My Surface Hippy Adventure

From London to Chennai: An adventurous beginning in India

Transition + India Day 1:

We got up the next morning, had the breakfast buffet, had a nice and quick conversation with the male owner of the hotel and then lugged our luggage down the steps and down the streets (two luggage peices and a backpack each..we can just get it all.. what am I going to do after his surgery?!?) It was a workout again. We got to the station and took Heathrow Connect -- SO much simpler and better than taking the tube with luggage..esp. at rush hour. (If you are going do not take Express as it is triple the price- take Connect, the only difference is that there are about 3 stops instead of a nonstop route). You will avoid the steps and crowded tube. We got to the airport, I searched and bought my dad a USB port for his new (and first ipod) since he left his at home and wants to be able to listen to it when he's bored and can't move in the hospital. We quickly stopped at another internet cafe and then boarded. A slight delay but not as bad as in Philly, and then we were off for a flight.. take off at 12:55 p.m. (london time) and arrival at 3:25 a.m. (chennai time) which makes it about 9 1/2 hours in the air. I can't sleep on planes so I watched many movies. We were just about the only white people I saw on the plane (the plane was huge and packed), so that was different. When we stepped out of the plane, even though it was 3:45am-ish chennai time .. it was very hot. I remember being horrified at the thought of the heat during daytime if nighttime was that hot. We waited in the international passengers passport check line and then waited for our luggage. Then we stepped outside. It was the most dramatic thing ever. We stepped out, and even though it was 4:15am-ish, there was a HUGE LONG line of people/drivers waiting to pick people up from the airport. I still had on my london clothes (just blue khaki pants and a short sleeved turquiose shirt) but we DEFINITELY stood out. Walking down that long line with our luggage was like a never-ending walk of shame. I have never felt like such an outsider in my LIFE. We finally found the guy who was there for us (provided by the hospital) and we loaded our things into his vehicle. I did not have a good first impression of the people in Chennai, but now I realize that this is because people on the streets /outside the airport at this time act differently than the average person here. There were lots of very blatant stares while waiting for our things to be loaded and from people on other vehicles outside the window on the ride to the hotel. We arrived at the hotel and it was huge and beautiful- very different from the surrounding areas. We waited awhile for our room to be cleaned and then tried to go to sleep.. but it was already light out. We didn't get out of bed until about 1 or 2 pm! But it still seemed as though we spent the full day outside. We walked out and it was pure confusion. It was hot and the traffic was so confusing so we just picked a direction and went down the street. My dad had a few toys for beggars and such and withintwo minutes a little indian boy came up to us pointing to his stomach for $ (for food) .. although it's likely that he would have to give any $ to his parents. My dad gave him a toy and he looked at it in confusionfor awhile and held onto it, but kept begging. Within a minute a woman and her daughter came begging "please sir" and "please madam" .. soon more and more children and a few woman and babies surrounded us.. almost like when you're feeding seagulls at the beach, they seemed to come out of nowhere. We did not have much indian change yet and were very much so surrounded by the crowd. We were basically helpless after awhile, after we had given away all of our gifts we could not walk without the crowd following us, which only attracted more beggars. It was a crazy first 20 minutes out on the streets on Chennai. We eventually had some of them lead us to a food place and bought two boys lunch, which they sat down and ate very happily. We gave some others money for fruit juice and then a few boys on motorcycles scolded the young boys for not leaving us alone and asked where we were from etc. Then a man came up to my dad rambling about his 50 rupees rickshaw ride to the beach to take a picture.. we didn't quite understand what he was talking about because of the accent.. but getting on a rickshaw cheaply (and getting away from the beggars) sounded awfully good at the moment so we hopped on. The traffic was even more frightening from the rickshaw which is open in the back where we were sitting and is a small tri-wheel yellow vehicle. It was good for filming, but the pollution in your face as you went through the streets got bad after awhile. We first stopped at a beautiful church and went inside - it was very nice and there were some people in there. We then stopped at a hindu temple (i am not sure of the names of either of these places at the moment but they are the regular tourist sites in chennai). The colorfully painted animals/gods on the tower was truly remarkable. We had to take our shoes off (ee) and then we walked around .. and got tricked into paying a tour guide to show us around. He spoke good english though, was very nice, and said he had many friends inPhilly and knew of Apollo Hospital - he even had a friend from NY who had recently visited and got the same surgery done -- he was wondering why american's have so many problems with their hips. There were many people worshipping there which was interesting. Our guide explained many of the customs and even put red ash on our forheads - a similar symbolic ritual to ash weds.. except this is done each time they go to the temple. There was also an area where people bowed down and touched there foreheads to the ground. There were also areas where people seemed to be simply hanging out there, and also an indoor spot where they fed the poor 3 meals a day. We got back on our rickshaw and next went to a beach. We got out and walked around for a bit, as there were people walking up and down / sitting on the beach. When we got back to our rickshaw, our driver, who spoke enough english although with a heavy accent, had me come up to the fron with him as my dad got a picture like i was driving it... then.. this was scary.. he put his foot on the gas and actually let me steer.. since i don't even drive regular cars steering a rickshaw suddenly (not on a main road but there were still vehicles and kids playing on the street) was interesting. My dad missed it with the video camera so we had to redo it -- just what i wanted, let me tell you - but there was barely any traffic this time so it was better. (And the driver was definitely helping me steer, but it still makes me nervous looking back on it). We drove alongthe beach, where the tsunami had hit and there were many temporary hut-like structures set up there, we drove around the village which also looked very poor and different from other areas of the city - there was even indian music playing. We headed back onto the main streets and the rickshaw stopped working. He hopped out, tried to fix it, it stopped again and he then wheeled us to a place where they adjusted some wires and used some tools and fixed it. This made me a bit nervous, but it seemed to work fine afterwards. We then went to a place to buy an indian outfit for me. I picked a fabric out of many many options and we got it. THEN they let me try it on. I had no idea how to put it on me (a large rectangular peice of cloth) so two women helped me. It was pretty big -- too much material for me, and too long. I dont know if i can find someone to hem it/cut it here, which is a shame because I would love to fit in better on the streets. However, my indian friend who moved to Florida (Preethi!) has informed me since via facebook that I should have gotten a salvar instead of a sari, since sari's are mostly worn by older women. Who would've known?! Then we got back on the rickshaw and he drove us to a handicraft place.. which we looked around in but didn't get anything at.. we said no more handicrafts but he took us to another fancier place with very fine, expensive goods (handcarved wooden statues/figures, metal sculptures (both small and huge), even carpets) .. *warning for anyone traveling to india - if you take a rickshaw, make it clear that you do not want to go to what they call "handicraft" stores such as these .. there must be some sort of deal, because they all do this. We thankfully were driven to plenty of other places as well and only to 2 of these, but others can be worse. weird.* We got him to drive us backto out hotel, and he told us that for his daughters birthday he is collecting her $ from different nationalities so along with an indian tip we gave him some pounds and American bills/coins. He deserved the tip ad he took us around all day and tried to make conversation with us while driving most of the time. He kept saying : "My family very happy today. You in my rickshaw! Thats business" He also told us straight out that our meter was broken (which they usually are -- rigged to higher prices to trick passengers) and said he was not a cheat and let us pick the price. He also got very mad when he found out his friend, our tour guide at the temple, had ripped us off (or at least pretended to be mad - we couldnt tell). That night we showered, got somewhat dressed up and then ate our FIRST MEAL in india -- we went SO long without any food!!! we had only had part of a luna bar for breakfast. We were starving so we went to the buffet in the bottom of the hotel and ate TONS of indian food way too quickly. I know my limits to some extent.. but dad .. he ate a LOT. The buffet was huge, salads, soups, breads, lots of noodle/rice dishes, meat dishes in interesting spices and sauces, as well as many vegetarian dishes (as most people in south india are vegetarians - most of the indian restaurants back home are northern indian, which is different, and mostly non-veg I believe), a bar of desserts, ice cream, etc.etc.etc. Our time schedule was very messed up so after our huge meal we stayed up until about 4 something am in the hotel room.. it was getting light again when we went to bed.


