ChrisandCin

Well we have had not much fun with animals in India, specifically Kolkata. I visit other cities and notice a totally different attitude to dogs and pets in general, Mumbai is by far the most dog friendly city in India, you see dogs playing in the parks, walking down streets with their owners and frolicking on the beach.

So with Cindy back  in Florida, and the total lack of vet care here, we have no choice but to ship them back after 6 mths.

So we are flying back Lufthansa, now going into the USA we have done before. Its a breeze. There is very little paperwork to get them in, and you will be lucky if a official even stops to check your papers when you enter.

We were worried about the paperwork to get them out. It turns out that the nightmare of paperwork is only for pets booked as freight. Booking them as excess baggage removes all the paperwork hassle.

So from the Indian side all we need to get them out is:

1. Vaccination papers
2. ICAO veterinary certificate for pet travel form
3. Acclimatization certificate

And of course pay the fees!, Getting them here from Miami was $900 , getting them back is $1250… go figure!

By the way there was no talk of needing any copies of these docs, they just want to see them, and also no mention of them needing photos which I had read on other sites. But of course I shall have copies and pics on hand.

Into the USA, the docs are pretty simple:

1. From a licensed Vet a screwworm certificate for each dog if you are coming for a area which has it (ie India)

There is no need for a health certificate, although the website states some airports located in some states may need it, but it doesnt say which states! But its easy to get anyway before you leave.

The USA has 2 government bodies who look after the import of animals. Primarily its the CDC, and and then its the USDA. Here is the link

The camera phone is a great device, you can take pics of things and people almost as quick as you see them happen, here are some of the pics from my phone here:

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It would be interesting if a wind gust came up!

Kids are always begging everywhere, its sad as they are just pawns, normally you can see the adult on the roadside collecting the cash and keeping it. I was amazed to see that kid sleeping on the sidewalk, totally oblivious to the people and noises around him.

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Or this one hot morning, a pickup with a dead person in the back, I would hate to smell it when they opened that glass case, it cant be good!

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You see this everywhe, women building roads, I dont understand why but you always see woman walking alongside the steamrollers cleaning the wheels with wet rags, they normally dont have shoes on also and are walking on hot tar!

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Just some men and their goats.

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Burger rolls, you have got to be kidding, how small a burger would they be!

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Was waiting in the traffic one day and this cow was walking past, it just stopped for a pat.

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Now this is some training wheels!, I would hate to see them go around a corner.

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Hair cut anyone? First you have to wake the barber!!

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There are thousands of mad people here, this guy was having a great fight with his imaginary friend.

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I wondered about this sign, there wasnt a western toilet with a seat in sight and it was placed beside the urinals… and there was no seats on the urinals.

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Its that time of year, this sign is just as you turn into the madness they call a airport here.

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And last we end it with some more fantastic Indian electrical wiring, this is beside the pool of course, and that cable coming down is connected to 2 huge floodlights, they must be 5000 watts each, all running through these cables. The night after I took this pic, the whole thing caught fire and melted, so all thats left now is some burnt cables and a scorch mark on the wall!

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Ok so its the festival of light, so where is the connection between loud banger type crackers that sound like a bomb going off and light? ??

Yesterday and last night we had Diwali, I could have sworn that outside there was a war going on. It was that loud with explosions. it was so loud the windows would rattle! It all started at about 1pm, so I closed up the apartment turned on the aircon and turned on loud music to as the muffle out some of the noise and stop the poor dogs from going mad from the noises….didn’t really work.

Now our apartment complex had a rule that there would be no fireworks after 10pm, which was fine by me, and there were none. So we went for our last walk of the night at 9.30pm in relative quietness, just distant explosions and crackers going off. I mistakenly thought it was over for the night.

The local puja commandos (the men who organize the festivals at the complex and demand you pay them money) had spent the day decorating with lights, there was much discussion going on and ordering around of the apartment electricians for hours yesterday, this is what it looked like last night.

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This is looking towards the apartment building next door, you can see the smoke from the crackers in the air and how thick it was….cant be healthy!

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So being fairly exhausted from not much sleep the night before thanks to the odd loud explosion and the fact I have a head cold, we retired for the night…. well we thought we had retired for the night. But it was not to be.

