Part 2: How Difficult Can It Be To .......

Malkers

Get To Pondicherry On Time & In One Piece

Well you’d think it would be simple enough wouldn’t you!

Firstly, apologies for starting a new thread here but the other one got kinda trashed a little and went in a complete new direction!

Enjoy!

I should have known the day would go pear shaped on us as we checked all our banking before we left to find that dear old Air Deccan had charged us twice for a Goa flight I had just booked a couple of days previously, also noticed that although 3 of us had the same flight number, 1 was showing 8.40 am departure and the other 2 were showing 8.10am so obviously we didn’t leave this to chance, got our taxi booked early, got to airport and checked in to find that now in fact the flight was at 9.40 am AARRRRGGGHHHH could have had an extra hour in bed. I enquired as to why we had not received a text message about this and she explained that was a customer service generated thing and nothing to do with her. Thanks for nothing then!

So faced with 2 hours of doing bugger all but certainly not wanting to be locked like criminals in Bangalore’s wonderful departure lounge, we headed for Cafe Coffee Days to see if they could spoil my day for me even more, they usually do! One cappucino with an extra shot of espresso to calm me down and my phone bleeped with a text message. “Air Deccan anounces a rescheduling of its Chennai flight to 10.00am, please adjust your travel plans accordingly” AAARRRRGGGHHHH My beloved Air Deccan whom I’d complimented and raved so much about had finally pissed me off and I was all ready to go to there desk and shove my phone somewhere warm!

Four cappucinos and umpteen cigarettes later and after watching many folks drink their coffee and throw the cup as close as possible to the empty bin without actually getting it inside, it was time to go through security and have all our lighters and matches stolen from us, never mind my big camera tripod which could take somebody’s head off with a good swing, no thats fine sir! Got through that ok and managed to escape with just losing the one lighter for them to flog back to a kiosk! Checked the tv screen, now saying 10.10am but as it was 9.40 and the flight from Chennai had not arrived yet, this seemed optimistic still. Sure enough, 10.10 came and went and the departure lounge that had been ram jam packed just 30 minutes earlier was now empty apart from 30 odd Air Deccan passengers.

They called the flight at 10.20 and there was the usual incessant barging, pushing and shoving, we sauntered up gracefully as usual, were the last ones on the bus, first ones on the plane and grabbed the best seats at the front . I chose a rear facing seat for a change and boy was that weird on accelaration with my whole body trying to fly to the back of the plane and all that coffee in my belly getting squeezed back up again by the seatbelt.

10.40 we took off, of course we would have been well on the way to Pondi by now! Landed without any issues, waited for the plane to stop before taking the seatbelts off but as usual all the natives know better, plane is still moving, all their seatbelts are off, mobile phones are making a collective melody and the overhead lockers are already opened . I realised that if the plane should suddenly stop then the idiot in front of me with no belt on would be quickly sat on my lap, I therefore asked him politely if he could put it back on and explained why, he grunted, ignored my polite request so I lifted my knees up to my chest and hoped we would make a sudden stop! We didn’t of course! Sat there and waited for all the barging, pushing and shoving to finish so that we had a cleart route from the aircraft, last on the bus again, first out of the airport . They’ll never learn and that suits me fine .

Had to walk a bloody mile to find our jeep as he wouldn’t pay the entry charge to the airport (didn’t the damn fool know we were rich foreigners and would have reimbursed him? ) it was a damn hot 35 degress and I was ready for some air conditioning and thankfully he had it and it worked!

Now bearing in mind I don’t have a clue where Chennai airport actually is, North, South, East or West, still don’t know in fact but I assume its south or West if my directional head is working properly, we headed off towards Chennai city centre and I assume that we are taking the East Coast Road or ECR as its known because Indians love to have initials for everything just to confuse foreigners!

We stopped in some side road and the driver got out and went to his office to get his permits, heaven only knows why he didn’t have these already but I assumed it was en route so didn’t really care much. So we’re back in the heavy traffic again, Chennai is huge and all looks the same to me so I couldn’t give you an accurate route but after another hour or so of this we finally hit some faster road and as I was told that Pondi is 3 hours away then I figured there must be around 1 hour to go or therabouts allowing for the traffic. Heard some really annoying horns getting closer behind us and had to get out of the way for a cavalcade of VIP’s (Very Irritating Pillocks) who were clearly in a big hurry, you’d think they were late for a flight or something but couldn’t be as the airport was already over 2 hours behind us! Oh no it wasn’t, I watched them take a turning right at the signal and realised we were right outside Chennai Airport once more AAAARRRGGGHHHH It was now 2.10pm and we’d gone nowhere because this steaming brainless idiot had forgotten his papers, well he’d probably not forgotten them actually, he just figured we wouldn’t care about 2.5 hours of wasted time whilst he went to get them, it didn’t bother him so why should it bother us. Right there and then, any chance that driver had of getting a tip at the end of our weekend had vanished! I did relent though, the next day I gave him 10 rupees for a dosa and a chai!

