Mascal Camping: SG Hill Meets Nature (part 1)

TWU XVIII escaped for a camping adventure over the weekend to a place called Mascal.

In what seems to be the start of a tradition, we ThoughtWorkers mention three things in our posts about Mascal:

1. Mascal is virtually impossible to find.
2. It lies 40-45 km away from Bangalore's Diamond District.
3. Search engines returning nothing -- nothing but ThoughtWorker blogs.
• J'adore Bangalore (July 2010)
• Marjorie Pries: Don't believe everything you think (August 2009)
• wend: to journey (June 2009)

Background

Thanks to my awesome GPS-enabled phone, I've been able to put this place on the map. The journey was 2 hours and 47 minutes in a bus. Just when I think I can't possibly be surprised any more, I get into a bus that makes a habit of passing cars and driving 3 inches from the edge of a dirt road carved out of a hillside.

Our 49.4km route:

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The trip was arranged with Outback India, who employ some of the nicest people around.

Both of our paid guides were going to school and doing this on weekends. We also had an amazingly nice volunteer who does this just to meet different people. An avid How I Met Your Mother watcher, we discussed the US-Candian relationship as told by the show. He's headed off to London for Audio Engineering next month.

Arriving

The last leg of the bus ride is a trip through an extremely small village. We step off the bus and are greeted with super skinny cows.

It was clear from the beginning this was going to be far different from another day at the office, though you wouldn't know it to look at me. Who else could pull off bringing a camera, collared shirt, and water bottle camping?

The trek from the bus to the campsite was about 1km through fields and over rocks.

Once there, we basked at the marvel that I call mini-stonehenge. It wasn't long until some of us had made our way out to the lake and conquered the microwonder.

We didn't spend this day alone, either. A very friendly street dog had decided to spend the day with us.

Luckily she was a very low-key and non-threatening dog, as she stayed well into the night.

Activities

Of course it didn't just end with getting to the campsite. We had a day full of activities...

TWU Amazing Race (part 1)

On Sunday, August 15th, the graduates of the previous ThoughtWorks University scheduled a day in the city. It was incredibly generous of them to take the time to prepare events and guide us throughout the day.

We started the day in Bangalore's Shiva Temple. It was an interesting escape inside the city, with mountains created in the temple that attempted to take visitors to another place. The relentless growth was obvious though, as billboards and building corners peaked above the faux mountain tops. Shiva, the god of destruction, was present. "Interesting," I thought, as I cut my arm on the way in as I felt my peace of mind destroyed in thinking of the looming implications.

From the temple it was on to a park. We had breakfast and arranged ourselves into teams. Just as you'd expect from a group of 20-somethings, the team names we had to choose from were the Naked Warriors and Flying Dragons. Solving the tough problems as I often do, we compromised on my hybrid suggestion and competed as the Flying Naked Warrior Dragons.

The first competition was multi-faceted. Each team member had to complete the sequence:

1. Jump rope to the potato sack
2. Get in the potato sack and hop to a line in the ground
3. Tell the next member of your team to start step 1
4. Run back with the sack to the middle of the course
5. Grab the jump rope and return it to the start

The cycle gets repeated until you've run out, at which point the clock stops and your team's time is recorded.

Remember those street dogs? A tame one was present for all of this event.

The Highly Anticipated Indian Street Dog Exposé

Street Dogs are a well-known problem within India. As an outsider, I had no idea they existed and certainly didn't expect so many. The stray dog population is terrifying, saddening, and far too prevalent.

A few days ago, we found ourselves in a park for the previously mentioned TWU Amazing Race games. A street dog was present for those as well. It's odd how quickly the below goes from absolutely shocking to expected.

On my first day here, I went out with a few people to explore the surroundings. We headed to 100 ft road and started to explore the shops. This, like I imagine much of the country, is a fairly dense area.

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Perhaps a bit off topic, but important nonetheless -- there aren't very many crosswalks here. I haven't seen any lights on the few crosswalks that do exist. This certainly is a giant difference from being in the West. The receipe for a successful journey to the other side of the street essentially boils down to this scientific process:

1. Wait for a break
2. Run like your life depends on it...because it does

After we miraculously crossed the street, we met an unbelievably scary pack of street dogs. Thank goodness they stayed away from us all. Another dog was not so lucky, as they chased him into traffic. Yikes.

Most of the time they do seem fairly harmless. The common saying is present here as well: "they're more scared of you than you are of them." I did see one dog jump on a guy during our 100 ft road outing, however. I snapped this rather dark and terrible picture as the dog was running away. It took two people to kick the dog off the person.

Again, yikes.