Tagged: internships
Claire: Pushkar and Shopping
Usually when I return from a weekend trip my camera is loaded with new pictures, but not so much after this weekend. It was a great weekend in lovely hippie town Pushkar, but what was different was we didn’t go see the main sites like usual. We soaked in India’s culture another way: shopping!
Pushkar was AWESOME for shopping. They had a main road bazaar with shops lining both sides of the street- clothes, handicrafts, food, jewelry, bags, art, and home decor, everywhere! I found myself always lost and turned around in Pushkar, but realized it was because I walked around with my eyes glued to the clothes hanging at every stand instead of where I was going. I probably stepped in cow poop a few times. Or caused a motorbike pile-up. Wouldn’t know for sure, I was that entranced.
One shop we walked into was in the middle of an alley. A few turns off the main bazaar street, dimly lit, and no one around besides the three men in the shop. Casual. The shop was itty bitty but FILLED with t-shirts and tapestries. Stack after stack reaching the ceiling. I think there were enough shirts in there to clothe all of Rajasthan. We found a few we liked and wanted to pay 150 R each, max. The guy wanted 400R! Crazy talk. If you want to get a good deal you have to be patient, committed, confident, and not afraid to walk away. After a heated debate that lasted a good half hour we all walked out with shirts for 100R. Woo! Haggling is probably my favorite thing.
Most of our shopping experiences are like this- even when we need to buy a bottle of water. They see us, obvious westerners, and think “oh, a silly tourist who will pay too much” and throw out a high price right off the bat. I don’t blame them-I’m sure there are many tourists who pay it and don’t realize you need to barter. 15 rupees is a good price for a liter of bottled mineral water. They usually cave to that price pretty quickly when they realize you know how it works.
A large upside to living here is I have time to scope out prices and learn what I should pay for things. I spent a lot of this first month gathering information and comparing prices of items I am interested in.
My friends here and I have been shopping together for a while now and have become successful team bargainers. We’ve tried a few different strategies. There’s the good-cop/bad-cop approach, uninterested approach, buying-in-bulk approach, holding-the-money-out-so-they-see-it-and-can’t-resist approach, you know, the classics. My favorite is the I-saw-it-for-cheaper-at-the-shop-down-the-street-so-ill-just-buy-it-there-instead approach. There is nothing they can’t stand more than losing a sale to a neighbor shop.
What’s funny though is no matter which direction the haggling brings you with the shop owner- once you buy the item you are suddenly best friends. Even if you ended the bargaining by insulting the guys mother, once those Rupees are handed over he’ll shake your hand, say he loves America, kiss your feet, invite you to his house for dinner, braid your hair and oogle over how dreamy Ryan Gosling is… It’s strange but everyone leaves happy and sometimes you make a new friend, so I like it.
There was one shop owner who was studying his English from a mini textbook when Dani and I walked into his shop. He was very genuine, we chatted about our lives a bit, and then he asked us to write down some English phrases for him to learn. He was a sweet guy, and I ended up buying a pair of deluxe wrap pants from him, for a great price. I loved that he didn’t harass us about buying his stuff. Usually you have to be careful not to touch something or stare at an item for too long because once they see you-they pounce! They’ll start whipping out every version of that item, and make a complete mess of their shop. Once I picked up this wooden, cat shaped box that looked super silly. I didn’t want it at all, was just looking, but the guy ran into the back and dumped out this enormous crate filled with cat boxes. WOODEN CAT BOXES EVERYTWHERE. 200 rupees! 200 rupees! Good price madam! You like cat? Where you from?! Good price! Okay, okay, 180 rupees! Special price for you!
My suitcase barely passed the weight limit on my way here. It might be a struggle to bring all my goodies back home in December… Who am I kidding, it will definitely be a struggle. How was I expected to pack only two pairs of shoes to live off of for three months? Luckily my suitcase was filled with comfort food too: peanut butter, trail mix, granola bars, Gatorade and crystal light packets. Once they’re demolished I’ll be replacing them with floral Aladdin pants, turbans, and tapestries. Maybe some wooden cat boxes too.
Pushkar. View from our hotel rooftop.
Cow partyyyy.
Spectacular views.
Beauteous.
This reminded me of the market in Aladdin.
Mint Lemon juice slushy.
Claire: Tuk-tuk Rides
I would like to start off by mentioning that when my co-workers asked me how I get to work everyday I responded “tuk-tuk” and they all started laughing. I guess the locals don’t ever call them tuk-tuks, they say auto-rickshaws. I think tuk-tuk sounds adorable, so I like to say it.
