12/11/08 (or was it 11/12/08?)India got one last jab at my wallet when a guy offered to escort me through the Bangalore airport to show me where to go. He was completely unnecessary as all the signs were in English and the airport is built on a straight line that leads to the check-in counter, but before I realized that he was on me like a fly. Like so many other people I met in the customer service industry of India, he had no idea what he was doing. He seemed to know as little about the airport as me, since he led me the opposite direction of the gate, then stopped and asked a security guard for directions. He escorted me to the security checkpoint, even though I told him he was not needed, and when there he s
tuck out his hand for a tip. I gave him a 2 rupee piece. He said, "that is very small tip". Then I began to lay into him. Before I could really get into a good grove of insults I noticed people were looking at us -I was making a scene and the guy still had his hand open to me. I gave him my last American dollar, way more than he had been worth, and left the scene. I now understand that when guides talk about the pickpockets of India, they are speaking metaphorically.
Take this adventure for instance: For our final tourist trap Tori and I decided to go to Bangalore Palace, the summer home of the original royal family of the Bangalore region. We paid a foreigner fee of Rs 200 (locals paid Rs 5) for one of the most disappointing and depressing tours I've ever taken. Before the tour I looked along the wall at all the former princes and rulers who had resided at the palace. They all looked regal and mag
nificent dressed in silk and gold, until I got the the final picture, that of the current prince. He was in a discolored tuxedo with the top button undone so his rolls of extra flesh would have room, his hair was unkempt, his eyes pointed different directions, he was quite clearly and through no fault of his own - autistic. The prince's unconventional decoration tastes were evident throughout the tour. We'd be shown ancient sculptures and ruby studded crowns then, in a glass case, would be a chewed up and chocolate smeared plastic doll. The prince had a thing for tacky concrete golf statues you see in the corner of garden centers, the one where the guy is holding the club in follow-through position with a cartoonish look on his face as if he hit the ball somewhere he ought not have. These statues were everywhere. Every corner, every hallway, underneath ancient tapestries, in lines on top of grand oak tables, on top of taxidermied elephant feet, where ever there wasn't an ancient artifact or symbol of royal grandeur you'd see a golf statue or some other awful piece of junk, the likes of which you could buy off street vendors just outside the palace gates. The palace had a few redeeming features, such as the head of a murderous elephant who sacked a town in the 1800s, but beyond the austistic juxtapositions of relics and crap that made you feel bad for giggling at, there is only a frumpy tourist guide who demands an extra Rs. 50 for taking 15 minutes out of his busy schedule of daytime TV to show you how far the Indian royalty has fallen.
P.s. I wasn't allowed to take pictures because I didn't want to pay the $20 picture fee.
On our way back to the hotel we stopped at the Indian museum of science and industry. A sample of every piece of technology that has passed through India, from Soviet jets to Chinese steam engines, is represented within the industrial warehouse-looking halls. Posters with advanced math equations and jargon-filled explanations that would make a masters student scratch their chin went alongside models of ping-pong balls zooming around a pneumatic tube, symbolizing electron transfer or t-cells in the bloodstream or w
hatever.
That night, Tori and my last in India together, we rode rickshaws around town and stopped at the best night club in the world: Nasa Bar. Nasa Bar is what an Indian who has grown up watching sci-fi movies thinks the inside of a space shuttle looks like. Black lights, dry ice mist on the ground, lasers, stainless steel tables, trance music, pictures of American astronauts, movie aliens, and other planets. It was the coolest bar of my life. Even the stairway to the entrance was made from one of those stair-trucks you see docked to local airline jets at the airport.
But I should say that every bar in India is awesome. There aren't many since Indians don't typically drink much or go out at night, so most of the bars are aimed at tourists and they are all more elegant than anything I've ever been to in the states. Waiters wear bow-ties and pressed linen uniforms for crying out loud. This policy even extends to fast food joints where wait staff and glass drinking containers are expected.
A last note on travel in India:
India is big on getting as many people employed as possible. The bus, for instance, has a driver, a ticket taker, a back watchman to catch people sneaking on, and sometimes a guard. Each person has a whistle to alert the driver of whats going on using some sort of code.
Traffic is chaos and operates under the same mentality as a crowded high school hallway. People usually stick to one side of the street to go forward, but not always. People driving too recklessly might get yelled at by the authorities, but usually get away. And the biggest most aggressive drivers have the right of way.
The most common traffic jam occurs at bridges where only one large vehicle can pas at a time. Two big trucks might be at a face off on either side of the bridge. Motorcycles and scooters will fill every in in between and writhe their way through like maggots. If one of the trucks backs up a car might try to squeeze in. Once we were at a standoff like this for six hou
rs, but they can go on for days.
Appointments in India are never for exact times because it is impossible to gauge how long it will take to get around. Even the trains don't have a perfectly exact schedule, though they try.
On the airplane home I woke up in a stupor brought on from flight exhaustion and free liquor courtesy of British Air. I compiled this list of ways air travel could be improved.
1. All seats should fully recline for better sleeping
2. It should be federal regulation that airplanes serve free booze
3. Planes should occasionally fly low so I can feel the speed and experience the scenery better
4. Aerobatics are acceptable
5. People of similar ages and interests should be seated together
6. Turbulence is a fact of life and flight paths should never change to avoid it
