Mathru School for the Differently-Abled
Bangalore, India
Thursday 12/12/2013
Andy writes about our last day in Singapore and arrival in Bangalore::
Sadly, our last day in Singapore. Andy arose at 5 and was able to talk for 30 min with his employee Mike on the office computer that is hooked up to Skype. He learned that Sacramento survived last week’s big freeze fairly unscathed. No signs of snow, freezing pipes and probably little damage to covered plants. A little later while Mary was in the shower Andy found that her mom Betty was on line and also chatted with her on Skype. Her webcam worked fine so he was able to see her on the screen but for some reason she couldn’t see him.
It was a great idea setting that up before we left town. It must have been amazing for Betty to use technology so advanced in her lifetime that she was able to have a video phone call with someone 10,000 miles away overseas let alone for free on her laptop computer.
We finished our packing and were able to check out by 9:30, leaving our bags with the porter to stow until we returned later to catch a taxi to the airport. The quality of the service, the room and the location were all perfect and we highly recommend the Village Hotel at Albert Court to anyone travelling here. Today Mary desperately wanted to make her last hurrah quest to get some decent local clothing that actually fit someone who wasn’t a willowed tree branch and her last hope was the fabled ION at Orchard Road shopping complex. From what he’d read in travel books, Andy was fairly certain it was a Beverly Hills shopping mecca and not what Mary envisioned but he wanted to
support her desire to find something. On the way to the MRT we made a brief stop to get another Asian breakfast of a fried egg with green beans and noodles (the closest thing we found to what we’d call breakfast outside of a bakery) and made it there by 10:30, shortly after the centre opened.
It did not go according to plan.
Despite Mary’s efforts through an obstacle course of curbs, ramps, numerous escalators & stairs, crowds and considerable walking, she was already getting tired and we were both very uncomfortable from the highhumidity – for some reason even the typically air conditioned MRT oasis wasn’t very cool. The directly of mall stores included Louis Vuitton, Estee Launder, Gucci, Coach, Tommy Hilfiger, Swarovski Crystal & Rolex. Nothing remotely close to what she sought; Mary was completely demoralized and ready to call it a day. He tried to console her by offering to return to Chinatown & at least get some things we passed on buying yesterday, but she had already thrown in the towel. After walking a bit towards the MRT, despite the male instinct to never ask for directions, he considered desperate measures and decided the best remaining option was to ask a local female resident who might be able to refer us to a place we may have overlooked. After a few minutes of searching back and forth in her mind, she kindly suggested we travel up a few stations and look at the shops that the locals go to. Mary’s optimism was restored and we triumphantly soldiered on.
We found a few Western oriented stores and Mary even tried on a pair of capris but alas, she said that their “large” size would barely fit a size 8 and the largest waist line we found was 34.
“I’m donem” Mary said and conceded that it just wasn’t going to happen. She did, however, reconsider a return to Chinatown and after a few hassles with our train tickets we got there by noon, still time left before we had to head back to the hotel.
After a good lunch and some cool drinks, we successfully got our consolation prizes. The MRT on the way back was packed – we barely had standing room only- but it was delightfully
cool. When we got out of the station near our hotel, it was raining
buckets, the first rain we’d seen in 3 days and even the locals were
staying under cover. Mary was extremely anxious to get back but he did his best to convince her to wait it out and that it was unsafe for her (there were steps and a small river going down the street). A few moments later we were was greeted by the flight attendant he had befriended on our trip out here. It was her day off and he was stunned at the odds of us meeting and her recognizing him. We chatted very briefly about our getting ready to leave and her friend offered to loan her umbrella which we reluctantly accepted only because we needed to keep Mary’s CI from getting wet. The rain soon slowed and after grabbing a few pastries at the food court, we got back to the hotel at 4:30 damp and sweaty.
When Andy asked the concierge where the public
bath was so we could clean up he kindly gave us access to the hotel gym bath which we were grateful to actually be able to take a quick shower and make a change of clothes. Afterwards, we had time for a quick drink at the bar before our taxi came at 5:30. The taxi driver was very friendly and assured us the fare wouldn’t exceed $30, a far cry from the $66 ripoff we paid to get there.
He talked most of the way about the riot that occurred a couple days ago in the Little India neighborhood near our hotel that we were completely oblivious to and apparently it was the worst incident in 40 years that involved some drunken foreign workers.
