EVERYONE STOP FRETTING
Jan. 2nd, 2006 01:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhyllfirst off: india is real, apparently. not just some complicated myth. who'd have thought?
and i have survived it so far. although, to be quite frank, it has been quite harrowing. i feel very thoroughly and severely harrowed, actually. i've never felt physically threatened, but i do feel completely alien.
day onepretty much consisted of arriving at the airport and then being freaked the hell out. calling the lonely planet hotels was, predictably, unhelpful, so i ended up getting a taxi from the dodgy-looking 'hotel booking' stand in the airport. (note: airports in india are not the shiny and calm places i am used to.) the guy from the stand led me through all the touts standing outside and found me a taxi (leaving his stand completely unattended), which then drove me around to a few different places. one of them finally turned out to have a spare room which was not too expensive. i think accomodation here is likely to be a bit more expensive than i initially thought. despite my deep desire to just lie down and hide under a blanket for the next three months, i washed (a process involving a stool, a bucket, a tap, andsmoe ayurvedic soap), negotiated the toilet (clean, but no toilet paper...again, a tap and a bucket...), and went out to explore. this pretty much consisted of walking up and down one street, since getting lost was a bittoo scary to contemplate. luckily i didn't get hassled, apart from a few half-hearted attempts to get me to buy saris, and nobody touched me at all. three small missions achieved: i bought some bottled water, found some food (some sort of crisp bready stuff, with chillis on top, wrapped in a piece of newspaper), which is was too on edge to eat, and found my hotel again.
day two: walked up and down the street near my hotel again, with some very cautious forays into streets leading off it. i found somewhere to eat, and had my first proper meal in india - masala dosai and a chai. i caught an autorickshaw to the city centre (i'm staying in the bus-stand area, which is maybe a 15 minute drive from the mg - mahatma ghandi - road area), found an ATM that was willing to give me some money, and then found this 'cyberpoint internet', which is a tiny tiny room with five fairly vintage computers in it.
india is daunting. unprepared as i was, idon't think that there's much i could have done to prepare me. i think not being alone would probably have helped, and i think i will be quite lonely here, at least for a little while. here are some things about india:
* there are motorcycles everywhere, and lots of them have a woman in a sari sitting sidesaddle on the pillion. i saw one man with four small children distributed around the bike. noone wears helmets. there are also tiny yellow autorickshaws everywhere. despite the unpredictability of the traffic flows, the fact that everyone is constantly beeping and overtaking and nearly crashing into each other, there is a tremendously relaxed feel to the traffic. crossing roads is a bit crazy, but i don't get so scared because most of the vehicles are smaller than me. (dude, i could *totally* take them.) mind you, i amstill usingother pedestrians as cover.
* the women don't touch the men, or each other, that i've seen, and the men all walk around holding hands or with their arms around each other's shoulders.
* there are cows everywhere, no so much in the mg road area (which is quite modern), but certainly in the area where i'm staying. In the bus station area there are dirt roads and uneven pavements made of great slabs of stone. there are no bins, just piles of rubbish around the place, but the pavements and roads are continually cleaned by street sweepers, so it has an oddly tidy feel to it.
* most people speak at least some english, and most of the street signs are in english. there are an inordinate number of "fancy stores".
* today i saw: a print shop...a tiny room where there was a man hand-setting metal letters into a press; an old, dreadlocked man looking much the worse for wear in a jumper saying "i yell because i care"; a wall painted with "DO NOT URINE". i have seen more men urinating on the street than i ever felt was necessary.
i am very glad thati don't have much choice about working india out. i think that if i'd had a choice i might have got straight back on the plane. but i feel slightly less daunted today than i did yesterday, and i guess tomorrow i will feel better again. it helps that i've been into the mg road area today - it's a lot more modern - and familiar - than the area around my hotel.
for now i can only be contacted by email. i am staying at the UG deluxe lodge, #9/1, 2nd Cross, Thulasithotam, Bangalore. just in case i get lost or something,but don't send letters because i'mnot sure how long i'll be there.
ok. i will leave it there for now and try to work out a few more internet things now. i miss you guys! (and i miss australia!)
