did not seem at all like I was expecting but I came to realise that the airport is literally in the middle of nowhere. The airport itself was a decent size and extremely deserted as we appeared to be the only flight in sight. Followed signs to the Immigration where I nervously answered 'what are you doing in India" with "tourism" to account for my tourist visa and managed to sort out free wifi while waiting for my suitcase (which did not take 90 minutes this time) in order to message my supervisor here and the other two students from UQ (Debbie and Alex, who had arrived a few days earlier and a day earlier (though I was supposed to beat Alex by 2 hours but hey) so they would know to expect me. Then followed the signs out to the taxi rank while clutching a printed piece of paper...

So, I was supposed to arrive in India on Tuesday evening. This was delayed slightly by the fact that plane was 4 hours late leaving Brisbane... this may not have been a problem had I not had a 70 minute changeover in Singapore. However I decided to view it all as an adventure (well that decision was only made after talking to ground staff who assured me that if I missed my connecting flight that they would handle the rebooking, any additional costs, AND accommodation costs if needed, and gave us a food voucher for the Brisbane Airport) and just hung out in the airport striking up conversations with others with delayed flights, enjoying the fact that Qantas is so much nicer than Ryan Air ("your flight is now in 2 days. No we cannot give you any compensation of food vouchers") all those years ago when I got stranded in Edinburgh, and eventually got on the plane headed to Singapore. The flight was uneventful, I had a spare seat next to me as the lady who checked me in strateg...

So, since I'm living in India for the next 3+ months I thought it might be easier to keep people updated on my adventures (or potential lack of adventures) if I kept a blog... For those who have stumbled across this by accident, I am sorry :P However I shall attempt to introduce myself: My name is Sherrie and I am currently completing my final semester of a Bachelor of Social Work through the University of Queensland. As my final semester is basically just placement, I applied for a New Colombo Plan grant from the Australian government, to complete the placement overseas. Thus I am now in Bengaluru in the state of Karnataka settling in before my placement officially starts on the 16th of July. After months of indecision and questioning my sanity about my decision to go to India I arrived on Wednesday after a slight adventure and here I shall stay until towards the end of October. Although I am currently in Bengaluru staying at a guest house, at the end of next week I will be a...