walking

OK I've been thinking, apart from the family no one has any idea what its like where I'm staying, so during some of my walks in the evening I've really really been focusing on differences between here and Kingston and interesting things too... i mainly did them by focusing on a different sense each time so here: interesting sights:

• the first day i got her a woman was walking a cow along the pavement, and there was scaffolding coming in the middle, the cow was going one way and she was going the other, so we had to run out from the scaffolding before it got pulled down!
• scaffolding= thick bamboo poles tied with string yet very strong (it didn't get pulled down)
• vans are covered with painted designs and have 'horn OK please' written on the back
• all blank surfaces in the street have 'stick no bills' painted on them
• kites and vultures circling round everywhere
• children flying paper kites all down the beach
• beggars dress as women or harm themselves, cutting off limbs or cutting deep into their skin in the hope of getting more money
• auto-rickshaw drivers sleep under their cars in the mid-day heat to get into the shade, one day there were a load of finches joining one guy
• gorgeous Bunyan trees everywhere
• children making up and playing games with nothing but a rope-horses, or board and ball - bounce back
• carts full of limes for limbu pani or fresh lime soda
• stalls of fruit and vegetables almost on every corner, and other really small stalls selling anything you could possibly want
• vegetable and fruit wala's carrying massive baskets of fruit or vegetables on their heads, going round apartments and selling to individuals or going to and from their stalls in the mornings and evenings
• young boys trying to sell you books or magazines, particularly knocking on the car window whilst your stopped at lights
• the bread man sits downstairs (just as I'm going for a sunset walk to pick up anything missing for dinner) cutting the crusts off the bread and cutting it in such perfect slices you would have thought it was sliced by a machine!!
• old and grey tall apartments with the railings and shutters across balconies which if you look for a little longer are actual gorgeous constructions with beautiful designs that have been warn away and the effect lessened by the rains
• brightly coloured yellow and red swirly shaped paving stones where the colour has worn because of the rain and the dust which i forgot to mention is Everywhere
• massive holes in the floor which someone could easily fall down into and get lost within!!!
• parts of the pavement which seems to have been pulled up for no reason what so ever, fortunately I arrived after the monsoon resurfacing, otherwise there are potholes in the road so big you could build a house in them!
• men having hair trimmed or face shaved just on the pavement outside regular apartments
• piles and piles of lunch tiffins from schools in the middle of the road being loaded onto long wooden carts to be carried away
• red/pink spit marks along the roads and walls particularly from people chewing paan (last time I came spitting had been banned and they'd cleaned up a lot quite successfully)
• big pans of chai simmering on small fires in the middle of the road and a line of men drinking it out of small brown tinted (personal story) glasses

smells: gorgeous flowers, aniseed, smoky wood for heating nuts, popcorn, pizza, sweat, incense, air conditioning air, car fumes, just sawn wood, rotting waste, seaweed (surprisingly enough if you go by the sea), prayer flowers, cooking food from people's houses, poo, fish, stale water

sounds: traffic and constant car horns, fireworks - no matter what time of day (particularly bangers which really resonate here cause there is a high wall just behind), prayer bells, policeman's whistle constantly trying to control traffic, music, low buzz of crickets, whirring of fans, dripping water from broken A.C., guy selling gola (crushed ice drink) continuously yelling 'limbu sherbet, rose sherbet...(and then a list of all the other flavours)', the jingle jangle of small bells from women walking down the street with anklets or the clacking of bangles glass, plastic and metal each slightly different, knocking of hammers as there is constantly construction work going on, the painfully annoying whistle as milk is heated first thing in the morning in the pressure cooker, the beeping melody of the water filter - telling you its running, screeching parrots and crows having battles about which branch is theirs (one parrot talks to its friend just as we're finishing drinking our tea), the dinging of the cowbell and tapping of hooves as buffalo's trot down the street, the whistle sellers melodies as he shows off his instruments