Visit at IET, and Driving Back

The educational institution which Adam wanted us to get in contact is IET. This institution has the main mission to bring education to the tribal communities around Surat. They teach English and other subjects which are relevant to these communities in order to not stay behind in this rapidly developing country. IET has a great campus at the River Tapi.



We are welcomed by Ashok Vyas, the director of the institute. He shows us around and explains us the situation. We also realise that Adam and Dr. Jadeja (Sardar Patel University) are on the advisory committee of this institute. Beccy and myself are taking with us information material which we can then present to our home institutions. We visit the president of IET who is located at another building.

Afterwards, we drive through the city to Ashok's home, where he invites us to the usual great tea, and where his wife performs a puppet theatre performance for us, with her hand-made dolls. On a laptop computer we are shown a video recording that was taken in this flat during Brian's first visit back in January. The video shows him and the singer Ray Hearne, sitting in those seats were we are sitting right now.

We take off. Driving back through the town, on that elevated motorway. The city appears very contemporary, but somewhat run-down. Many glass facades of buildings are damaged. We are told that this city has many diamond processing factories and a large textile industry. I would be curious to see the old town centre. There is supposed to be a fort here. But interestingly, our hosts do not mention it, nor do they recommend anything in the old town. Instead they point out the factories and shopping centres that we are driving alongside.

We continue towards North. The road is a long construction zone, due to the conversion into a motorway. We drive again through many potholes. Our driver appears to be even more agressive than before, and even more than all the other drivers around. He honks a lot, speeds at intersections and roundabouts. But the most life-threatening scene happens when our part of the quasi-motorway is very slow, and he just moves across an intersection onto the other lane, right into the oncoming traffic. Lots of honking, but everybody sees our vehicle and moves to the side. This goes so for about 1/2 km, then he returns back to the correct track. From now on nothing can shock me anymore. Beccy is half unconsious and says nothing.

We drop off Adam near the town of Bharuch. No time for sighseeing, we drive further into the night. Eventually the road becomes better. After about 4 hours of driving we are back in Vallabh Vidyanagar.

Somehow after all this Indian food, vegetarian and spicy, I have an appetite for pizza. There is a place, and we all go. The pizza is quite a bot different than expected: an almost solid bottom crust, and on top some tomato paste, with grated cheese strips.

In Surat: Pacific Inn Hotel

The waiter brings breakfast into the room: tea and sandwich. I hesitate: should I trust them to have taken all the hygienic precautions that food preparation requires? When nobody seemed to care about the usual hygienic procedures like cleaning the room / toilet after guests move out or before new ones move in? Well, I have already become quite desensitised in these days, so I actually eat the sandwich. Tastes good. Has a bit of salad which I had avoided so far, because of the water washing (water is always assumed to be contaminated, at least for us sensitive and unadapted Westerners). But I assume now that I have been a bit adapted. And indeed, no problem re. food occurs to me on the whole trip. Only my strange cold or infection in the throat worries me a bit...



At daylight we can have a closer look at this hotel. Has inner court yard, with balconies and bridges.

Arrival in Surat

Back at the hospital, our group splits. Most people will drive back to Vallabh Vidyanagar. But Adam has offered to visit another educational institution which is interested in establishing links with overseas contacts. This would be in Surat, a few hours more to drive from here. Beccy and myself have been interested in this, but she does not feel so good today - some of the spicy food has not been kind to her. We are considering cancelling that trip, but Adam convinces here that it would be good to go. So the other ones take off, and Beccy, Adam, Asha, and myself stay behind.

We sit in the garden, chat with out hosts while it gets dark. A great view onto the starry sky. At 8pm the driver from Surat arrives, we say good-bye and drive off into the darkness. The driver seems to want to make up time, he drives quite energetically over the potholes. Often we "test the suspension" - yes, it still works ok.

After 45 minutes we get a call, from the people back at the hospital. They found an ID card, with the name "Reinhold Behringer". What the hell...? I check my wallet, everything is there. I did not take my passport with me. What could this ID card be? Then I realise: it is my German driver license! Just a few months ago I had been looking for it for a few weeks, because I had replaced it and could not find it. And now this old grey paper document has again disappeared. Fortunately Dr. Yoshi would bring it to Vallabh Vidyanagar on Thursday, so I would have it back then. I have to find a better place to carry it with me than the mobile phone pocket.

A few times we cross railway tracks of those narrow gauge lines. I mark the position on my GPS, to be able to explore them sometime in the future, maybe. The ride goes through a lot of construction. After a while, the air begins to smell "chemically" - there are many factories outside, we are driving through a very industrial area. Around 11:30 we arrive in the outskirts of Surat, at the Pacific Inn Hotel. Makes a nice impression in the dark - before I enter the bath room. There are the usual buckets and fossets/taps on the wall, no surprise there, but the bath tub is something that I must take a picture of: it has stains, traces of dirty water, I would really not want to step in there and take a shower, not talking about a bath. And the toilet... well, I will be kind to the readers and spare them a detailed description of what was swimming in there... I wanted to take a photograph as evidence, but then I shy-ed away because it was just too disgusting. The whole think looked like something from the movie "Trainspotting"...

Well, no time to think much, I switch off the air conditioner and go to sleep.