Random notes on India
Some random notes i scribbled down in my little paper notepad, on my trip from Bangalore to Goa, this weekend:
- Saw 10 people inside a car that could normally only hold 5;
- Took me 2 hours to drive 17Km inside Bangalore;
- Saw a movie theater that was only showing Indian movies;
- Products usually have a date of manufacture, as opposed to expiry date;
- You don’t see many foreigners on the streets (i was pretty much the only one everywhere i went);
- There are drinking water trucks distributing on the streets;
- From times to times there are cows roaming between the cars, especially on smaller roads;
- Indians are very humble and seem not to get pissed off easily (if you see the traffic here, you’ll understand why stress cannot possibly affect them);
- Highways are a place of gathering; There are people walking, you can go in reverse, get into the opposite lanes;
- People get into and out of buses while it’s still moving, usually taking the times when it’s turning or slowing down for other cars to pass;
- Our bus – at some point during the night – had to reverse in the highway, because the driver overshot the place where we were supposed to stop for a break;
- At some point there was this really thick fog (you could not see 5 meters in front of the bus), but the driver still kept going at the same (insane) speed
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- The second stop was in some remote place that had nothing but a road and a farm. Peaceful;
- Food at the hotel in Goa (Marigold – Panaji) is around 3 Euro per meal; Some dishes are even cheaper (around 1.5 Euro);
- One single bed room there was around 2000 Rupees for 1 night (40 euro);
- On the way there, more hardware stores could be seen than places with food;
- In Goa is also rare to find foreigners on the streets;
- From Panaji to Calangute (beaches) is about 30 minutes by scooter;
- Aguada fort is great
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- Cricket is the national sport; You can find a lot of people watching the games on TV shops’ stands;
- Domino’s pizza in Goa: found a pizza that is not spicy;
- Correction, after pouring the so-called Oregano condiments, it is a bit spicy. Turns out the “Oregano” also contained white and black pepper;
- A lot of the tourism is internal. Which makes sense, considering the size of the country;
- 60 cl of Cola = 30 rupees = 60 euro cents; 1 cent = 1 cl
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- It’s very funny that there is a guard at the church door, keeping people from entering the “house of the lord” after the service has started.
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My face in space?
Wanna get your face in space? Just go to NASA's website, choose a mission, and upload your pic. Time waste? Maybe. Fun to see your face in the rocket? Yep.Isn’t music very similar?
One thing that both annoys and amazes me is the limited number of chord combinations in most songs. It’s extremely frequent to hear a musical composition and get that feeling that you heard it before. And we are probably right most of the times.
In the last AC/DC album there is a song entitled “Big Jack”. As soon as i heard it i immediately recalled another song by a very polemic Portuguese singer from the the 80s: António Variações (look up his songs, they were pretty innovative back then, actually).
I still trying to think why i am writing this but guess that i can’t help wondering, first, why aren’t there any more musical notes (i guess i should look that up) and, second, why most bands don’t explore more and keep falling to the same chord combinations all the time. The easy explanation is the amount of money that you can make with little work on a catchy pop song, but i feel sad if that’s the only one.









