MANGALORE, INDIA
My
sheer excitement of entering India for the first time clearly got the better of
me because you know that annoying feeling when you want to sleep so much but
you end up waking up before your alarm clock goes off because of some sort of
anticipation? Well, that was me. I woke up, perky, bright-eyed and jumped out
of bed to peer out the window. For a minute, it felt like i was sailing down
the Saigon River. Industrial, murky waters, a faint smog across the sky at
7:30am. Our ship moored and it still seemed industrial.
We
headed out and got into town by the City Centre Mall. A swift walk up a few
floors of this mall proved that it was rather eclectic. In between activewear
stores like Nike, Reebok and Puma, there were department stores, local stores
which sold sarees and traditional garb, a food court, KFC (of course!), and a
Bazaar Market selling knock-offs, trinkets and an array of tailors. All of a
sudden, all the lights int he mall blacked out. Aaron looked around and said
"stay out of the shadows" which made me burst out laughing, but only
for a split second then looked wearily around myself. 10 seconds later, lights
were back on. No harm was done :)
We
walked out and waved a tuk-tuk down which took us first to the Kudroli Temple.
The tuk-tuk ride itself was a highlight. Tuk-tuks amidst cars, scooters, trucks
and people do not having the concept of staying on one side of the road - it's
straight down the highway. We arrived at the temple with two large elephant
statues at its gates.
We had to take our shoes off and walking on the tiles in
the middle of the day meant a walk became a brisk power walk which became a hip
and a skip from temple to temple before we burnt the bottoms of our feet off!
Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any photographs inside the temples but
all the different Gods were really colorful and this new temple of Mangalore
had a nice mix of old structures and modern architecture.
The
next stop was the famous St Aloysius Church. There was a high school attached
to it and we went into the church, following a few other Indian people. We
walked around very quietly, admiring the painting on the walls. I sat down by a
pillar and soaked up the high ceilings, amazed that it was only one painter who
painted this entire insides of the church with amazing artworks and moments of
the Bible. Taking one shot of the ceiling, i was alerted with an 'excuse me.
Not allowed to take photos'. A man from the balcony upstairs yelled down to me
and a hasty scurry of feet was heard. He was coming down to me.
'Hand
over the camera' he said.
'No',
was my first answer.
'Hand
it over', he said, gesturing his hands towards him and he was quite aggressive.
Alarmed, I handed it over, thinking he was just the church warden and that he'd
hold onto the camera or get the picture deleted.
Aaron
turned around and said 'we'll get your camera back at the end. Don't
worry'.
I
nodded and we walked around for about 10 minutes and the man was nowhere to be
seen. I wasn't panicking yet but he turned to Aaron and said 'umm, let's get my
camera and go'.
Suddenly
one of the guys who walked in with us at the start, his phone went off and the
guy who took my camera surfaced again, yelling at this man for his phone going
off and walking them out of the church. We confronted him and requested for the
camera and he said 'go to over to the blue building where the office is, they
have it'. I was confused, why would he send it to the office?
Aaron
and I walked across but all the doors were closed. Our tuk-tuk driver tried to
help us and spoke to a cleaner who pointed us back to the church.
Went
BACK into the church, the guy was nowhere to be seen so I proceeded up the
altar where I heard voices in the back room. I stood by the entrance of the
backroom and said 'excuse me?' of which the guy who took my camera and another
guy turned around. He walked towards me. 'Why must you walk up here? Step back.
You don't need to be here. I will walk out to you'. He smelt of alcohol. Uh-oh.
This was not good. He walked us out to the door and pointed to a sign which
said 'no photography allowed. Please switch off mobile phones'. We
apologised and said that the door was held open and therefore we didn't see the
sign, otherwise we would never take the photograph. He didn't seem to understand
or want to understand this and pointed us back to the blue building, telling us
to go up the stairs to the office.
We
went back over, found the stairs, went up and walked into what was like a
counter with those bank teller plastic covers with three men sitting behind it.
They led us to another room around the corner with another similar setup, this
time with two women sitting behind it.
