Just arrived back from a little trip out to Georgetown. Put a mental image of what you think India is in your head and that is Georgetown. In a nutshell, bloody loads of people bustling about and trying to sell you things. If I were back at school and doing a geography case study on the area, I would point to a ridiculous level of 'functional zoning'*. That is one of about three phrases I have to thank GCSE geography for, along with Oxbow Lake and Longshore Drift. Anyway, in Georgetown, all the streets will only have one type of shop on them. It may be convenient because at least you'll know where to go to buy something but, for instance, there is a street selling only stationary. Lots of shops selling exactly the same paper right on each other's doorsteps seems completely pointless to me.
I did also read on Trip Advisor that Georgetown was like "Brick Lane with less Indians", which made me chuckle a bit although I couldn't quite work out where that lay on the racism scale (starting at 1 and finishing at Very Racist), so I won't be claiming it as my own.
Afterwards I stopped for a spot of lunch with Ottilia and Ida, the two Swedes I was with, at a bakery that was also serving South Indian meals. With only one meal on the menu, there wasn't a choice, so we had the usual rice and poppadom combo served with various spicy things. The table service was wonderfully abrupt with the waiter asking us 'meal? eat? money?'. Actually, he only directed this to me because he expected the male to be arranging and paying for everything but, frankly, there was little chance of that given the economic climate and my tightfistedness. The girls, who have only been here for a couple of weeks, struggled with their mammoth plate of rice whilst I wolfed mine down in record time.
I can now put away large amounts of rice in the way only obese lads normally can. I've heard rumours that this is down to a phenomenon known as 'Rice Belly' which would also account for the slight belly i've been cultivating nicely for the past three months. This is fine because another whisper being passed round the volunteer's grapevine is that when you return home and stop eating so much rice, then the weight drops off you like a, erm, big weight dropping off you.
*and there we have it, I have now talked about every subject possible. Indian functional zoning has to be the last drop to be squeezed out of this experience. Blog over
I did also read on Trip Advisor that Georgetown was like "Brick Lane with less Indians", which made me chuckle a bit although I couldn't quite work out where that lay on the racism scale (starting at 1 and finishing at Very Racist), so I won't be claiming it as my own.
Afterwards I stopped for a spot of lunch with Ottilia and Ida, the two Swedes I was with, at a bakery that was also serving South Indian meals. With only one meal on the menu, there wasn't a choice, so we had the usual rice and poppadom combo served with various spicy things. The table service was wonderfully abrupt with the waiter asking us 'meal? eat? money?'. Actually, he only directed this to me because he expected the male to be arranging and paying for everything but, frankly, there was little chance of that given the economic climate and my tightfistedness. The girls, who have only been here for a couple of weeks, struggled with their mammoth plate of rice whilst I wolfed mine down in record time.
I can now put away large amounts of rice in the way only obese lads normally can. I've heard rumours that this is down to a phenomenon known as 'Rice Belly' which would also account for the slight belly i've been cultivating nicely for the past three months. This is fine because another whisper being passed round the volunteer's grapevine is that when you return home and stop eating so much rice, then the weight drops off you like a, erm, big weight dropping off you.
*and there we have it, I have now talked about every subject possible. Indian functional zoning has to be the last drop to be squeezed out of this experience. Blog over
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