Sunday, August 9, 2015

Namakkal Day 1 : Fort

I did not sleep very well on the train (surprise). In addition to not going to sleep until late, I also woke up about every hour. Our stop in Salem was scheduled at 4:45a, so we were up by 4:20a. We got off and found our escorts pretty quickly. We took an hour bus ride to reach Namakaal and went straight to our hostel rooms for a little more rest until breakfast at 9a. We ate and explored around the hostel. The roof was beautiful, as was the whole building. We were told that we were the first to stay in the newly erected hostel. The only issue I had- we didn't have showers. Or washing machines. So we were to take bucket baths and wash our clothes by hand. The buckets weren't horrible once you got used to it but it is difficult to wash your hair fully. And hand washing wasn't too bad, but I feel like my clothes did not get as clean as they would have in a 20min wash cycle.
We had off until 4 when we went to the Namakkal Fort on top of a small mountain in the middle of Namakkal. There was set of stairs to the top of the mountain. The fort was really neat to explore around. If the people in Chennai had never seen a white person, these people REALLY had never seen a white person. I now know what it is like to be followed by paparazzi. While walking I could hear the camera phones clicking. I walked into a shelter and they stopped. Walked back out and they started again. Its kind of annoying being taken photos of only because of your skin color,  it almost makes you feel like a zoo animal or something. I started taking pictures back of them but they just posed haha. When we gathered to take a group photo, there must have been 10-15 others that swarmed to take a picture of all of us together. We went shopping at a few places to get some items that people wanted (like yoga mats). Then Dr. Ravikumar (one of the professors taking care of us here) bought us all ice cream. The people here are very caring and in general very welcoming. They even told us when we arrived that we were to be treated as their own sons and daughters. We finished up at the hostel for dinner. The meal area we ate at was a beautiful patio area. Also Namakkal is in the country and much less population than Chennai. Also the air. It was so much nicer to not breathe in sewage and exhaust the entire time.
-7/26/15

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