Aaron
ramped up the seriousness of the matter and said sternly 'I am a cruise
director on Seabourn. We want our camera back. We don't want to start bringing
port agents into this'. The girls seemed a bit baffled and started dialling
three different phones profusely. They told us to sit down. I really didn't
want to sit down. I was getting really edgy and my patience was wearing thin. I
kept looking over to Aaron and muttering 'I don't know what the problem is'.
Aaron kept looking at his watch. It took them 10 minutes, speaking to each
other and over the phones to then tell us that we're not allowed to take
photographs in there. This was getting REALLY frustrating. We apologised
profusely and said we can delete the picture but they kept saying we weren't
allowed to take photographs. OK, UNDERSTOOD. BUT WE WANT OUR CAMERA BACK. They
said ok, go back over to the church. They will talk to you.
For
the third time, we walked over to the church. We stormed in and the guy who
smelt like alcohol came out of another room, this time with another man who
must be the one who ran the church because he had an official ID tag on his
shirt.
'This
is my brother', the alcohol induced man said.
The
guy with the ID tag pushed us out to the door. 'Come here, come here, look at
this', he pointed at the door. 'You see what it says?' I literally yelled back
at him 'Yes, we see it, but it was an honest mistake and we walked in with the
door already open so we didn't see it'.
'There's
another sign over there. You don't take photos in other chapels. It ruins the
paintings. For this, you need to pay a fine. It's $2200 Rupees'. WHAT THE HELL?
a fine? I was fuming. I did quick calculations in my head and ok, it was about
$50US but it was the principle which made me so mad.
'There's
a sign which says we can't take photos, where's the sign that says we have to
pay a fine if we do take a photo? And this was an honest mistake', Aaron said.
'We are NOT paying that'.
'It
goes to the restoration of the paintings' he replied. He was not budging and
persisted on us paying. I took a deep breath. This was not looking good. All i
could think was being thrown into jail. This exasperating and getting out of
control and never getting my camera back.
Aaron
moved forward and put his hand on the man's shoulder. 'Look, we don't mean any
disrespect. All we did was an honest mistake. If we saw the sign, we would
never have taken the photo. We just want the camera back, we'll delete it in
front of you, we will spread good words about the church...' yada, yada, yada.
A whole heaps of arse-kissing for about half an hour and he finally calmed down
and we asked for our camera back and FINALLY got it back. No fine. No
jail.
We
jumped onto our tuk-tuk, sighed a sigh of major relief and it made me realise
how trusting I still was. I was careful in checking that my bags were always
zipped up. That I wasn’t wearing valuables. That I had a male friend travelling
with me at all times. Moral of the story: don't give your camera to a stranger,
especially in India, EVEN if you are in the house of God.
It made me think to Slum Dog Millionaire to that
scene where the missionary used Christianity to persuade kids to beg on the
street of which the head-honcho ended up reaping all the rewards. And that was
using religion as a means to coax tourists like me into believing it was safe,
or it was a good thing that they were doing.
It was a true ‘welcome to india’ moment and I’m
glad it happened there whilst Aaron was with me. We went into the Central
Markets in search of the colored powder that we’d heard about for the Holi
celebrations. We did find them however it wasn’t really celebrated South but
Aaron bought some. I truly hope it goes to good use J We walked through the fruit and vegetable
market and goodness me, the smells were a mix of fabulous exotic fruits through
to fruit and veg that was rotting. We bought a kilo of sugar bananas for 40
rupees (less than $1US).
Headed back on a tuk-tuk to the Mall and grabbed a
great deal from Nike. I went in for new trainers and ended up with matching
playsuits to run in! Typical J
Couldn’t help myself with a good bargain.
What an introduction into India. I loved it and it
was also a wake-up call to be even more alert than usual. Feeling blessed to be around good energies and people who are street savvy to say the least :)
Much love and peace,
VANANH
And for the RIGHT NOWs:
Fav food/drink: french martini
Reading: Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell (still…digesting the awesomeness)
Wishlist: a sneaky camera which doesn't make a sound so i can take pics without getting blackmailed lol
Current city: Goa
Listening to: the voices of White Collar on TV! slightly hooked.
Fav clothing item: definitely my new playsuits!
Next destination: Mumbai, India.
Missing: my friends back in Sydney!
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