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Look it’s the earth getting mooned…

I caught a cold in India in the summer! How does that happen? (Rhetorical question, no need to answer.)

When I was returning from my jaunts across town on Sunday I wandered over to a tuk tuk driver, broke out my map and asked him to drive me to Patel Nagar, and pointed at the map. He asked me to repeat it, I did so, and pointed at the map. At this point I’d long given up trying to say the name of the where I’m staying correctly, as everybody I talk to seems to pronounce it differently, which was why I was keen to emphasize the map. (Minor side note, Google isn’t incomplete, the streets here have no names. Bono take note!) He was a nice old guy, he said sure, I said how much, he said 100 rupees, and I said let’s go! It was a fair ole trip and that was a reasonable price. (I like to settle the price beforehand so I don’t have the stress of him trying to drive me to Bangladesh and back to hike up the fair.) So we drive for a good ole distance, cross a really smelly river, which I thought was weird cause there shouldn’t have been a river between where we started and where we were going, but who am I to say. He kept driving along until I really thought I was getting value for money, and finally pulled over and said we’re here! I looked around, didn’t recognize anything, so just to be sure I whipped out the map, pointed to Patel Nagar, and said are we here? He said yes! So I paid him, and off he went.

I wandered around for a minute until I realized I really wasn’t in the right area, in spite of my driver’s best efforts to tell me otherwise. Too many cows. I’m not sure if it’s accurate, but my limited experience seems to indicate that the ratio of cows on the street to wealth is inversely proportional in India, so I wandered over to some kids on a rickshaw, cracked out the business card of my hotel and asked if they’d take me there. I don’t think they read, or in fact spoke, English, so that didn’t get me very far. I kept walking until I found a couple of tuk tuk drivers. Got out my trusty map, pointed to Patel Nagar, and this time decided to ask to go to the metro station there. It may be a little way from the hotel, but at least I’d recognize it when I got there. After a little confusion over my pronunciation of Patel Nagar, the guy said said 120 rupees, which was more than I paid to get to there! But it was getting late, that’s only about CDN$2.50, so I just said yes. He then proceeded to drive me farther than the first guy drove me. Which for those of you not really paying attention means the first guy drove me further away from my hotel than I was to start. I don’t think he did it maliciously, I just don’t think he knew how to read … maps. And just drove me to his house or something so he looked busy.

After about 30 minutes with the new driver, we were driving up a hotel and the tuk tuk slowed to a crawl. This wasn’t a healthy looking tuk tuk, so I thought maybe its time was up, but a quick look in the rear view mirror indicated that the problem was not with the tuk tuk as I first surmised, but in fact with the driver who was now fast asleep at the wheel. Now, I’ve put a video at the end of this post to give you an idea of what traffic is like in Delhi, but let me assure you that this is very much not a situation you want to be in. So I gave him a poke, he perked right back up and happily continued on our route. But another 5 minutes later he was fast asleep, this time on a really big road like the one in the video. Fortunately I saw my metro stop so I got him to pull over and let me off, gave him an extra large tip to pay for his funeral if he didn’t make it back, and tried to get my bearings…

And discovered it wasn’t my metro stop at all.

So I figured I’d give the metro a go. Turns out that I was only one stop away, it cost me 6 rupees, and the metro is one of the nicest I’ve been on. Air-conditioned and everything. Shoulda taken that from the start.

The glory of the internet is that when I see a great ad on Indian tv, I can share it with you:

I haven’t had a drink since I got here, but watching that I thought maybe I had…

Since I pay money for this damned domain, and Gord was good enough to set it up and maintain it, I should probably use the damned thing. So I’m India at the moment, New Delhi to be exact, to do some training, but I had a few days to settle in beforehand and see the sights. It’s hard to imagine a more different city to Vancouver that isn’t populated by lions, or situated on the moon. Some would say the city is vibrant, others would say everybody here is bat-shit-crazy. I believe it falls somewhere in the middle. Even the Nigerians that are at the same school as me think India is crazy, and if the Nigerians are saying that … well … you know you’re someplace special.

And of course I love it. It’s a pretty wild place. On Sunday I managed to get to three UNESCO world heritage sites, and get heat exhaustion even though it was raining. The traffic is everything you expect from a third world country, with cars, motorbikes and tuk tuks packed 5 abreast on a 2 lane road. But with cows! Asleep in the fast lane on the highway! And with some scooters and rickshaws going the wrong way cause it’s too busy on the other side. I have seen the famous overladen truck that looks like it’s about to fall over, but not yet the bus with 900 people packed on it. So not all the stereotypes have been fulfilled, but I’m hopeful.

The food has been amazing, but since one of the symptoms of (my admittedly self diagnosed) heat exhaustion is nausea, I haven’t eaten as much as I would like to. That said, I’m pretty happy that we haven’t had any ‘Roman incidents’ or other significant gastrointestinal problems as yet. Delhi Belly I believe is the local term for it, and it’s to be avoided at all costs. So no ice in your drink, no fresh fruit or vegetables unless you washed them yourself (or can peel them), and no food from a street vendor that’s been sitting for (probably) days.

So far the people seem to be a bit shy, but I think some of them are warming up to me. I’m going to try bribing them soon. Also, the accents are surprisingly difficult to understand. That said, with one notable exception I’ve always managed to get my point across.

I have a good story about getting home from the Red Fort (the one exception mentioned above), and I’ve also had two days of classes so far, but I’ll hold off on jabbering away about them for now. Gotta have some content for future posts. “Always leave em wanting more” was Axl Rose’s motto. No wait, maybe that was “I may always get drunk and stoned and won’t show up for concerts, but I’m still richer than you.”

I may have been confused there…

Kid likes dry cat food. Move dry cat food away.

Dear pretty lady. You become a lot less pretty when you hoark gum out of your mouth and manage to hit a parked car.

For the kid, today, for the first time, together at last, Cheerios AND milk!!! Yaaaay!

All work and no play make 24601 a dull boy, but thats how it’ll have to be until next week.

I watched Alton Brown’s Good Eats for the first time this week.  Do NOT play a drinking game based on his verbal tic, “now”.

Well we made it to France and back.  I’m glad we booked a slightly larger car than we normally book as we brought a bit of stuff back with us, namely wine, cheese, beer and some wine (or did I already say that?)

My birthday present from Kate was, you guessed it, wine!  I’ve now got a nice little cellar filled with lovely French wine.  I reckon I’ve got enough to keep me (and visitors) going for 6-12 months, but we’ll see.  Maybe another trip to France is on the cards!

Our trip started in Calais.  We drove South to Brittany to see Mont St Michel, an amazing monastery built on a tidal island.  We then slowly returned North via the medieval town of Bayeux where we were met with a medieval festival.  Bayeux is home to the famous tapestry that tells the story of the battle of Hastings in 1066.

Tom and I checked out the D-Day landing beaches, as well as several open air museums along that part of the coast dedicated to detailing the history of the allied landing on the Normandy beaches on 6 June 1944. 

Finally, with Kate’s French hitting an all time high, we stayed in a French B and B for the last evening (where the hosts didn’t speak English).  Kate managed to book our accommodation over the phone with only a French phrase book to hand!  I was so proud…

We then headed back to the ferry via some wine shops and home.

3 people, 4 days, 1135 miles in a 1.6 L Ford Focus, 108 bottles of wine and a great Birthday!

Next trip… Oz!

A few of my *many* photos are here