Unfortunately, we discovered shortly after getting to the airport that
we were dropped off at the wrong Singapore Air terminal and had to take the Skytrain to terminal 2. Fortunately we only lost 15 min and it was so much easier to do with courtesy baggage carts that, at the San Francisco airport, we were gouged $5. When we got to the ticket counter we realized we could return the borrowed umbrella but the agent said it would be better to try going through one of the flight attendants. Andy was able to do that later on the flight andincludeda thank you note on one of Mary’s business cards encouraging her to contact us. You can’t go wrong having a flight attendant as a friend in high places. We got the usual attentive assistance service from Sing Air to board our 8 pm flight. The plane was an older version of the one we flew earlier but still comfortable. The 4 hr flight seemed short compared to last week’s. This time Indian food was the “regular” fare and Mary said it was some of the spiciest (but best) she’d ever had.
Surprisingly we only flew at about 11,000 ft instead of 36,000 last week and meant to ask why. We had a quick assisted sweep through customs and security with the only delay being we had to look up our host’s phone number on Mary’s computer to put on the custom’s form.
The first thing we noticed when we walked outside was a distinctive
smell of smog that was unsettling but not surprising yet the cool air
and low humidity was comfortable. From a crowd with signs waiting to pick up arrivals at the curb, Ms. Muktha, founder of Mathru School for the Blind, quickly found us with our bright yellow duct taped bags andwith help from her driver and assistant we were quickly on our way.
The drive from the airport was only 7 km but it was the hairiest Andy ever experienced. It’s a good thing Mary was blind and oblivious. The best way to describe driving in India is a game of chicken or for those old enough to remember, a variation of an old Tony Curtis film we’d call “Around the World in 20 Days”. Crazed drivers darted in and out of lanes, drove on the shoulder wherever possible, cut in front of you with wanton mentality, liberally used the car horn to say “get out of the way” and gave us an overall sense that we were about to be in a crash at any moment. It didn’t seem to matter that our driver was actually quite cautious. The only tempering moments were when we occasioned a speed bump or some unusually large potholes. As in Singapore, driving is on the left side of the road and Andy would never consider driving here much to Mary’s relief.
We could hardly see much at 10:30 pm but we did note a small
unattended fire along the median, a police vehicle next to a bus on
the side of the road with a smashed in rear bumper, and trash strewn in many places on the roadside. Once off the main road, we rode on a dirt trail that was so winding and deeply rutted that often we moved less than 5 kph. Some buildings appeared fairly new while others looked like demolition candidates. Finally at the very end of the road we came to a gate announcing the school. Once we entered, a brick driveway adjacent to neatly landscaped yards with 3 well maintained buildings appeared. Our suite to stay in appears to be a converted office with 2 baths with some furniture added. It is adjacent to the kitchen (which has a refrigerator we can share) and a dining room that’s used for new teachers. There are bars on the inside of the windows and all the doors are corrugated steel. The entry room is about 10 ft sq with a wobbly 3 ft sq glass table with 2 chairs and a small area of built-in shelving that has some basic dinnerware, minor foodstuffs and some insect repellent that we were told to use in the evening along with advisement to keep the doors and windows closed to avoid mosquitos. There’s no television - or refrigerator or other appliances but there are 220 outlets we can use with an adapter and converter we brought (like Singapore and most of the world outside of North America, Japan, Brazil & a few other places, power is only
supplied as 220 volts.)
It has adjacent rooms with private baths on
two sides of the room. One room has two single beds slid together
with a common sheet, 2 single pillows & blankets with only about 2 ft of space from the wall, making a narrow path to the bath. The bed
mattress is more like a 2” sofa cushion and is so firm Andy had a very hard time sleeping and will probably need to get some type of foam or air mattress.
There’s also a couple large boxes in the bedroom thathold batteries to store & provide power when the electric service
fails (which often happens). The other room has another glass table.
There is no heat or ac but all the rooms have ceiling fans which
aren’t needed with the steady breeze and fair weather. All the
flooring is marble and the bath walls are tiled to keep it clean. The
baths are challenging, with a pedestal sink, a toilet (with a flush
handle on the right side of the tank) and a pair of hot/cold wall
faucets for filling pails to use for bathing (there’s a floor drain).
The sewer pipes don’t appear to have any traps as the smell of sewer gas permeates the room (Andy stuffed rags down the floor and sink drains when unused to lessen the odor).
So far the staff has been very attentive and responsive to making sure we have anything we need.
Next: Mary with comments about our first day here. Internet access here is spotty so bear with us.
