Thu, 01 Dec 2005
Wheeee
Yesterday I did some dumb things. One was that I walked across the street at a "crosswalk". Traffic here is nuts and for a minute I didn't think I'd make it across the street. But I did.
Then later I went shopping. That's not the dumb thing- well, spending more money than I planned to was, but anyway, after shopping the store owner asked how I had gotten to the store. I said I had taken an auto rickshaw and then walked across the street. He rolled his eyes at that, and laughed, then asked if I would like a ride back to the hotel. I said it wasn't a problem as it wasn't too far and I'd just take another rickshaw. He said- don't worry, my boy will take you. Quick note- everyone here has a 'boy'. Whenever I go to a store, the owners will chat with me and say "my boy will go fetch the items". Or in the hotel, I had some shirts to be washed so I called downstairs and the woman said "I'll send my boy up later." The kids at the cafe who bring the tea to The Transporter are "his boys" where his is either The Transporter or the Cafe owner depending on the sentence structure. So back to the store story- Anyway, I said, well, okay since you're offering I'll take a ride. We go outside and it's about rush hour time, which is apparently 6am-midnight from what I can tell. The shopboy points to his.... scooter. So I hope on back- both of us sans helmets- and we proceed to go to the hotel in the rush hour traffic. It was fun, but scary fun. My knees were inches from other cars as we went along, but as I said, it was fun. A bit of a rush. In hindsight it was stupid, but oh well. The whole time I've been here I haven't worried about getting sick from food, or getting sick from mosquitos (I've been taking malaria meds every day for the past month)- I've been more worried about getting in a car wreck (even if I'm walking). But you know, you gotta go with the flow. If I had access to my personal email right now, I'd copy and paste Kevin's email signature quotation here, because that's what I was thinking of on the scooter. So later in the day The Transporter took me to another store. First we went to Niloufer, the cafe in the Arab quarter, then out and about. I really liked it but didn't buy too much. I know I'm a bit uh, can I say 'husky' instead of 'chunky'? It sounds more flattering. Yeah whatever, I could stand to lose a few pounds. So shopping for clothes in a place where the prices are tempting, but the average XL is meant for a person about half of your weight (in kilos), it's a bit tricky. Well, I had heard shoes were good buys, so that's what I was looking for that day. Well, it turned out I had the same problem. They don't have anything approaching sizes over 11 1/2 US [I wear a size 12-13 depending on the brand]. Arrggh so frustrating. But that's fine. I was also trying to keep an eye out for gifts for The Transporter. I finally took him to the music shop and said I'd get him some cassettes which he was pumped up about. Long story, but he's hard to shop for and I didn't want to just give him a tip (which I will anyway) when I leave so I was glad to get him excited about the music. So he carefully selected some Hindi movie soundtracks, looked in vain for some Eagles tape (while rejecting my recommendation of Creedence instead), and also selected--- Crazy Frog's Crazy Dance Hits. Good lord. This has thoroughly changed the commute. Read that link if you don't understand what I'm talking about. I'm pretty sure that Crazy Frog was mentioned in Dante's Inferno. So, I'm coming to the end of my trip. It's Thursday/Friday now and I leave Hyderabad for Singapore on Friday night. I arrive in Singapore late Friday night (really Saturday morning) and then I'll spend Saturday and Sunday there before leaving Singapore Sunday night. I plan on meeting up with Jason Chang, another ex-CyberSourcer for food and drinks. It should be fun. Then I'll be back in SF on Sunday night- I don't lose any time on the flight back from Singapore. When I get back I'll move the pics from flickr.com to my pic section and add captions and better descriptions. I'll probably vent a bit about work too because despite having a lot of fun outside of work, work itself was very frustrating. But that said, I'm grateful for the opportunity to travel here. Maybe I'll get sent back in 2006. We'll see.01 Dec 14:36 | /travel/india | 0 comment(s)
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