At 12.39am to be exact the occupants of the lower income building next door (yes they are classed by income, I am in a HIG complex, High Income Group, which means you earn more than Rs100 000 per mth ($2000)) decided to start their diwali celebrations. It wasnt enough that they had employed the services of a drummer and bell boy who since 3am had been walking around the complex banging a out of beat drum, no we had to have a fireworks festival now. Problem is there isnt such a big gap between our buildings!

You can see how close we are to them, and you can actually see a cracker that has fallen over on its side and is about to shower the crowd in sparks in this pic.

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They had skyrockets and bombs that went from 12.39am to around 4am. At one point a skyrocket exploded into our building and hit the bedroom window! I looked out to watch them light another skyrocket, that promptly went into their own buildings, and one part of it went into the crowd of people. It was pretty simple why they were having problems, the skyrockets were being sat in what looked like a big jar on the ground.

Really how stupid can people be, I wonder how many people were maimed , killed or burnt from fireworks last night. Just during the afternoon I could see 2 houses on fire in the distance, obviously from some firecracker that had gone in the wrong direction…or maybe they were lighting them inside, nothing would surprise me!

This morning the air is heavy with the smell of gunpowder from the crackers, here is what it looks like.

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Really India I think has worst hygiene habits than most African countries. Here people pee in the streets, they pee in the waterways, they shit on the street, they empty the trash on the sidewalk and have a total disregard for their own country and the effects they are having on it. Even in the supermarket, our local vegetarian only supermarket , Food Bazaar,  that has just been built across the road is riddled with flies. I cant buy a cauliflower as they are all covered in flies …its gross, there are swarms of flies in there. The only place there are no flies is in the cold cabinet, but I have figured out they turn off all the refrigerators at night, so no matter what you buy its covered in fly shit.

It was interesting to read this week on the frontpage of one of the papers that India has more than half the worlds public defecators, more than any other country in the world…and more than the whole world combined.

When you walk along the front of the apartment complex you are overcome with the smell of a area on the road side where it constantly wet, its constantly wet as its the public urinal. Everyone pees there, they have this sick sense of being able to find the one place to pee and they all pee there. I would hate to live on the front of the building as the stench is gross most days. Whats scary is some days you see poor kids playing in the mud…but that mud is only mud from peoples pee! My favorite trick when I see someone peeing there is to stare at them or let Pumpkin the bigger of the dogs go up to the fence and bark at them.

But unfortunately I don’t think you can ever change the people, there is too little education in this part of the world to make them understand, in a sad way its kinda a natural way to help control the population. Not that I should say that, but as the newspaper pointed out, 386 000 children died in India last year from diarrhea , what a horrible way to die.

I still honestly dont understand the whole puja celebration. I know I am a little ignorant, plus it doesnt really interest me at all.

It was a weird thing, they have the idol, you build a pandal, or shelter for it, some of these are like mini taj majals but made out of bamboo and polystyrene, which I am amazed more of them dont burn down and kill lots of people as they are a accident waiting to happen. Ok so you put the idol in, pray dance and eat for a couple of days and then you go and drown the idol and kill it in the Ganges.  And now you have polluted one of the worlds wonders with all the clay from the idol silting up the river and all the chemicals from the paint and clothing on it. Remember here most of the paint is still lead based!

This is the send off ceremony for the apartment complex when they were going to drown the idol.

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Well I was just returning from walking the dogs around the apartment complex and this little indian man who I have never seen before came out of my apartment tower with a mission aimed at me. He had to tell me not to walk the dogs in the grass areas between the buildings and around the pool as people sit here and they dont wont be sitting where dogs have been as in his words, the dogs spoil the area !

This kinda took me aback as I wasnt expecting it, and I took great offense to his demands. I explained, as he would have just seen if he was watching us walk they didn’t go potty at all in these areas and they never do actually. I explained to him I see no problem with it and there is no rule against it, so sorry, I will continue to do it and that I dont see his perspective or reason.  I know thats kinda rude, but what the feck.. who is this little man to come and bestow his demands on me. Considering how many peoples kids play with the dogs in this area, I know he is full of shit.

Oh the joys of living in India!

Here is another thing, this morning I went to make some toast. This loaf of bread I bought fresh from the bakery across the road in the store in the new mall, its just on 24 hrs old. I opened the packet and got this freaky smell and when I touched the bread without looking at it, it didnt feel right, so I looked at it and saw this:

Whats with it, yellow mold! I have never seen yellow mold before, it cant be good for you thats for sure!

Oh well, no more leaving the bread out now, will have to freeze it and use it straight from the freezer.