India: Day 2

Since it was the day before traveling to the hospital, and since we had so much excitement the day before, dad wanted to rest before his upcoming surgery. We slept in way late ... and then ordered room service. Yes, we are that lazy (and it was cheaper than the other options). The food we shared was good and plain (baked chicken, mango milkshake, paratha) which was just what we wanted after the buffet. Then we went down to the business center and shared an hours worth of time on the internet. As I took the 2nd shift dad went to the gym to work out. Then he charged his ipod (it's a nano and i've been calling it his 'little friend' b/c he's never had his own before and has been clearly enjoying it.. even at the beginning he was rocking out in the philly airport ..eeek) and then he took a swim in the outdoor (but covered) hotel pool while I lounged in the room (my senior mini-week sunburn is way too bad to be outside in a suit). He came back and showered and then we walked around the hotel exploring various food options.. a mexican place looked good (and tempting because it wasn't indian) but he ended up wanting to go to the same buffet again. We enjoyed it much more this time because we weren't so ridiculously hungry. We ate too much (esp him)...what else is new, but we took our time because we had nothing better to do. After our meal we walked outside just a little bit in the surrounding areas of the hotel. Then we explored within the hotel, and found a restaurant that took up the entire 20th floor .. even though we had already eaten the waiter showed us to the outside portion of the restaurant which was beautiful. The tables overlooked the city (20 floors) and you could really see Chennai. There was water surrounding the perimeter of the outside area. Neither of us had a camera since we stumbled upon the place. Soon after, we explored other floors and then went back to our room. We packed, I showered, he had a big dilemma over not having a red pen and then losing some of the information he needed to write with it while searching for one, i got him to give it up finally, and we went to sleep very late again.

posted by Gary Klein @ 10:24 AM