First time arrival experiences.

Nick-H · Jan 7th, 2005, 17:14

jwblack; it's heatrwarming to klnow that some love affairs can last a long, long time

Dav · Jan 7th, 2005, 17:46

You'll be right, it's all good fun! Are you arriving at Mumbai during the day or at night? This will make a major difference to your first impressions!

I think half the fun of travelling is the build up of excitement beforehand. The researching of places to see and do, the chatrooms, photos, ect all help to pump you up before a big trip. Have a ball and enjoy! Might see you there, I'm also leaving for a three month trip to India on Feb the 22nd.

Dav · Jan 7th, 2005, 17:55

Last message was meant for amogasiddhi. First time user, long time listener - Sorry!

williaam · Jan 13th, 2005, 23:50

I arrived in India via Delhi after more than 42 hours travelling time. After many many delays and long dreadful, torturous layovers in several airports, I was just happy to arrive. I was actually surprised at my first reaction. I was expecting to have the shock of a lifetime, especially since this was only my third trip out of the country. Nonetheless, Delhi appeared to be in much more order than what I had anticipated. Perhaps my state of delirium helped numbed me. But that first day in Delhi was much more controlled than I thought it would be. We got off the plane, went through immigration, got our luggage and proceeded to meet our arranged driver. We got to our hotel, took a nap and hd dinner. It wasn't until the next day, when we went into Od Delhi that I saw the India that I had expected. To tell you the truth, I was rather dissapointed when we first arrived. As metioned, I was expecting this huge culture chock but in actuality, everything seemed to be orderly and somewhat familiar. Delhi does not seem to be as shocking as the other cities and towns of India. It was amazing after each time I returned to Delhi it seemed more and more modern and "westernized".

markhyd · Jan 14th, 2005, 01:24

1st time in India, landed in Trivandrum, with 18 other fresh recruits to an Indian IT services company. We made the mistake of loading our own bags onto the bus, which was immediately blockaded by two ambassador cars, and boarded by 20 irrate baggage handlers who felt we had denied them an employment opportunity. After our lifeguard (TCS's word for a minder of new recruits) paid them 50 rs. between about 35 people, we were allowed to go on our way. it's only gotten stranger since.

Idli · Jan 14th, 2005, 02:14

You all must be wondering what this Indian has to write in this thread. Just though you might find my experience interesting.

I am talking about my first trip back to India after living in USA for little over a year. Landed in Mumbai. No problem with baggage and customs. I was supposed to go to domestic terminal to catch my next flight over to Bangalore. Only thing on my mind is how soon I can meet my family. Unlike tourists, I was not really expecting any culture shock. But it hit me as I walked out of the international terminal. The crowd, noise, dust, taxis everything made me stop in my tracks for a second. I could not believe it. Everything that I grew up with looks alien to me. Fiat and Ambassador taxis look really tiny. Everything looks tiny. I laughed at myself and went on to board the Jet Airways bus to domestic terminal.

Getting out of Bangalore airport was less shocking. But drive home from airport was a little different experience. Every time I looked out side I would think my brother was driving the car on the wrong side of the road. There was another interesting thing. Every time I saw those Indian sounding names on the boards outside restaurants or shops, I wanted to scream "Indian restaurant/shop". Because that is what my friends and I were doing back in USA every time we saw any thing remotely Indian whether it was on the TV or on the road. We did not even spare Cleveland Indians when we heard the name first time. Go Indians!

Next day, after a good nights sleep, I got on my motor bike and went around Bangalore, met friends, had beer at favorite pub. It didn't take long to get back to my original self - the person that left India a year ago. Well not exactly, little bigger and may be little smarter!

I think my 1 year stay in the USA has lot to do with it. On the contrary my wife did not have any problem during her first trip back home. I have gone back many times since then. Never had that experience again.

