Coronavirus

What a quandary! We are a little obsessed with coronavirus and are monitoring the situation very carefully to ensure we keep updated.

We are staying in south east India, in a place called Pondicherry (Puducherry), which is in the state of Tamil Nadu. There is now three reported cases in Tamil Nadu, which seems pretty good with a population of 77 million people! They have been very proactive in response to COVID-19, and public places, schools etc have been closed for a while, with a focus on prevention rather than management. State and national borders are either closed or have significant restrictions. The whole country has responded quickly. If we had arrived in India a week later than we did, we wouldn't have been allowed in as visas have been suspended until 15 April. Because we are already here, we can stay. International borders are also closed from 22 March for a week. 

Thankfully, we are all healthy and we feel safe from the virus. Our plans have changed a little for now though. We made the decision to stay in Pondicherry for at least a couple of weeks rather than moving on. Pondi is a lovely little French/Indian village complete with French bakeries and booze. Not such a bad place to chill. We were to be in Kerala now, a state to the south west, but virus numbers are higher due to it being a popular expat and tourist spot, so we'll wait and see.

The issue for us at the moment is not one of safety from the virus (we feel very safe where we are), but whether we could get home if needed. The Australian Government recommendation on smartraveller.gov.au reads: 'As more countries close their borders and introduce travel restrictions, overseas travel is becoming more complex and difficult. You may not be able to return to Australia when planned to'. However we feel that we are in a fortunate position of not needing to rush back. We have 9 months until we have to be home, so fingers crossed the situation gets better and not worse. We have changed our India itinerary, and are no longer going to some places. There is also the option to stay in India longer than our original two months. Who know, we might not even get to Europe!

Everything has exploded in such a short time, only really in the last month, so we are hopeful that things will improve in the next couple of months. We will keep monitoring.

We also emailed DFAT to explain our situation and ask for some feedback, so we'll see what they come back with.

Stay safe everyone!

Lombok Wedding

Yesterday afternoon our quiet little village transformed into a wild party for a few short hours.

It went from the familiar tranquil sounds of the breeze shaking the leaves in the palm fronds, the distant waves crashing at the beach, a bleating goat or a rooster that slept in, to hundreds of people and electric punk music blasting loud enough to almost drown out the high pitched squeal of music coming from the speakers attached to the motorbikes of the ice cream and fairy floss vendors.

Andar, our host at the village homestay, casually mentioned a few days ago that there was to be a village wedding celebration on Sunday afternoon. At about 2pm Andar asked if Jess and Joe would like to go with his sister and friend to a larger village to rent traditional clothes for the wedding. This seemed an amazing opportunity, to cost them each 25000IDR (about $2.50AUD), and they were ushered onto the rear of the scooters without much opportunity for them to question the proposal.

They returned in their stylish attire, impressing both us and the locals. The locals, too, gradually appeared wearing more traditional clothes or the best of their wardrobes. As anticipation grew for the arrival of the procession so did the number of scooters parked in the village. As we waited Jessie was handed a little basket of fruit to present to the bride when she arrived. We joined the villagers as they moved to the edge of the village in the direction that the procession was to come.

We heard an almighty and unfamiliar noise approaching before we could see what was on its way. The bride led the procession. An elaborate headdress adorned her heavily made up and very straight face, shaded by an umbrella held over her.

Sonia and I lost the kids in the commotion and made attempts to move ahead of the bride and take photos as she led the procession. Behind the bride was an orderly procession of 2 lines of villagers from the bride’s village, the village we had been temporarily adopted into. The rest of the village gathered to each side of the road to observe the convoy. I jumped onto the back of a small truck parked on the side of the road to get an elevated view of the action and was surprised to see that Jessie had now been positioned to the right of the bride, fingers interlocked with the bride, a last-minute bridesmaid? 

The confusion associated with Jessie’s promotion was amplified when I saw that Joe was now bestowed with the role of spinning and bouncing the umbrella over the bride’s head, shielding her from the sunlight. I suspected that our host, Andar, had exercised his influence to position Joe and Jess in prominent positions as the procession moved through the small village.

The groom coolly followed the members from the bride’s village with revellers from his own much larger village that outnumbered the bride’s village four-fold. Following this significant crowd was the misplaced but unrelenting group of punk rockers jumping and thrusting their heads into the air as if in the front row of a wild mosh pit. They were followed by a wall of speakers rising above them blasting punk rock and shaking the coconuts from the trees. I logically assumed the music was recorded, however as they got closer, I was astonished to see that the drummers, electric bass / guitar and keyboard moved with the crowd all plugged into the trailer full of generators, amplifiers and speakers.

As the bride reached her childhood home, she ditched her newly acquainted bridesmaid, joined with her fresh new husband and moved inside her house for the last time. Within 10 minutes the bride and groom were in the back of a car, whisked away among the crowds to the groom’s village where they would now permanently reside.

As quickly as they arrived, the scooters full of people departed and silence was restored in the village. Speakers were hoisted onto the back of trucks, the fairy floss and ice cream ceased flowing, and village life was restored. It felt like a dream, but this experience that lasted barely an hour will stay with us for a lifetime.