India: Part 2 – Getting to the City

After a long plane ride, it was time to leave the airport and get to the hotel. I’ve been to Orlando in August. I thought I knew hot and humid. The second the sliding doors opened, my glasses fogged up so much I couldn’t see. It was frickin' hot. Since we had a late flight in, we’re walking out of the airport at around 2:00am. We start heading in the direction of the cabs… damn is there a lot of cabs. How the hell are we supposed to find our cab in the fleet that stands before us? Then we find out. Some guy runs up to us asking what cab we’re looking for. We politely decline his service. Not but two seconds later another guy asks the same. As we’re trying to explain to him we’ve got it, a third guy comes up. I think he has the right approach. He asks what cab we’re looking for. We give him our number, and within seconds these three dudes grab all of our stuff and before we know it we’re at the cab.

So the guys are smaller in stature to me. One of our bags isn’t light at all. I reached down to help, and I actually got my hand swatted. No joke. They get all of our stuff in the car and there we were, ready to take on the world. The car ride was interesting. First off, they drive on the left side of the road. That makes it a bit interesting, but apparently since it’s late, all the street lights are off. The cab driver is honking through intersections, honking at stray dogs, honking at.. well everything. MEEEEEEEP.. MEEEEEEEEPP.. MEEEEEEP. MEEP.

I think everyone has preconceived notions of what they are going to see. The dive to Juhu looked like driving though Manhattan (between Times Square and Javis) or LA (a few blocks from the Staples Center) at night, except more stray dogs. I think there were a few spots that were a bit dodgy, and I could tell because my wife and I looked at each other and gave the “we’re not in Kansas anymore” look. The main difference was the vehicles. There were these little three wheeled things driving about. Luckily we were in a normal car.

The next day, we have breakfast with our friend’s family who’s wedding we’re attending. They are just fantastic. They helped explain some of the ceremony and traditions. Some are from the Seattle area as well, but some are aunts and uncles who live here in India. They all basically told us that we’ll enjoy the sights at Delhi and Agra much better. But at breakfast, we had some stuff that was just amazing. Even the omelets were amazing. With the omelet, they had this stuff. I hesitate to call it curry, because that’s really a British invention. It’s like a combination of what you would think curry is, and chorizo (Mexican sausage). Then you dipped bread into it. The bread was like naan and an elephant ear combined. Maybe it was naan dough deep-fried with cinnamon and sugar. Damn it was good.

So far so good. Tonight is the night of the Henna. Some of the women are getting painted in preparation of the wedding. Since it is a woman’s event, I am in the hotel room blogging and catching up on some reading. It sounds like the next few days are going to be busy. I’ve been involved in wedding parties in the states, but in India, the wedding ceremonies last many days (and I used to think Catholic weddings were long). We’re here for 4 days of it and I’m looking forward to it.

(I only thought of work a little bit today when I was reading a book called The Goal. It’s a management book in the form of a novel. The situation in the book hit close to home, and I got fired up. My wife had to remind me we were on vacation.)