Anyway, the road opened up to a decent highway (NH45 I think) which actually is one of the best roads I have travelled in India but very soon we pulled in and stopped again, “What Now” I asked knowing that this was no way a border checkpost, well he never spoke a word of English so he just got out and walked up to a pooja (or temple, I don’t know) and did whatever you do and came back, fair enough, got to respect someone else has beliefs even if I have none. My friend indicated that he had probably prayed for safety on the highway, good I thought. Well it wasn’t very long before I realised that this guy must have prayed that he wouldn’t actually make it to Pondicherry that day and pretty soon I had my head between my legs praying to anyone and everyone that I would make it. Thankfully his prayers weren’t granted that day but I’m sure he won’t have long to wait! Hunger was kicking in so my friend suggested a hotel which would probably be the last place to get “your kind of food” for the next 100kms. So we pulled in to the this hotel and browsed the menu, not a whole lot on there to choose from so I chose fish and chips knowing that at least I would eat it but not expecting it to be very good. Sure enough out it came exactly as I expected with the texture and taste of an old matress that had been slept on by my incontinent grandmother (who incidentally died in 1971) and tartare sauce like pure fresh vommit! Mmmm, yummy, warm glass of Limca to take away the taste and back to the highway! For some strange reason this was our stop on the return journey where I played safe and had tomato soup, think they used the same principle as making English tea though so I asked that next time they might leave the tomato in the hot water and not just dip it in, waggle it about and sling it in the bin!

Anyway, the highway is now pretty empty with two lanes all to ourselves which the driver duly used, at the same time of course. Now with a 4 lane dual cariageway, 2 lanes one way and 2 lanes the other with a big verge in the middle its pretty obvious what you have to do, why then everytime we attempted to pull out and overtake a truck would their be a bus coming straight for us ‘flashing HIS bloody lights’ in the fast lane of our carriageway? AAARRRGGGHHH Brainless suicidal idiots, no other description, they care sod all about their own lives or anyone elses!

Anyway, most of the journey was ok and fairly quiet of traffic so I was wondering why this guy wouldn’t go above 80kmh when he could see for miles ahead and it was a smooth pothole free road with 2 lanes. But! As soon as we hit heavy traffic or got to a village or normal 2 way road, this guy would become Narain Karthikeyan and regularly hit speeds of 95kmh plus weaving in and out of the traffic in suicidal mode then we’d hit a big open highway and get back to below 80kmh again, what’s that all about? I must point out that he didn’t completely become Narain Karthikeyan as we did take all the corners that day without ending up in the field!

We’d planned to visit my friends family in a village on the way and as we neared the place we pulled over for a much needed replenishment of cigarettes and alcohol at a dhaba. I hopped out and went to a kiosk and the driver and my friend went the other direction for the booze leaving Jen unattended in the car! Went to the kiosk knowing they wouldn’t stock my preferred brand of Benson Lights nor understand what the hell I was saying (fair enough, my Tamil knowledge is zero too) so asked for 2 packs of Classic Mild, only Indian brands sir, ok Navy Cut then as the extra strength might drug me up a little more for the journey! But wait a minute, Classic Mild IS an Indian brand, AAAARRRRGGGHHH . Anyhow, wandered back to the car to find Jen completely surrounded by neanderthals, tons of them and I don’t mean surrounding at any distance, right up to the window so you could taste their pan stained breath all stood mumbling to each other and scratching their balls . Any normal woman would have wound the window up and honked the horn for assistance but not Jen, man that girl ain’t phased by nothing. They were mumbling away louder as I sat back in the car and I don’t know if there is a translation in Tamil for gang rape but I was certain I heard those words, only thing was that they were now looking at me !!! More and more were joining the circle and it was like “Hey, Bob, Dave, come and have a look at this western tart with the big boobies smoking a fag” We did suggest giving them a flash of the big white western boobies as we pulled out but thought better of it!

