If you've been wondering why I haven't updated my blog for a while, well its because I've been out of the country. I was on a one week journey to INDIA. Emphasis on the journey as it was really an eye-opening experience. Imagine 5 hotels in 6 days including 7 hour car rides, crazy Indian drivers and multiple flight transfers. It was like being part of the Amazing Race except that the prize for finishing first was diarrhea and malaria. A quick summary of events below:
It all started when I arrived in the Mumbai airport and was immediately met by a thick white smoke and a burning smell. It seems that one of the airport lights had a malfunction and was actually burning up as we were passing through immigration. It was suffocating and our eyes were stinging from the smoke as the queue slowly inched its way to the front.
We came out of the airport and our pick up service was nowhere in sight. We had to call him up multiple times before we figured out that the driver was waiting in the wrong terminal. Once we were on our way to the hotel, he decides to take a shortcut and we ended up entering a street filled with tons of people, food stalls, cows and not another car in sight. Obviously, this was his cue to get lost and he had to drive around a couple of times before he found the correct hotel.
Once we got there, the receptionist told us that the hotel was fully booked even though we had a guaranteed reservation. They were nice enough to transfer us to a different hotel but that took another car ride by the clueless driver who didn't speak english. All's well that ends well as we finally booked a room and sank to a blissful sleep.
Next day, we had to take a 4 hour car ride to the factory we were visiting. When we were about 15 kms away, this group of truck drivers decided that they were going to hold a protest about the high toll fees and basically just barricaded this major intersection. (see pic) This caused a huge traffic jam and we were pretty much stuck in the middle of nowhere for another 2 hours. The police eventually came and we expected them to finally break up the barricade. But we were wrong, it appears that a politician was already there doing a dialogue so the policeman were just lounging around eating guavas in the shade. Parang pinas ah.
Eventually we gave up and just turned around. We were hot, dirty, tired and there was really no toilet around. During the barricade, we had to go to this huge field filled with crows to pee. You can hear them going SQUARK, SQUARK and looking at you with an evil eye while you had your schlong in your hand and trying to do your business. Mweheheh
Some notes about India
1. Crazy Drivers - seriously, if you thought it was bad in the Philippines. They don't compare to the average Indian Driver. Horns are continually used by everyone. They drive up to 80 to 100 kmh in these really narrow streets, honking their horn for people, bicycles, motorcycles and trucks to get out of their way. They even do double overtakes. This is when the car ahead of us decides to overtake the car in front of him and our driver decides it was the correct time to overtake both of them at the same time. So we were three cars trying to get ahead of each other in a parallel line in a narrow street going 80 km per hour while a huge truck was barreling at us from the other way.
2. Dirty - foreigners are always complaining about the dirty streets of Manila, but the good news is, the streets of India are dirtier. You can see pretty much garbage everywhere you looked. I went to this shopping mall in Chennai which was highly recommended by some of the Indian people I talked to. I was expecting a kind of SM like experience. Well, I was wrong. It was basically a dark building, dirt smudges everywhere, warm and smelly. Granted it had the usual brand names like Guess, Nike, etc. But the rat walking down the aisle sort of gave it a unique flavor.
3. People - Indian people are actually very nice and warm. Everywhere we went, we always found them accomodating and eager to talk to us. They are hospitable similar to Filipinos. The main difference is probably the smell. Heheh .... to put it politely, let's just say that 1 out of 2 people you meet might have a funky smell. But I don't think its really their fault, but more because of the food that they eat. Which brings us to ...
4. Food - the food in India is unique. If you're used to white rice and adobo and is not flexible culinary wise, then I don't think you'll have a good time. Traditional fare is a flat bread called roti or naan. And then you'll have some curry that you can dip it in. Curry could be chicken, mutton or vegetable based. But majority of the people are vegetarians. Hot and Spicy is standard and should be expected for everything that they serve you unless you make a special request. Personally, I found the food quite OK and had a nice time with the different tastes and textures. Obviously, bottled water is a must, anything canned like Coke or Sprite is also OK. No beef in general as cows are considered sacred.
5. Expensive Hotels - I do not exaggerate but the hotels in India are one of the most expensive in Asia and maybe even the world. A four star level hotel would cost you 8,000 pesos per night at the minimum and the quality is not even that good. I wondered about this and my Indian colleague told me that it was a matter of supply and demand. The hotels there are almost always fully booked so the rates were much much higher than everyone else.
Generally, I found INDIA quite a feast for the senses both visually and otherwise. Although I had a hard time adjusting to all the noise, crowds and smells at first, I have to say that it kinda grew on me in the 6 days that I was there. It is not as bad as some people would have you believe, but obviously it will not be a popular tourist attraction anytime soon. You can see obvious signs of economic growth with all the infrastructure construction going on and I hope to see improvements in the years to come.
Usually, when I come home from a trip to let's say Singapore or Hongkong where everything works efficiently, I usually feel a nostalgic sense of regret as to why the Philippines could not be like those places. Well, this time around when I came back and arrived at the NAIA. I actually felt relief and elation that I was back in Manila. Even with all the crazy politics, crime and corruption, we're actually not too bad. If that barricade had happened here lets say at the corner of Edsa and Ortigas, you'll probably see our police hosing down the protestors and dispersing the rally. And all the drivers in the cars going "Yep, hose them all down, they deserve it for making me late for my meeting, throw in a tear gas canister there just to be sure" Heheh ....
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