*waves frantically*
and i have survived it so far. although, to be quite frank, it has been quite harrowing. i feel very thoroughly and severely harrowed, actually. i've never felt physically threatened, but i do feel completely alien.
day onepretty much consisted of arriving at the airport and then being freaked the hell out. calling the lonely planet hotels was, predictably, unhelpful, so i ended up getting a taxi from the dodgy-looking 'hotel booking' stand in the airport. (note: airports in india are not the shiny and calm places i am used to.) the guy from the stand led me through all the touts standing outside and found me a taxi (leaving his stand completely unattended), which then drove me around to a few different places. one of them finally turned out to have a spare room which was not too expensive. i think accomodation here is likely to be a bit more expensive than i initially thought. despite my deep desire to just lie down and hide under a blanket for the next three months, i washed (a process involving a stool, a bucket, a tap, andsmoe ayurvedic soap), negotiated the toilet (clean, but no toilet paper...again, a tap and a bucket...), and went out to explore. this pretty much consisted of walking up and down one street, since getting lost was a bittoo scary to contemplate. luckily i didn't get hassled, apart from a few half-hearted attempts to get me to buy saris, and nobody touched me at all. three small missions achieved: i bought some bottled water, found some food (some sort of crisp bready stuff, with chillis on top, wrapped in a piece of newspaper), which is was too on edge to eat, and found my hotel again.
day two: walked up and down the street near my hotel again, with some very cautious forays into streets leading off it. i found somewhere to eat, and had my first proper meal in india - masala dosai and a chai. i caught an autorickshaw to the city centre (i'm staying in the bus-stand area, which is maybe a 15 minute drive from the mg - mahatma ghandi - road area), found an ATM that was willing to give me some money, and then found this 'cyberpoint internet', which is a tiny tiny room with five fairly vintage computers in it.
india is daunting. unprepared as i was, idon't think that there's much i could have done to prepare me. i think not being alone would probably have helped, and i think i will be quite lonely here, at least for a little while. here are some things about india:
* there are motorcycles everywhere, and lots of them have a woman in a sari sitting sidesaddle on the pillion. i saw one man with four small children distributed around the bike. noone wears helmets. there are also tiny yellow autorickshaws everywhere. despite the unpredictability of the traffic flows, the fact that everyone is constantly beeping and overtaking and nearly crashing into each other, there is a tremendously relaxed feel to the traffic. crossing roads is a bit crazy, but i don't get so scared because most of the vehicles are smaller than me. (dude, i could *totally* take them.) mind you, i amstill usingother pedestrians as cover.
* the women don't touch the men, or each other, that i've seen, and the men all walk around holding hands or with their arms around each other's shoulders.
* there are cows everywhere, no so much in the mg road area (which is quite modern), but certainly in the area where i'm staying. In the bus station area there are dirt roads and uneven pavements made of great slabs of stone. there are no bins, just piles of rubbish around the place, but the pavements and roads are continually cleaned by street sweepers, so it has an oddly tidy feel to it.
* most people speak at least some english, and most of the street signs are in english. there are an inordinate number of "fancy stores".
* today i saw: a print shop...a tiny room where there was a man hand-setting metal letters into a press; an old, dreadlocked man looking much the worse for wear in a jumper saying "i yell because i care"; a wall painted with "DO NOT URINE". i have seen more men urinating on the street than i ever felt was necessary.
i am very glad thati don't have much choice about working india out. i think that if i'd had a choice i might have got straight back on the plane. but i feel slightly less daunted today than i did yesterday, and i guess tomorrow i will feel better again. it helps that i've been into the mg road area today - it's a lot more modern - and familiar - than the area around my hotel.
for now i can only be contacted by email. i am staying at the UG deluxe lodge, #9/1, 2nd Cross, Thulasithotam, Bangalore. just in case i get lost or something,but don't send letters because i'mnot sure how long i'll be there.
ok. i will leave it there for now and try to work out a few more internet things now. i miss you guys! (and i miss australia!)
*waves frantically*
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2006-01-02 08:18 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-01-02 09:52 am (UTC)'DO NOT URINE', words to live by.
no subject
on 2006-01-02 11:55 am (UTC)989 107 6336. you can go to offices labelled PCO/STD to make calls.
there are some calmer places around south delhi to hang out at...india habitat centre is very nice...
no subject
on 2006-01-03 10:02 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-01-03 11:17 am (UTC)Phew!:-)))
on 2006-01-02 12:13 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2006-01-09 08:58 am (UTC)