I take multiple tuk-tuk rides a day so I’m becoming quite familiar with the haggling process. Some drivers will give me a decent price right off the bat, but most underestimate my knowledge of a good price because I’m a foreigner. So, I work for it. The thing I always remember is they want my sale as much as I want the ride, so I don’t settle for a high price. There will always be another tuk-tuk. Something I’ve found very effective when trying to get a tuk-tuk for a group is to have every person hail a tuk-tuk and start haggling side-by-side. Then the drivers have competition so they drop their prices faster and we jump in the tuk-tuk that goes the lowest. It’s fun!
It took me a while to figure out why drivers would rather buddy up with another driver to shuttle a group of five or six amongst two tuk-tuks rather than taking all the money for themselves and cramming us all into their own vehicle. I am all for cramming people in so we’d usually hold off until we found a driver who’d do it. I think our record passenger number is eight-four sitting across the seat, two on their laps, and two curled up in the open trunk. Well, it turns out that it’s against the law for the drivers to shuttle more than 3 passengers at a time. I learned this a crazy way—we were on our way to the Old City in Jaipur when suddenly a policeman ran into the middle of the intersection right in front of our speeding tuk-tuk. He was flailing his arms and blowing his whistle, and our drivers veered out of the way and kept driving! I was so confused, and that’s when he explained to us that he could get a ticket for having over three passengers. Hahaha…
On my way to work I share a ride with Dani and Natalie because our internship sites are near each other. It’s great because then we only pay 30 rupees each for the ride (~60 cents) instead of 50 each (~$1). We had a hard time at first with navigating, because all drivers will say they know where they’re going (to get you into their tuk-tuk), but usually they don’t know and then they’ll stop and ask for directions multiple times. It’s frustrating. Now that we’ve learned the route to work it’s much easier because we can instruct the drivers ourselves. I lucked out and found a driver who comes everyday to my workplace at 5 o’clock sharp to drive me home. The first time he showed up I hadn’t even asked him to. He remembered driving me home from work the day before and stopped and asked “Jai Jawan Colony, Tonk Road?” which is my address. It’s awesome.
Tuk-tuk rides are very bumpy and noisy and the driving is crazy, but I’m completely used to it now. It will be strange to drive a car when I’m home in two months. (Has it already been a whole month?! Crazy.)
Claire: Learning, Jodhpur, and Saying Good-bye
I’m learning a lot at my internship. The language barrier is still tricky, but it gets better everyday. My co-workers teach me hindi at lunch. I can count to ten now! I’ve been working on my AutoCAD skills, and re-drafting floor plans and sections in 2D. My supervisor told me to alter the plans, hatchings, and furniture layouts as I see fit. I think the first few weeks will be me practicing, observing, and asking questions, and hopefully the following months I’ll be able to do work that directly contributes to the company (while continuing to practice, observe, and ask questions, of course).
This weekend a few roommates and I took an overnight train to Jodhpur. It was my first sleeper train experience, and boy, was it an experience. Our friend had taken the air-conditioned sleeper train before and thought it was too cold, so we took the non-ac train. The trains were crowded, but not as crowded as I imagined they would be, so I was happy.
After a 5.5 hour ride, we arrived in Jodhpur at 8am, and went straight to Mehrangarh Fort. From atop the hill we took in the magnificsnt views of the entire city. Earlier when I had the thought you’ve seen one fort, you’ve seen them all- I take it back. This one was BEAUTIFUL, a sequence of courtyard after courtyard with strong style and intricate design.
Many of us were discussing how we felt the Mehrangarh fort was more beautiful than, dare we say it, the Taj Mahal. We had an audio tour, which was cool. Then we went zip-lining through the fort’s mountainous landscape! INCREDIBLE. MAGICAL. BEAUTIFUL. The company was called flying fox, and their course is Swiss designed and British run. We went on 6 different zip-lines, some going over water, some over parts of the fort. Spectacular views of the fort and the old blue city. We saw a couple sites where Batman-The Dark Knight Rises was filmed.
Sunday was our roommate Sanne’s last day. It was hard to say goodbye. It’s amazing how quickly you can bond with someone when you’re experiencing new, exciting, occasionally uncomfortable, unforgettable, and unique moments together. We made plans to meet up in New York for spring break this coming year. I hope it works out!