Bangalore, India
Thursday 12/12/2013
Andy writes about our last day in Singapore and arrival in Bangalore::
Sadly, our last day in Singapore. Andy arose at 5 and was able to talk for 30 min with his employee Mike on the office computer that is hooked up to Skype. He learned that Sacramento survived last week’s big freeze fairly unscathed. No signs of snow, freezing pipes and probably little damage to covered plants. A little later while Mary was in the shower Andy found that her mom Betty was on line and also chatted with her on Skype. Her webcam worked fine so he was able to see her on the screen but for some reason she couldn’t see him.
It was a great idea setting that up before we left town. It must have been amazing for Betty to use technology so advanced in her lifetime that she was able to have a video phone call with someone 10,000 miles away overseas let alone for free on her laptop computer.
We finished our packing and were able to check out by 9:30, leaving our bags with the porter to stow until we returned later to catch a taxi to the airport. The quality of the service, the room and the location were all perfect and we highly recommend the Village Hotel at Albert Court to anyone travelling here. Today Mary desperately wanted to make her last hurrah quest to get some decent local clothing that actually fit someone who wasn’t a willowed tree branch and her last hope was the fabled ION at Orchard Road shopping complex. From what he’d read in travel books, Andy was fairly certain it was a Beverly Hills shopping mecca and not what Mary envisioned but he wanted to
support her desire to find something. On the way to the MRT we made a brief stop to get another Asian breakfast of a fried egg with green beans and noodles (the closest thing we found to what we’d call breakfast outside of a bakery) and made it there by 10:30, shortly after the centre opened.
It did not go according to plan.
Despite Mary’s efforts through an obstacle course of curbs, ramps, numerous escalators & stairs, crowds and considerable walking, she was already getting tired and we were both very uncomfortable from the highhumidity – for some reason even the typically air conditioned MRT oasis wasn’t very cool. The directly of mall stores included Louis Vuitton, Estee Launder, Gucci, Coach, Tommy Hilfiger, Swarovski Crystal & Rolex. Nothing remotely close to what she sought; Mary was completely demoralized and ready to call it a day. He tried to console her by offering to return to Chinatown & at least get some things we passed on buying yesterday, but she had already thrown in the towel. After walking a bit towards the MRT, despite the male instinct to never ask for directions, he considered desperate measures and decided the best remaining option was to ask a local female resident who might be able to refer us to a place we may have overlooked. After a few minutes of searching back and forth in her mind, she kindly suggested we travel up a few stations and look at the shops that the locals go to. Mary’s optimism was restored and we triumphantly soldiered on.
We found a few Western oriented stores and Mary even tried on a pair of capris but alas, she said that their “large” size would barely fit a size 8 and the largest waist line we found was 34.
“I’m donem” Mary said and conceded that it just wasn’t going to happen. She did, however, reconsider a return to Chinatown and after a few hassles with our train tickets we got there by noon, still time left before we had to head back to the hotel.
After a good lunch and some cool drinks, we successfully got our consolation prizes. The MRT on the way back was packed – we barely had standing room only- but it was delightfully
cool. When we got out of the station near our hotel, it was raining
buckets, the first rain we’d seen in 3 days and even the locals were
staying under cover. Mary was extremely anxious to get back but he did his best to convince her to wait it out and that it was unsafe for her (there were steps and a small river going down the street). A few moments later we were was greeted by the flight attendant he had befriended on our trip out here. It was her day off and he was stunned at the odds of us meeting and her recognizing him. We chatted very briefly about our getting ready to leave and her friend offered to loan her umbrella which we reluctantly accepted only because we needed to keep Mary’s CI from getting wet. The rain soon slowed and after grabbing a few pastries at the food court, we got back to the hotel at 4:30 damp and sweaty.
When Andy asked the concierge where the public
bath was so we could clean up he kindly gave us access to the hotel gym bath which we were grateful to actually be able to take a quick shower and make a change of clothes. Afterwards, we had time for a quick drink at the bar before our taxi came at 5:30. The taxi driver was very friendly and assured us the fare wouldn’t exceed $30, a far cry from the $66 ripoff we paid to get there.
He talked most of the way about the riot that occurred a couple days ago in the Little India neighborhood near our hotel that we were completely oblivious to and apparently it was the worst incident in 40 years that involved some drunken foreign workers.