Dr. Evil

shantivibes · Jan 16th, 2005, 13:52

"oh india...you'll always be my love afair,never been a jewel so rare,no one like you anywhere....oh india,yes your the only one for me...i;m as high as i could ever be and only 50 quid a kee".....(great song written by a long lost friend in india..Prana)

all of these stories made me remember that song and wish i could only remember more of my first time in the mother....i will do my best to recall...

time what time...delhi airport,middle of the night i am sure of that only!arrived via bangkok...hot..OMG was it hot,soooooo many people,pre paid taxi,no problem there,people people people...and everywhere awake in the middle of the night?colors even in the dark,piss,i do remember and incence too.hey the cow's

were sleeping!found a good hotel to crash for the night...main bazar,star palace i think.awoke to noise i as i have never heard it.walked outside and ....WOW...this is india! i felt right at home,in a funny kind of way.
asked a guy for directions,only to look down and find him

shitting in the street!!!!!

all the while pointing this way and that way,say god only knows what...i just kept walking.
next day out on a train to rishikesh...now that smelled like urine!and rat's galore.....singing "hari om ganga!" as we pass over her flow in the early morning sunrise and i mean everyone was singing!i think i was the only white person on that train and it made no diffrence.once again i was home.
one last experience i will share...as i got off the train in hariwar and onto a bus that would hopefully take me to my desired destination,it was pooring rain..i mean buckets and buckets.and we took off at lighting speed as only a true indian bus walla can do....music blareing...conductor danceing,i looked out the front window,as i shouldn't have,and relized we had no windshild wipers!!!!!

couldn't see a dam thing and neither could the driver,because his head was out the window and only one hand on the wheel!!! boy was that a ride i tell ya! i learned faith on that one,and just to relax and trust the ride...and it will take you where you need to go weather you relize it or not.

needless to say,my return ticket was for six months and i never made that flight! it took me two years to return to the US,out of money! now married to an indian

with a child

we share, on our way back to the land we love....again,and this time we will be experienceing it through her eye's!

" oh india.....

Jan 16th, 2005, 14:01

"i learned faith on that one,and just to relax and trust the ride...and it will take you where you need to go weather you relize it or not."

wise words....

very nice account of frst time in india... easily one of the better ones, rght up there with kokopelli's ... the one damn bad thing about being an indian is that we never get to experience this "first time shock"

amogasiddhi · Jan 16th, 2005, 19:33

Dav, Emirates say i'll arrive at around 08:45 on 13th Feb. The smell of Mumbai in the morning......I can't wait. It feels like i've been training for this for a long time and now that i'm finally going, i've got to try and keep my head.
I long for my first real chai, my first train journey which will be 27 stops up the line to a place called 'Dongargargh' where my grandparents and mother's side of the family once lived. I don't care if it is a one horse town, i'm going all the same. I have 3 months to do stuff and stuff is what i'll do.
Right now i'm about ready to buy travel insurance, traveller's cheques and I've found a hotel called 'Pals' who charge 676INR for a room for the night and who'll also pick me up from the airport. But you know what? I don't want to be picked up and protected from the assault of my first real experience, I want to walk out of the Airport, get in a rickshaw and take hours to get there; the longer it takes, the better and if the guy says it costs 80 rupees, then i'll give him 80.
I've done the endless arguing about 'anti-malarials' and i've learned a lot, what to do if a woman is groped, met quite a few proper humans and some I would leave to do it their own way.
Now i've 27 days to go, I have re-packed ... again, I've figured out the weak points of my bag, the little hiding places, the amount of space I have left to fill with my treasures bought with pounds sterling, a few possible routes from Mumbai-Nagpur-Varanasi-Delhi-Shimla-Dharamsala or alternatives and yet I have no clue where i'll stay or how i'll get there. With all the guide books, advice and thoughts I heard, none of them mean anything as ii'm sure it'll all change from day 1!
Bengal Tiger, if you would like an equivalent shock, if you ever come to UK, i'll take you to Croydon on a saturday and watch you quake

I'm with Shanti. I have learned to trust that whatever happens, it will be perfect and exactly what was supposed to happen. Isn't that the point of going travelling?