Got to our friend’s family house in the village, drank coconut water, ate omelettes and had a right laugh teaching his 63 year old father to play harmonica and finally arrived in Pondicherry beaten and battered but still alive at 9.30pm and called it a day. It was now that I realised there was a down side to arriving in one piece though, it meant I had 36 hours to think of the return journey!

Not much else went wrong apart from the driver not knowing his way around Pondi despite the fact we’d asked for someone who knew it well, Pondi is a cool place, as is Auroville so I’m looking forward to returning at Easter to discover a bit more about its history. We finished off our Sunday with a visit to Auroville beach, what a lovely place, yes what a lovely place, yes what a lovely place that it COULD be if they didn’t allow the bloody locals on there to ruin it and banged them in jail everytime they dump their entire picnic on the sands. Sure every beach has an amount of litter but to not be able to walk 3 steps without thrusting a sandy foot into a leftover Chicken Biryani with plastic fork sticking out really sucks AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!

Cheers
Malc
PS: Obviously we did make it back, pictures will be on my web tomorrow once Sify figure out why I’m paying for 256kbps and only getting 42! AAAARRRRGGGHHHH

Nick-H

Now maybe you being to understand how far-reaching is the influence of a Bangalore estate agent!

1. There is no "entry fee" to Chennai airport. The car park costs Rs50, but it is free to drive in and drop or pick up.
2. It is South West of the City. It is not on the way to Pondy from the centre of Chennai (but ok, not the biggest detour).
3. Papers? There's a toll to pay on the East Coast Road, but how the guy can waste two hours of your time "collecting papers" I don't know.

How that agent managed to organise the Biriarmy I don't know. Masterful!

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john.sw

Glad to see you had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed every moment!

I take English friends to the "Fully Computerised" SBI to change some cash to Rupees. It's a great way to spend two hours...

That's India - love it and love moaning about it...

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www.nilgiris.asia your guide to the Nilgiris, Ooty, Coonoor, Kotagiri and Gudalur

Malkers

Pondicherry Border!!

[/quote]
How that agent managed to organise the Biriarmy I don't know. Masterful![/quote]

Malkers

Thats me too, never happier than when having a good moan

PRIYA

I know it couldn't have been funny at the time, but I was literally in hysterics reading your post.

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Happiness is for those who cry, those who hurt, those who have searched and those who have tried. For only they can appreciate the importance of people who have touched their lives. (Anon.)

Malkers

Nah took it all in my stride, I'm just starting to realise how many situations in every day India can be turned into a Ben Elton or John Cleese type rant but the reality is that I genuinely don't exaggerate much!

Sit back, I have dozens more

Feel another book coming on actually!

Nick-H

And I bet he didn't tell you to begin with.

Leaving you saying, "I'll just go to this nice driver over here who has got his papers with him. Bill? What do mean 'bill'; you haven't done anything!"

"I'm just taking you for a ride, Sir...."

Malkers

Yes and we did have to pay this too 300rs but we knocked it off the bill at the end even though they had probably loaded double that on to it in the first place!

Here is pic of offending beach which is the biggest size i have been able to transfer!

http://www.malcolmshipp.co.uk/aurbeach.JPG

See what I mean, damn shame!

Malc

Nick-H

That's worse than Chennai. And with only about 1/10,000th the number of people there

Malkers

Yep, I guess you're right, just!! http://www.malcolmshipp.co.uk/DSC01516.JPG

And just down the road and a few yards from Mamilapuram beach the famous 2 headed cleaner is making sure that he at least attempts to keep his place spotlessly clean http://www.malcolmshipp.co.uk/DSC01491.JPG

phantom

It looks quite clean as compared to the "juhu beach" in mumbai.. but then juhu is a junkyard..
Your posts are quite hilarious.. have you thought about writing a book as a journal to india.. kinda thing.. i wouldnt mind buying the pirated copy of it

Malkers

Now that is funny, and so Indian too!

We'll discuss it at the barbie on Sunday

Eldaras

great post Malkers!!!

jivan

First of all enjoyed u'r post Malkers. U manage to create a riot in whatever u write. If u have the time & the dedication it won't be a bad idea to write a book about u'r experiences. But make sure u to have some pirated copies around so that poor guys like me can buy it of the street (o.k. the joke is in bad taste)

AFA the sify connection u're talking about it's the same with BSNL I get a transfer rate of 30 KBps while BSNL is 50:1 ratio which means one line of 256 KBps get divided among 50 users. I'm sure it's similar with the sify package that u have.