The Night of the Cockroach

So, we've finally arrived in India. Yeah. We'd heard that this place is intense and that turns out not to be an understatement. Life here is a little like living inside an Robert Ludlum action thriller or a spy film. I half expect Matt Damon to come bombing around the corner with a sub-machine gun.

 

The Indian notion of personal space applies also to traffic--which means the rickshaws and taxis all get much closer to each other than would be legal almost anywhere else.

 

As our taxi driver from the airport said, everything is legal except driving against traffic on the wrong side of the street. Of course as he said this about 3 people on motorbikes crossed the yellow line and cruised slowly against the flow. That turns out to be an important point: You can generally against the flow here as long as you do it slowly enough.

 

I must take and post some pics because words rather fail me when I think of trying to explain the conditions in which people here live. Suffice to say at this point that I understand travelers who feel shell-shocked by the experience. If you are not relaxed before you come here, then being here will either teach you to relax or you will hate it.

 

That said, I am rather enjoying myself. Though it doesn't hurt that my favorite food is priced so cheaply. For breakfast we spent 30 rupees all together. That's less than $1 Canadian for two people.

 

Accommodation is also cheap, but we're finding that the hotels listed in our guide book are perhaps not the best value. We just checked out of a place which had beds that were too small and a cleanliness problem. The cockroaches, while not the biggest I've seen, were plentiful enough. I even discovered one living under my mattress. I did not point this out to Anne, who was dubious enough about the hotel (which I had chosen).

 

I must now go and give myself twenty lashes. Joy.

 

NB