Moga

steven_ber · Jan 16th, 2005, 19:59

Moga, with the outlook you have, you'll have a great trip, do reply to this thread after you arrive to let us know your arrival experiences.

Quote:

Originally Posted by amogasiddhi

My first train journey which will be 27 stops up the line to a place called 'Dongargargh' where my grandparents and mother's side of the family once lived. I don't care if it is a one horse town, i'm going all the same.

It would have been 40 stops on the express train.

I would imagine that Dongargarh will be a fascinating experience, I stayed a week with a friends family in a village, can't wait to go back, it was one of the best weeks of my life, I hope it is the same for you.

amogasiddhi · Jan 16th, 2005, 20:27

It's allegedly full of snakes (Cobra's, Krait's......!!!) I saw a TV show the other day which was about this South African guy who wanted to catch a King Cobra. He obviously knows what he's doing and i'm usually pretty cool with stuff like that but this thing was a monster 18 feet long, hissing, biting, killer, which was the same colour as the leaves it was lying on. When he picked it up and I could see the sheer scale of the animal, I couldn't help but stand up and shout at the TV. What a pillock!
I will, of course, carry a large stick and beat my sleeping bag, boots, clothes, toothbrush, shadow senseless before I touch them, Bruce Lee style, just to make sure.
I'll write whenever I can.

Dav · Jan 17th, 2005, 07:09

My expereince:

I arrived in Mumbai during daylight hours and within minutes of hopping into a taxi, the taxi driver swerved to deliberately hit a mangy dog. He smirked as it bounced off the side panelling. Within half an hour we were in the middle of the most chaotic scene. Terrible traffic, slums, beggars, lepers, peoples everywhere, (a typical day in Mumbai!). It was then that I saw my first dead human body. He was lying on the side of the road with a sack tied around his head and had very stiff toes. It looked like he had been placed there for the rubbish collector to pick him up. It was then that we decided to stay in touristy Colaba as opposed to the less touristy Fort precinct that was the original plan.

snowcrab · Jan 17th, 2005, 07:24

When I first arrived in India, in the airport, I almost wasn't paying attention to India because I was so shocked to see my traveling partner's MPD emerge. He turns to me and positivly growls, "you just be quiet and let me do all this"
(His third trip to India, my first)
Then he goes over to the prepaid taxi/hotel stand and starts talking to the guy there in this hard, insulting voice I have never heard him use before. He demands and gets a couple of three hundred rupee hotel rooms and a taxi. I'm not sure what this hotel is going to be like because I have been watching the guy at the desk and the other guys in the booth exchanging glances that don't bode well for us.

The taxi ride was cool, more like boating than driving, pretty late at night, not much traffic so I didn't feel particularly unsafe.

Sure enough at the hotel, first thing I see is a cockrach running across my bed. Oh well, I'm a country girl, I can share my bedroom with livestock for one night. Other than that, not too bad, bit dingy but not a whole lot worse than some of the old family motels I've encountered way off the Transcanada in Alberta and BC. Bathroom nice and clean. Very quiet, no noise from other rooms, no noise from street outside, feels like quiet neighborhhod.

Kid at the desk wants to know if we want chai. Wonderful, need to wind down from all this movement. Traveling companion abuses him loudly when he asks for thirty rupees. When they sort something out I remind my companion, we are in a place where this guy has more friends than we do, how about calming down a bit? Bit of a rough edge there, we both decide sleep is a good plan. Very good sleep, ceiling fan very much appreciated.

Next morning, very early this loud singing outside. I just lie there and listen for a while until the sun is fully up and then get up to find my friend. He's off outside for awhile so I go down to the front to wait for him and talk to the guys at the desk. Very friendly and polite, bring me chai, check out my camera, ask what country, that stuff. Friend comes back and we go out for breakfast.

I step down of the step into the street and it hits me, whap! Too much of everything to make sense of anything. I just stand there a while trying to make all those moving shapes fit into some sort of coherent order.

