Entry 4 – 7/25/07
The showers here are quite different then back home. The tumbler is spring loaded so when you want to switch the water flow from the faucet to the shower, you have to hold the pin out. When you want to use two hands to lather up, the water flow changes back to the faucet. This is a water conservation effort. A little annoying I must admit. As you can imagine, certain spots on my body are difficult to wash.
A typical shower is as follows. Get in, turn water on. The water is instantly hot and flowing out of the faucet. Pull the leaver to route water through the shower head. Make sure my body and hair is adequately wet enough to lather up. Turn water off. Use soap to lather, mind you there is no water flowing at this time. Pretty weird. Turn water on, pull leaver and rinse off. Turn water off. Use shampoo to wash my hair, Turn water on, etc, rinse hair, turn water off. This repeats for as many times as needed. Oh and all this with my lips sealed air tight. In case you haven’t heard, water around here isn’t exactly potable.
Last night a bunch of us went out into Mysore. It was the first night we were able to go out. Previously we didn’t have ID badges, now we do. There were three different groups going out. I went with a smaller 5 man group. Our objective was to hit up a cellphone shop, walk around, eat, maybe meet the others at a bar called Opium, then go home. Well we made it to the mobile store where I picked up a phone. We did not end up walking around because there was someone in the car who wanted to meet up with the rest at Opium. As soon as we got to opium the fifth man split to join the others. The 4 remaining ate at Gofah, the Indian word for cave. The décor was really cool and the food was excellent.
We agreed to meet up with the taxi at 10:15, so we left without hitting the bar. We were all okay with that. But the weird thing was the fifth who left us as soon as we got to the restaurant, magically appeared at the time we wanted to go. So he left with us (there was ample room in the other taxis for him with the other group). The driving on the way back was amazing. That I’ll save for a whole new post. When we got back the fifth jumped out and walked off. It was really bizarre. But overall a great night.