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My Totally Radical Indian Adventure- Day 2: Circles

3AM. As far as these things go, it’s an unfortunate time to land. After collecting my bags and exchanging my money at an extortionate rate, I stumbled out of the Airport into a crowd of people hell bent on hustling me. I hadn’t thought about it until about half way to India, but landing in the middle of the night raises a number of problems. I jumped into a rickshaw, but it son became apparent that the Driver had marked me as an easy target. “We need 200 rupees to exit the airport gate” he says after we had just passe d the gate with out paying a paisa. “Drive on you chancer, if the guard wants my money he can ask me himself.”
And we did, towards Kovallum beach stopping at a string of hotels where the driver knew the owners, all of them charging over 1000 rupees for a night. We drove through dark streets on the edges of Trivandrum, where old men sat smoking on door steps paying us no mind. Dogs looked up momentarily from the piles of rubbish they were inspecting, the rickshaws headlight reflecting in their wild eyes before they resumed their work. From the darkness emerged an elephant, lead slowly by a sad looking man in a longi, and ridden by another. I found out later that they worked for the temple and took care of the elephants as required, including 3AM walks.
Rickshaw drivers here have a very special ability to ignore everything you say once you get in their ride. It took a while, but finally I managed to persuade the driver to take me back to the airport where I would wait for the sun to come up. I told him I’d catch a bus in the morning. “No bus. No hotel. No taxi... at 7am all is closing.” He didn’t elaborate further, so assuming this was another one of his tricks, I payed him for the back street tour and jumped out. A crowd of departing passengers were sat on the pavement outside the airport so I went to join them. A business man I spoke to explained that they had all arrived very early, as the National Strike would start at 7am and there would have been no way to get there after then. He assured me I’d be able to get a hotel in the morning, but that seemed to be it as everything else in the city would be closed.
For a few houirs I sat in the in the hot night air, swatting at mosquitos and chatting with passengers. At half 6 Iran over to the stall for prepaid taxis and ordered the last cab of the day. The man behind the counter put up a closed sign and led me to his car. I checked into the Jas hotel, hauled my bag up to my room and passed out on the filthy mattress.

I woke up late in the afternoon, staggered out of the building and down the hill towards the city. I came to a junction and had absolutely no idea which way to go. The streets were nearly empty, but a strike breaking rickshaw driver pulled up next to me and asked me where I was going. I told him Manorama Road, he nodded and we set off. He weaved in and out of cars and trucks, narrowly missing old women and children along the way. Down twisting alleys, with no regard for treacherous potholes or mangled dog carcasses. We drove past several government sponsored signs warning: “There is a quicker way to meet death: CARELESS DRIVING”. Finally he slowed down, turned around and with a sheepish look admitted he had no idea where Manorma road was. Having acknowledged his failings, he began asking every one he came to if they knew. After sever cross examinations about the restaurant I was heading to, we were back on track. Dodging death with every turn we raced towards Manorama with new found conviction. We stopped. This was It. Wait. I was standing 15 yards from where he had picked me up. I paid the man and went inside for my thali.



This post first appeared on Answers In Caves | Automatic Ranting And Spectral, please read the originial post: here

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My Totally Radical Indian Adventure- Day 2: Circles

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