Claire: Ganesh Chaturthi Festival
Ganesh Chaturthi Festival was yesterday! I saw many giant Ganesh statues strapped to motorcycles and cars in the days leading up to the festival. We had work off for the holiday and took part in a few activities at camp. We started off by learning about Ganesh, and making Ganesh clay statues. Ganesh is the hindi God you pray to first whenever you have a prayer. He represents good fortune as do the other gods, but Ganesh is particularly good for new beginnings. He is the son of Shiva and Parvarti. His head was chopped off when he was a child, so Shiva went on a search for a new head. The first animal he found was an elephant, so he chopped off the elephants head and gave it to Ganesh. I thought that was not fair for the elephant, but it turns out the elephant took a goats head to replace his own, and became another god. Poor goat! The goat was granted eternal life as a headless goat for his sacrifice.
After making our statues and setting them out to dry we dressed up in saris, made flower garlands, and took part in Pooja (hindi worship). Then we went to the temple down the road. It was interesting to see and participate in hindu traditions.
A large group of us wanted to have dinner at Anokhi Cafe in Jaipur. It is a restaurant in the city that offers good non indian food, and safe fresh vegetables. All nine of us loaded into an extra large tuk-tuk. We arrived, and the building looked a lot different than I expected. It wasn’t until we sat down and saw a menu that we realized we were dropped off at the wrong Anokhi. We needed to be at Anokhi Cafe in the center of the city and we were at Anokhi on the city edge. I swear the restaurant chose the name Anokhi just so tourists would accidentally be brought there instead of the popular, Anokhi Cafe. We really were looking forward to non-indian food, so we got up and loaded back into tuk-tuks and began another journey to Anokhi Cafe. ONE HOUR LATER we arrived at the city square that contains Anokhi Cafe. Our driver kept saying he knew where we were going, but was lost the whole time. We got a tour of the whole city, and went down nearly every road when Anokhi Cafe was only a 15 min ride from our house. It seems like a part of Indian culture to tell you what you want to hear instead of the truth. We made our way up the 2nd floor where Anokhi is, and it was closed! We were so frustrated at this point and very hungry, so we settled for “Little Italy” on the 3rd floor. It turned out to be a great accident because we all had amazing pasta (a great break from our indian-food-every-meal-of-the-day diet), and we all got a sizzling brownie with vanilla ice cream and hot fudge for dessert. You’re drooling, right? Me too. I had dreams about that brownie last night. It was that good.
I learned that most things in India don’t go as you plan. No matter how well you plan it. BUT, as long as you stay patient, flexible, and positive, you can stumble upon amazing things! Hidden gems.
Claire: Taj Mahal
Our 18 hour adventure to and from Agra began Friday night at 11pm. Seven volunteers/interns plus one driver crammed into a jeep! No joke. The trunk part had fold down chairs, so three of us smashed in back there. The 6 hour rides were definitely an experience. I am lucky for my ability to sleep anytime, anywhere, but I don’t think the others were as fortunate. I became a pillow for both my neighbors, and when we weren’t trying to sleep we jammed out to Phish. Good bonding time.
The Taj Mahal was STUNNING. It was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It was worked on 24 hours a day by 20,000 laborers in 22 years. The Taj is truly priceless, because now-a-day all the money in the world couldn’t pay for the labor that went into the structure. It’s amazing being able to physically see something you’ve always studied from a textbook. It felt unreal. I was sure once I got up to the structure and poked it, it would pop and deflate. Instead, I felt the cool white marble, with smooth, intricate, stone inlay. That is the part that most amazed me. The detailing in the marble is so intricate one would expect it to be painted on. Instead, laborers (more like artists) would delicately carve many little pieces of stone, and carve out a setting for them in the marble to be inlayed.
The ride back was nice because it was daytime and there was so much to see out the window. After a few hours with my face glued to the window I realized a few things. One, India is obviously highly populated, but it is so populated that the largest distance I saw between two people was 20ft. The LARGEST was 20 ft. I think it’s safe to assume that the average person living here could go an entire lifetime surrounded by people, never being the only person in a room for more than a minute. No privacy, but also no loneliness. If an Indian came to the United States they’d probably think there was a zombie apocalypse, and all the people were gone (yikes!). Another thing I noticed is men and women show no signs of affection or contact with another in public. However men will hold hands, drape their arms around another, and hug in public. That was strange for me, because it is the complete opposite in the United States.
The first full week of interning starts Monday for me. I’m nervous, anxious, but very excited!