Unfortunately, we discovered shortly after getting to the airport that
we were dropped off at the wrong Singapore Air terminal and had to take the Skytrain to terminal 2. Fortunately we only lost 15 min and it was so much easier to do with courtesy baggage carts that, at the San Francisco airport, we were gouged $5. When we got to the ticket counter we realized we could return the borrowed umbrella but the agent said it would be better to try going through one of the flight attendants. Andy was able to do that later on the flight andincludeda thank you note on one of Mary’s business cards encouraging her to contact us. You can’t go wrong having a flight attendant as a friend in high places. We got the usual attentive assistance service from Sing Air to board our 8 pm flight. The plane was an older version of the one we flew earlier but still comfortable. The 4 hr flight seemed short compared to last week’s. This time Indian food was the “regular” fare and Mary said it was some of the spiciest (but best) she’d ever had.
Surprisingly we only flew at about 11,000 ft instead of 36,000 last week and meant to ask why. We had a quick assisted sweep through customs and security with the only delay being we had to look up our host’s phone number on Mary’s computer to put on the custom’s form.
The first thing we noticed when we walked outside was a distinctive
smell of smog that was unsettling but not surprising yet the cool air
and low humidity was comfortable. From a crowd with signs waiting to pick up arrivals at the curb, Ms. Muktha, founder of Mathru School for the Blind, quickly found us with our bright yellow duct taped bags andwith help from her driver and assistant we were quickly on our way.
The drive from the airport was only 7 km but it was the hairiest Andy ever experienced. It’s a good thing Mary was blind and oblivious. The best way to describe driving in India is a game of chicken or for those old enough to remember, a variation of an old Tony Curtis film we’d call “Around the World in 20 Days”. Crazed drivers darted in and out of lanes, drove on the shoulder wherever possible, cut in front of you with wanton mentality, liberally used the car horn to say “get out of the way” and gave us an overall sense that we were about to be in a crash at any moment. It didn’t seem to matter that our driver was actually quite cautious. The only tempering moments were when we occasioned a speed bump or some unusually large potholes. As in Singapore, driving is on the left side of the road and Andy would never consider driving here much to Mary’s relief.
We could hardly see much at 10:30 pm but we did note a small
unattended fire along the median, a police vehicle next to a bus on
the side of the road with a smashed in rear bumper, and trash strewn in many places on the roadside. Once off the main road, we rode on a dirt trail that was so winding and deeply rutted that often we moved less than 5 kph. Some buildings appeared fairly new while others looked like demolition candidates. Finally at the very end of the road we came to a gate announcing the school. Once we entered, a brick driveway adjacent to neatly landscaped yards with 3 well maintained buildings appeared. Our suite to stay in appears to be a converted office with 2 baths with some furniture added. It is adjacent to the kitchen (which has a refrigerator we can share) and a dining room that’s used for new teachers. There are bars on the inside of the windows and all the doors are corrugated steel. The entry room is about 10 ft sq with a wobbly 3 ft sq glass table with 2 chairs and a small area of built-in shelving that has some basic dinnerware, minor foodstuffs and some insect repellent that we were told to use in the evening along with advisement to keep the doors and windows closed to avoid mosquitos. There’s no television - or refrigerator or other appliances but there are 220 outlets we can use with an adapter and converter we brought (like Singapore and most of the world outside of North America, Japan, Brazil & a few other places, power is only
supplied as 220 volts.)
It has adjacent rooms with private baths on
two sides of the room. One room has two single beds slid together
with a common sheet, 2 single pillows & blankets with only about 2 ft of space from the wall, making a narrow path to the bath. The bed
mattress is more like a 2” sofa cushion and is so firm Andy had a very hard time sleeping and will probably need to get some type of foam or air mattress.
There’s also a couple large boxes in the bedroom thathold batteries to store & provide power when the electric service
fails (which often happens). The other room has another glass table.
There is no heat or ac but all the rooms have ceiling fans which
aren’t needed with the steady breeze and fair weather. All the
flooring is marble and the bath walls are tiled to keep it clean. The
baths are challenging, with a pedestal sink, a toilet (with a flush
handle on the right side of the tank) and a pair of hot/cold wall
faucets for filling pails to use for bathing (there’s a floor drain).
The sewer pipes don’t appear to have any traps as the smell of sewer gas permeates the room (Andy stuffed rags down the floor and sink drains when unused to lessen the odor).
So far the staff has been very attentive and responsive to making sure we have anything we need.
Next: Mary with comments about our first day here. Internet access here is spotty so bear with us.
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