The quiet empty street I stepped out of last night is full of piles of flowers and people dressed like flowers and decrepit vehicals draped in flowers, all moving, crisscrossing all over the place.Took a while for my eyes to settle down enough to step off the curb and get across the street.

The patia of improperly combusted petroleum vapour over everything was astonishing. The restaurant looked more like a barn to me than a place people would eat. I wasn't all that crazy about idly and the coffee tasted like chai with a teaspoon of instant in it. I'm going to be here for six months? Oh my god!!!! What have I got myself into ???

We got ourselves into a rickshaw and down to the bus station, taxi 1500Rs, bus 100 Rs, don't need to be a mathamatician to figure that one out. Took a lot of pictures of the bus station, especially that grey and brown crow, never seen anything like that before. Felt very much like 1950's, I think some of those busses are that vintage. Got on a middleaged one, nice seat behind the driver, spent the morning watching rural India roll by. I observed with relief that the petrochemical slime is a city thing, in the country it's just regular dust so I started to relax.

By the time we got to our destination I was pretty relaxed and the town we arrived at looked pretty much like a theme park compared to the big city. Big ashram town, lots of pink buildings, a police station in barbie doll pink and blue with all sorts of plaster gingerbread all over it. Bit much, but I could see that there were miles of open country all around so it wouldn't be too hard to get away from it all if I wanted. Got a place where I could see the shadows move around the nearest big hill, bullocks in the yard below my window. Perfect, all the pleasures of living on the farm with the conveince of a town down at the end of the block and a big city four hours away. It just don't get any better than this. And my traveling companion switches back to his nice guy persona. Much better.

Took a while for me to realize that this wasn't a theme park, there was no London Drugs around the corner somewhere, where the tourist town lets off and the real town begins. It was all real and all different. Now I miss it so much.

Jan 17th, 2005, 08:17

whats a MPD and which indian city dd you land in?

snowcrab · Jan 17th, 2005, 08:49

Multiple Personality Disorder and Bangelore

Jan 7th, 2005, 17:46	#47
Dav Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Melbourne Posts: 56	You'll be right, it's all good fun! Are you arriving at Mumbai during the day or at night? This will make a major difference to your first impressions! I think half the fun of travelling is the build up of excitement beforehand. The researching of places to see and do, the chatrooms, photos, ect all help to pump you up before a big trip. Have a ball and enjoy! Might see you there, I'm also leaving for a three month trip to India on Feb the 22nd. __________________ Davinski

Jan 14th, 2005, 02:14	#51
Idli Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: USA Posts: 41	It happens to Indians too. May be some You all must be wondering what this Indian has to write in this thread. Just though you might find my experience interesting. I am talking about my first trip back to India after living in USA for little over a year. Landed in Mumbai. No problem with baggage and customs. I was supposed to go to domestic terminal to catch my next flight over to Bangalore. Only thing on my mind is how soon I can meet my family. Unlike tourists, I was not really expecting any culture shock. But it hit me as I walked out of the international terminal. The crowd, noise, dust, taxis everything made me stop in my tracks for a second. I could not believe it. Everything that I grew up with looks alien to me. Fiat and Ambassador taxis look really tiny. Everything looks tiny. I laughed at myself and went on to board the Jet Airways bus to domestic terminal. Getting out of Bangalore airport was less shocking. But drive home from airport was a little different experience. Every time I looked out side I would think my brother was driving the car on the wrong side of the road. There was another interesting thing. Every time I saw those Indian sounding names on the boards outside restaurants or shops, I wanted to scream "Indian restaurant/shop". Because that is what my friends and I were doing back in USA every time we saw any thing remotely Indian whether it was on the TV or on the road. We did not even spare Cleveland Indians when we heard the name first time. Go Indians! Next day, after a good nights sleep, I got on my motor bike and went around Bangalore, met friends, had beer at favorite pub. It didn't take long to get back to my original self - the person that left India a year ago. Well not exactly, little bigger and may be little smarter! I think my 1 year stay in the USA has lot to do with it. On the contrary my wife did not have any problem during her first trip back home. I have gone back many times since then. Never had that experience again. Dr. Evil

