Chennai Chia Pet
Okay, I hate it here. We're in Chennai and it's about 8,000 degrees. It's AC in this little internet cafe, but ugh, the guy just squirted, I think, "Love's Baby Soft" cologne preserved from the 70's on the fans, and it is making me gag. The heat is a wet blanket - there's just no relief. Sticky!!
The last few days in Hampi were great. Lounging around reading a book by day (WIRED: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi - irresistable!) while Sreenu finished up his documents, and took care of a few things for his parents. When he returned to the Shanti, we'd eat dinner, and then just hang out on the porch watching the sunset until it was time to drink a beer!
And drink beers we did! The Shanti was the only restaurant open in the area, and quite a collection of peeps would gather there at night, it was really fun. There was D, the Indian Brit, a fabulous 50ish Brit who'd had an Indian wife for a long time, but had been living in India off and on since age 16 - he spoke flawless Telegu (Sreenu was endlessly amused by this). Spent a few 3 AM nights hanging with him. There was an American couple - the guy had biked to S. India from Greece GREECE! and was on the last leg of his trip. He was accompanied by his friend, a woman from Austin who'd joined him in Islamabad PAKISTAN, peeps! She recounted an hilarious (but no doubt scary at the time) tale of an attempted groping by an over amourous bus driver - while wearing a full chador! Take-no-crap girl that she was, she kicked another guy off his bike when he tried to grab her boob - these are the kind of badass wimmen I adore! Then there was D, the Overly Tall/Very Handsome Syrian that I spent a few fun hours discussing travels in Syria with - hard to get in a word edgeways with that guy, but he was very amusing, and very intelligent. Our next door neighbor, J, a v. handsome Canadian of Trinidad&Tobago/Canadian heritage - great mix! We spent hours hanging on the porch watching the sunsets, rice paddies and giant rocks, and trashing the US administration - hah! Note to Shanti pals - if any of you are reading this - if you're ever in Chicago, get in touch/stay in touch!!
Am reading this book now, a gift from the Indian-Brit. I cannot put it down. It is set in India, and the perfect book to read while here.
After we left - oh, before I forget HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY DAD! HE'S 85!!!
We left Hampi, and it was about a two hour journey to Hospet, where we caught the train to Bangalore. We were able to kill a few blissful hours in Hospet at a restaurant I really liked - outdoor garden loaded with greenery, chicken kabobs, hot n' sour soup and delicious red wine - before our train left. I refused to give a beggar any money at the train station - and told him why - because I saw him hit the stray dogs. That doesn't encourage my sympathy to your plight, pal.
We boarded the dirtiest, most annoying train ever. A no-AC sleeper. Sreenu's implementing my rigid cost cutting measures, but this was taking it a bit far. After barely hopping on the train, it left the station. I was exhausted by this time, so I opted for sleep. S directed me to the top tier of sleepers, ostensibly to keep me unmolested while I slept, from the entire car full of men. I climbed up and noticed there was a thick layer of dust, which was mostly smeared over my arms before I noticed. Great. By that time, it was mostly all over me, so the sleeping area was now clean, and I was too exhausted to bitch about it anyway. There was also a fan, directed at my head, helpfully blowing more hot air and dust. I stretched out and attempted to sleep. Suddenly, S was waking me - the train guy was saying we had to switch seats. Ugh. I climbed down, groggy, to look at the seats he directed us to, which I flatly refused to take, because it was really dirty also. S and I went back to our first seat, and slept a bit propped up against each other. After awhile, we were in the seat next to the vestibule, he decided we should move after all, because thieves were more likely to set upon us in the seats close to the door/vestibule. We went two booths down, and found an empty tier. I climbed up again. Dirty. SO dirty. S started wiping it down with my sarong, and I bit my tongue - my clean sarong!! But I couldn't fault him for indulging my dirt aversion, and getting rid of the dust for me, all chivalrous-like. Finally, I climbed up AGAIN and was able to actually sleep for a few hours. When I awoke . . . I was Indian. I was so dirty from the mix of dust and reddish dirt on the tiers that my skin color had changed. I was a dusky tan, and it actually looked kind of cool. Sreenu got a big kick out of it anyway. We left Bangalore at 7 PM, and arrived at 6 in the morning.
Spent a couple hours after that drinking coffee and being stared at (me) in a coffeeshop in the rail station until the ticket booth opened up again, and we could get a ticket for the next leg of our journey. After that, popped into one of the hotels near the train station, actually quite a nice clean, modern room, for a much needed shower, delicious dosha snack and nap before our train to Chennai left at 3 PM.
For this train trip, S booked an AC chair car, and we rode in total cool comfort, while the pantry guys brought by chai, tomato soup and vegetable cutlets. Yum! The only problem was there was a lot of farting, screaming babies and the guy in front of me, I swear, smelled like ASS! Anyway, we had plenty of reading materials, and with my amusing companion, this train ride was pretty pleasant. We arrived in Chennai around 11 PM.