Claire: Settling Into Life as a Jaipur Intern
I’m getting settled into my new life in Jaipur, and it’s very exciting! I’ve done some exploring of the city near the house and got some quality road crossing practice. It feels completely against human nature to walk out in the middle of a chaotic intersection with buses, cars, motorcycles, auto-rickshaws, and bicyclists zooming by you! Every time I’m convinced I will die. My trick is to buddy up with a local and follow their lead. Maybe after three months of practice i’ll be able to do it as casually and calmly as they do.
It has been fun getting to know the people I’m living with. There are girls from Finland, Switzerland, Holland, Germany, Austria, Brazil, and America. It is very international! I love that. We chat about simple things like our favorite foods from home, and our favorite music. Dani (from New York) and I go on and on about peanut butter and the other girls find it hilarious.I pulled out a giant jar of peanut butter form my suitcase that my mom insisted I pack, and my roommate from Vienna goes “That is American sized!”. We joke a lot together, and are always laughing. We also discuss more intense things like our education system, politics, and healthcare system at home. I am learning so many interesting perspectives and ways of life. It is very exciting!
The first day of my internship was on Tuesday. The head architect speaks great English, but the other workers barely speak any. Communication was a challenge, but it’s a great opportunity to practice hindi. My co-workers were really nice, even though we couldn’t verbally communicate; they brought flowers and sprite, and these indian sandwiches for a welcome party. I spent most of my time in AutoCAD refreshing myself on the commands, Hopefully I can learn quickly and be able to contribute to the company soon.
Our cook prepared lunch boxes for us. They are adorable and interesting looking. They are a thick insulated plastic with a screw off cap, and inside are three stacked metal bowls with little lids and a metal clasp holds them all together. In one was chipatis (indian flatbread), curry vegetables in another, and a hard boiled egg in the third. At work I learned that everyone shares their lunches. It’s adorable. All 8 of us put our metal canisters in the middle of a little table and ate together. They laughed as I tried to repeat the indian names for the food.
We’re heading to Agra this weekend to see the Taj Mahal! Cannot wait 🙂
Claire: Traveling to India
Hey there! I’m Claire, and I am thrilled to be able to share my experiences as an intern in India! I am from Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the United States. I am a junior in my undergraduate studies at the University of Minnesota- Twin Cities, studying architecture.
I knew I wanted to have an experience abroad in my field of study this fall, and World Endeavor’s internship placement was exactly what I was looking for. Other international internship placement companies didn’t provide as many duration options, and weren’t as willing to find or customize an internship to fit my interests and goals. I was placed as an intern for Design Square- an architectural, interior and landscape design firm in Jaipur, India. I was attracted to India for the adventure as well as its phenomenal architecture.
I LOVE to make lists, so right when I found out I was accepted into the program I went on a frenzy of list making. I made lists about anything and everything relating to India. Packing lists, travel lists, shopping lists, goal lists..etc. However, even with my 100+ packing lists floating around (seriously), I found packing for the trip tricky for two main reasons. One, I wasn’t sure how to dress modestly while considering the extreme heat, and two, I wanted to pack as lightly as possible so I would have more room for bringing things home (cannot wait to bargain and shop!). It was challenging, but with the advice from past india interns, and resources from my enrollment advisor at World Endeavors, my suitcase passed the weigh in test at the airport!
Many goodbyes, four flights, and a bag of starbursts later, I am here in Jaipur settling into my home for the next three months. I had quite the traveling itinerary for my way here- I flew Minneapolis to Chicago to Amman to Delhi to Jaipur. Even though I was technically traveling alone, I learned you aren’t truly alone if you don’t want to be. There are so many people to talk to in the airports, and your neighbor on the airplane usually has an interesting story to share. I sat next to a girl on my first flight who was in transit to Paris to study for the whole year. On my second flight I sat next to a man who is an oil engineer from Baghdad, currently living in Canada, who told me all about his two month journey through Europe after college. I met a man from Panama in the Amman airport who’s son goes to the University of Minnesota as well! Small world. He is a general surgeon in Panama and was on his way to Delhi for a medical mission.
Arriving in Jaipur went very smoothly, and there was someone right out of baggage claim with a sign for me. The Jaipur airport has amazing structural glazing and cladding. It was incredible, and there was so much green around it. It was a lovely venue for entering this beautiful city.
I am very excited to finally be here!
-Claire
Welcome!
Welcome to the World Endeavors India Internships blog. Our travel correspondents will be sharing their stories and photos here throughout the year, so check back for updates!
WE Travel Correspondent Blog: Intern in India 