Jan 16th, 2005, 13:52	#52
shantivibes himalayan amma Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: rocky mountian high Posts: 11	"oh india...you'll always be my love afair,never been a jewel so rare,no one like you anywhere....oh india,yes your the only one for me...i;m as high as i could ever be and only 50 quid a kee".....(great song written by a long lost friend in india..Prana) all of these stories made me remember that song and wish i could only remember more of my first time in the mother....i will do my best to recall... time what time...delhi airport,middle of the night i am sure of that only!arrived via bangkok...hot..OMG was it hot,soooooo many people,pre paid taxi,no problem there,people people people...and everywhere awake in the middle of the night?colors even in the dark,piss,i do remember and incence too.hey the cow's were sleeping!found a good hotel to crash for the night...main bazar,star palace i think.awoke to noise i as i have never heard it.walked outside and ....WOW...this is india! i felt right at home,in a funny kind of way. asked a guy for directions,only to look down and find him shitting in the street!!!!! all the while pointing this way and that way,say god only knows what...i just kept walking. next day out on a train to rishikesh...now that smelled like urine!and rat's galore.....singing "hari om ganga!" as we pass over her flow in the early morning sunrise and i mean everyone was singing!i think i was the only white person on that train and it made no diffrence.once again i was home. one last experience i will share...as i got off the train in hariwar and onto a bus that would hopefully take me to my desired destination,it was pooring rain..i mean buckets and buckets.and we took off at lighting speed as only a true indian bus walla can do....music blareing...conductor danceing,i looked out the front window,as i shouldn't have,and relized we had no windshild wipers!!!!! couldn't see a dam thing and neither could the driver,because his head was out the window and only one hand on the wheel!!! boy was that a ride i tell ya! i learned faith on that one,and just to relax and trust the ride...and it will take you where you need to go weather you relize it or not. needless to say,my return ticket was for six months and i never made that flight! it took me two years to return to the US,out of money! now married to an indian with a child we share, on our way back to the land we love....again,and this time we will be experienceing it through her eye's! " oh india..... Last edited by shantivibes : Jan 17th, 2005 at 02:05.

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Jan 7th, 2005, 17:14	#46
Nick-H This is just a cameo appearance Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Chennai, India Posts: 36,210	jwblack; it's heatrwarming to klnow that some love affairs can last a long, long time

Jan 7th, 2005, 17:55	#48
Dav Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Melbourne Posts: 56	Last message was meant for amogasiddhi. First time user, long time listener - Sorry!

Jan 13th, 2005, 23:50	#49
williaam Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: minneapolis Posts: 191	I arrived in India via Delhi after more than 42 hours travelling time. After many many delays and long dreadful, torturous layovers in several airports, I was just happy to arrive. I was actually surprised at my first reaction. I was expecting to have the shock of a lifetime, especially since this was only my third trip out of the country. Nonetheless, Delhi appeared to be in much more order than what I had anticipated. Perhaps my state of delirium helped numbed me. But that first day in Delhi was much more controlled than I thought it would be. We got off the plane, went through immigration, got our luggage and proceeded to meet our arranged driver. We got to our hotel, took a nap and hd dinner. It wasn't until the next day, when we went into Od Delhi that I saw the India that I had expected. To tell you the truth, I was rather dissapointed when we first arrived. As metioned, I was expecting this huge culture chock but in actuality, everything seemed to be orderly and somewhat familiar. Delhi does not seem to be as shocking as the other cities and towns of India. It was amazing after each time I returned to Delhi it seemed more and more modern and "westernized".

Jan 14th, 2005, 01:24	#50
markhyd Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: London Posts: 100	1st time in India, landed in Trivandrum, with 18 other fresh recruits to an Indian IT services company. We made the mistake of loading our own bags onto the bus, which was immediately blockaded by two ambassador cars, and boarded by 20 irrate baggage handlers who felt we had denied them an employment opportunity. After our lifeguard (TCS's word for a minder of new recruits) paid them 50 rs. between about 35 people, we were allowed to go on our way. it's only gotten stranger since.