I am starting to get really sensitive to the SMELLS here, so many of them bad, but mixed with something else strangely good. For example, the Chennai train station smelled like piss and jasmine flowers. Some of the worst . . . best smells in the world. I've been trying to identify them. Nag Champa incense and farts. Rotten eggs and Sandalwood. A spice market covered in diesel fuel.
We got off the train, and the heat hit me. Like a wet fleece blanket that's been boiled in . . . piss. The train station was like any other train station in India that I've seen - total chaos. Porters scurrying around with three suitcases on their head, beggars - with all configurations of physical handicap or disability, dirty kids, prostitutes, staring teenage boys and people sleeping everywhere. Stray dogs, giant boxes of stuff being exported. Outside was when the REAL chaos began, as there were people also sleeping on the median strips, in the middle of the road, on the filthy concrete. The streets looked like closing time at the Taste of Chicago, where all of humanity is out on the streets. Sreenu, being the pro that he is, led us away from the station, and out to the intersection was, so we could catch a rickshaw and not be molested by a million touts. They see the Hi Pro Glo of the foreigner, and descend on me, but I am wiley, by now, and don't even make eye contact as I swoop by.
Quickly, we found a place to stay, with ya la teeef, this little AC internet cafe right next door. Just now, we moved into an AC room as the sweat was dripping off me in buckets.
Today, we visited the US consulate (predictable long queues) so S could put in his application for his US visa. After sitting in the bliss of the AC US Visa Application Center, he found out that he had to continue the whole thing . . . on the website. No big deal, he was able to start the process anyway.
So, we went shopping! Spencer Place, the most disorganized, rabbit warren of a shopping mall EVER where I picked up some cool Bhangra music, and what I thougth were some INDIAN PORN DVDs! They were only RS .35, (about 80 cents each) so I couldn't resist! So funny, they'll make great stocking stuffers! Though, Indian porn, I am thinking, is a lot tamer than the average episode of Sex and the City, it was a very amusing find. Oh, and I got an entire DVD of Shah Rukh Khan songs from his movies - v. comprehensive selection!
After that I decided we needed a shopping drink, so we retreated to the swanky dark of the icy-cool Regal Bar at the Ramada Taj Palace for a couple glasses of wine, and some nice snacks - crudites and shrimp!
The heat is unbearable, I really can't stand it. My sunglasses slip off my nose because of the sweat pouring down my face. Oh yes, I'm all SPF'd up with my fabulous sandalwood Ayurvedic SPF 50, so I'm protected from the burning rays. But I can't stand this heat. I look at S, and he's not even breaking a sweat, cool as a cucumber. His explanation "I am Indian." Okay, but he admits he doesn't like the extreme heat either, at all. It's humid here too in Chennai which makes it even MORE unbearable. We tried spend most of the day today inside AC, so it was bearabe. Tomorrow, off to Amritsar, closer to the Himalayas, hopefully the temperature will drop.
And have I said a word about public defecation? Not for awhile? Okay. It's everywhere here. Little kids do it, which is on the verge of acceptable, 'cos their little leavings are tiny. Today we were walking down a busy street near our hotel, it was sort of dark, but not pitch dark. I saw a guy in a sarong near the side of the road, and thought "Hm, what is going on over there" just sort of idly observing the passing parade, when all of a sudden "OH MY GAWD, HE'S SQUEEZING ONE OFF IN PLAIN VIEW OF EVERYONE! AAAAAACCCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!And I inadvertently saw the turd coming out! BLEAAAGH!!!!!" S seems horrified also by this behavior, and explains it abruptly by saying "They are shepherds, uneducated, and they don't know anything." He's not one to squat down and unload on the median strip, humd'allah! I saw an old woman in one of the villages that was getting up after finishing her business, and her ENTIRE giant butt and bits were totally exposed while she was getting up. From the back, I thought it was a horse, then I noticed the sari bunched up around her waist. Argh This stuff just comes up randomly on the street while you're riding by in a rickshaw, before you figure out what you're looking at, and once you realize what's going on, it's "Oh dammit, I wish I wouldn't have seen that." Apparently this sort of thing is really discouraged, especially in the cities, but I guess old habits die hard. The stench sometimes on the street is formidable.
We rode by a slum today that made me wrap my scarf around my mouth/nose quickly before I hurled from the smell. It was so bad. A line of slum huts on the banks of a river. It looked like a river, but as I looked over, eyes watering, I noticed it may have been a river once, but now the water wasn't moving and was pitch black. Open sewer. You could see that there was actually order in the chaos of the little huts - they were lined up, with a tiny passageway that led down to the . . . sewer. Some huts were right on the bank, and I can't imagine the illnesses caused by the air quality of being up close and personal to that stuff. Ugh. Still, everyone was busy, talking on cell phones, kids playing and laughing. Women were busy working, and wearing spotless, brightly colored beautiful saris. I don't know how they do it.
Which updates us to the present time. 9 PM, and time to get some food, drink a beer and maybe watch some news. We've not watched any TV for about a week now, and I think it's time to catch up a bit on what's going on in the rest of the world. Sreenu's brought Egg Curry which I had yesterday and loved. Ah, and a couple cold Kingfishers. Life is good in my little dusty, hot, slightly filthy yet strangely glamourous corner of the world!