Jan 16th, 2005, 14:01	#53
Bengal Tiger Posts: n/a	"i learned faith on that one,and just to relax and trust the ride...and it will take you where you need to go weather you relize it or not." wise words.... very nice account of frst time in india... easily one of the better ones, rght up there with kokopelli's ... the one damn bad thing about being an indian is that we never get to experience this "first time shock"

Jan 16th, 2005, 19:33	#54
amogasiddhi Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: UK, South Posts: 160	Dav, Emirates say i'll arrive at around 08:45 on 13th Feb. The smell of Mumbai in the morning......I can't wait. It feels like i've been training for this for a long time and now that i'm finally going, i've got to try and keep my head. I long for my first real chai, my first train journey which will be 27 stops up the line to a place called 'Dongargargh' where my grandparents and mother's side of the family once lived. I don't care if it is a one horse town, i'm going all the same. I have 3 months to do stuff and stuff is what i'll do. Right now i'm about ready to buy travel insurance, traveller's cheques and I've found a hotel called 'Pals' who charge 676INR for a room for the night and who'll also pick me up from the airport. But you know what? I don't want to be picked up and protected from the assault of my first real experience, I want to walk out of the Airport, get in a rickshaw and take hours to get there; the longer it takes, the better and if the guy says it costs 80 rupees, then i'll give him 80. I've done the endless arguing about 'anti-malarials' and i've learned a lot, what to do if a woman is groped, met quite a few proper humans and some I would leave to do it their own way. Now i've 27 days to go, I have re-packed ... again, I've figured out the weak points of my bag, the little hiding places, the amount of space I have left to fill with my treasures bought with pounds sterling, a few possible routes from Mumbai-Nagpur-Varanasi-Delhi-Shimla-Dharamsala or alternatives and yet I have no clue where i'll stay or how i'll get there. With all the guide books, advice and thoughts I heard, none of them mean anything as ii'm sure it'll all change from day 1! Bengal Tiger, if you would like an equivalent shock, if you ever come to UK, i'll take you to Croydon on a saturday and watch you quake I'm with Shanti. I have learned to trust that whatever happens, it will be perfect and exactly what was supposed to happen. Isn't that the point of going travelling? Moga

Jan 16th, 2005, 20:27	#56
amogasiddhi Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: UK, South Posts: 160	It's allegedly full of snakes (Cobra's, Krait's......!!!) I saw a TV show the other day which was about this South African guy who wanted to catch a King Cobra. He obviously knows what he's doing and i'm usually pretty cool with stuff like that but this thing was a monster 18 feet long, hissing, biting, killer, which was the same colour as the leaves it was lying on. When he picked it up and I could see the sheer scale of the animal, I couldn't help but stand up and shout at the TV. What a pillock! I will, of course, carry a large stick and beat my sleeping bag, boots, clothes, toothbrush, shadow senseless before I touch them, Bruce Lee style, just to make sure. I'll write whenever I can.

Jan 17th, 2005, 07:09	#57
Dav Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Melbourne Posts: 56	My expereince: I arrived in Mumbai during daylight hours and within minutes of hopping into a taxi, the taxi driver swerved to deliberately hit a mangy dog. He smirked as it bounced off the side panelling. Within half an hour we were in the middle of the most chaotic scene. Terrible traffic, slums, beggars, lepers, peoples everywhere, (a typical day in Mumbai!). It was then that I saw my first dead human body. He was lying on the side of the road with a sack tied around his head and had very stiff toes. It looked like he had been placed there for the rubbish collector to pick him up. It was then that we decided to stay in touristy Colaba as opposed to the less touristy Fort precinct that was the original plan.

Jan 17th, 2005, 07:24	#58
snowcrab Maha Guru Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: BC Can Posts: 1,134	When I first arrived in India, in the airport, I almost wasn't paying attention to India because I was so shocked to see my traveling partner's MPD emerge. He turns to me and positivly growls, "you just be quiet and let me do all this" (His third trip to India, my first) Then he goes over to the prepaid taxi/hotel stand and starts talking to the guy there in this hard, insulting voice I have never heard him use before. He demands and gets a couple of three hundred rupee hotel rooms and a taxi. I'm not sure what this hotel is going to be like because I have been watching the guy at the desk and the other guys in the booth exchanging glances that don't bode well for us. The taxi ride was cool, more like boating than driving, pretty late at night, not much traffic so I didn't feel particularly unsafe. Sure enough at the hotel, first thing I see is a cockrach running across my bed. Oh well, I'm a country girl, I can share my bedroom with livestock for one night. Other than that, not too bad, bit dingy but not a whole lot worse than some of the old family motels I've encountered way off the Transcanada in Alberta and BC. Bathroom nice and clean. Very quiet, no noise from other rooms, no noise from street outside, feels like quiet neighborhhod. Kid at the desk wants to know if we want chai. Wonderful, need to wind down from all this movement. Traveling companion abuses him loudly when he asks for thirty rupees. When they sort something out I remind my companion, we are in a place where this guy has more friends than we do, how about calming down a bit? Bit of a rough edge there, we both decide sleep is a good plan. Very good sleep, ceiling fan very much appreciated. Next morning, very early this loud singing outside. I just lie there and listen for a while until the sun is fully up and then get up to find my friend. He's off outside for awhile so I go down to the front to wait for him and talk to the guys at the desk. Very friendly and polite, bring me chai, check out my camera, ask what country, that stuff. Friend comes back and we go out for breakfast. I step down of the step into the street and it hits me, whap! Too much of everything to make sense of anything. I just stand there a while trying to make all those moving shapes fit into some sort of coherent order. The quiet empty street I stepped out of last night is full of piles of flowers and people dressed like flowers and decrepit vehicals draped in flowers, all moving, crisscrossing all over the place.Took a while for my eyes to settle down enough to step off the curb and get across the street. The patia of improperly combusted petroleum vapour over everything was astonishing. The restaurant looked more like a barn to me than a place people would eat. I wasn't all that crazy about idly and the coffee tasted like chai with a teaspoon of instant in it. I'm going to be here for six months? Oh my god!!!! What have I got myself into ??? We got ourselves into a rickshaw and down to the bus station, taxi 1500Rs, bus 100 Rs, don't need to be a mathamatician to figure that one out. Took a lot of pictures of the bus station, especially that grey and brown crow, never seen anything like that before. Felt very much like 1950's, I think some of those busses are that vintage. Got on a middleaged one, nice seat behind the driver, spent the morning watching rural India roll by. I observed with relief that the petrochemical slime is a city thing, in the country it's just regular dust so I started to relax. By the time we got to our destination I was pretty relaxed and the town we arrived at looked pretty much like a theme park compared to the big city. Big ashram town, lots of pink buildings, a police station in barbie doll pink and blue with all sorts of plaster gingerbread all over it. Bit much, but I could see that there were miles of open country all around so it wouldn't be too hard to get away from it all if I wanted. Got a place where I could see the shadows move around the nearest big hill, bullocks in the yard below my window. Perfect, all the pleasures of living on the farm with the conveince of a town down at the end of the block and a big city four hours away. It just don't get any better than this. And my traveling companion switches back to his nice guy persona. Much better. Took a while for me to realize that this wasn't a theme park, there was no London Drugs around the corner somewhere, where the tourist town lets off and the real town begins. It was all real and all different. Now I miss it so much.

Jan 17th, 2005, 08:17	#59
Bengal Tiger Posts: n/a	whats a MPD and which indian city dd you land in?

Jan 17th, 2005, 08:49	#60
snowcrab Maha Guru Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: BC Can Posts: 1,134	Multiple Personality Disorder and Bangelore