Road Rage

I finally witnessed my first fender-bender today. Witnessed it from inside one of the cars with the bending fenders. It wasn’t so much a bend as a scrape. The other car thought its dimensions would allow it to squeeze by my taxi. It was wrong. I just happened to turn my head as the car started going by and I thought, “This is gonna be close.” But so often I’d seen the maneuver done successfully in the past when I was convinced it would fail, I figured this time it would work out, too. Nope. Sckeee-rape.

More intriguing was the aftermath. If I haven’t made it clear before, these roads are narrow and jam packed with a variety of vehicles. The “traffic light” had just turned green and we were the second car in “line”. After the scraping did the two cars pull over to the side and get out of the way? No. They stayed just where they were, rolled down their windows and started yelling at each other in Tamil. I couldn't understand a word of their shouted exchange but I'm pretty sure it wasn't, "Pardon me, dear sir, for my vehicle's most terrible obstruction of your glorious right-of-way." "Think nothing of it. Here, allow me to pay for the damages to your most splendid conveyance."

It’s at this point I’m thankful I’m in India. I mean, at least I didn’t have to worry about seeing the barrel of a .38 poke out one of the back windows (Hi, my name is Eric and I live in Oakland). Meanwhile, everyone else is honking, and honking some more. The motorcycles and bicycles that managed to squeeze by either yell at the obstruction or make some sort of arm gesture. (Gee, I wonder what that means?). After 2 minutes or so of yelling the windows roll back up and the cars drive off. That’s it. No exchange of info or anything. Unless, of course, they were yelling insurance information at each other.

At least we didn’t hit a pedestrian. One of the travel sites I read said that if you’re in a taxi that hits a ped or a cow you should get out and run as onlookers have been known drag the driver (and sometimes the passengers) out and beat them. Dave suggested I take the initiative and drag the driver out and start beating him myself.

Tuesday, Monday, and Last Week

Another day, another near death experience. Ok, not really, but yesterday I rode in a tuk tuk for the first time. (If you don’t know what a tuk tuk is, check out the December 2006 archives). The crazy Indian traffic intensifies further when one weaves through it in a three-wheeled tin can. Considering one of the guys in the office, Natarajan, offered me the choice between riding on the back of his motorcycle or taking a tuk tuk, I believe I chose wisely. Part of me really wants to take him up on that offer at some point before I leave.

That reminds me...today I saw two guys re-painting lane lines in the middle of a road as my taxi courteously gave them a 6 inch berth. Hahahahahahaha. That's a good one. I'm assuming they were part of a performance comedy troupe since the disregard for lane lines here is total and complete.

You may have noticed the lack of pictures on the blog for this trip thus far. There is a good reason for this; I have not taken any yet. Perhaps my sense of wonder and amazement is diminished as this is my second trip here in three months. Perhaps I continue to forget to bring my camera with me when I go outside. Perhaps they are working me like a dog on this trip with nary a moment to spare wandering around outside. I suspect it’s a combination of all three. I do have some pictures of Singapore but I have yet to determine if they are blog-worthy. A high probability exists they are not as I was extremely hungover when I took them and could barely see.

Today we ate lunch at a place called The Rainforest. At the risk of offending my coworkers who took me there, the place was quite silly. I think I ate in a similar place at Disney World once. Fake thunder noises, rain sounds, walls made to look carved from stone, as if you are eating in a cave. The best part had to be the stuffed animals. Tigers, snakes, and monkeys all scattered around the place. One poor monkey hanging from a clothesline looked as if he was strung up by his thumbs. Good food, though. Mmmm…tikka masala.

I don’t have malaria yet. At least, no outward symptoms.

It’s not as hot here as I expected. It’s toasty, but I experienced worse during the summers of my youth in Contra Costa County. Of course, it’s only March. It is, however, a drastic change from where I was a week ago. Where was that, you ask? Driving through a flippin’ blizzard. Coming back from Tahoe I drove through some of the worst conditions of my life. This from someone who lived in Colorado for 9 years. It was daytime and the falling and blowing snow prevented me from seeing more than 2 cars in front of me and sometimes only one. If someone up ahead had panicked or become disoriented or even blinked I think we all would have followed her off the road one by one like a pack of lemmings. After dumping snow for the previous 24 hours it dumped the whole way from Truckee to Auburn and showed no signs of letting up (in Auburn it turned to rain making the visibility even worse, which was quite a trick). When trying to leave on Sunday afternoon I shoveled a good two feet of snow from around the car. After being defeated on that attempt (no, really, I love spending 45 minutes traveling 50 yards in traffic that moves only when someone bails out and pulls a U-turn), I shoveled another two feet the next morning. I mean, seriously, if you’re not going to close 80 in those conditions, when do you close it? Some portions of the highway looked like Beirut with cars scattered all over, facing every which way, people wandering around in a daze. If the weather had been like that during the snow cave adventure I’m not sure I’d still have fingers with which to type this mediocre blog entry.

Snow cave? What is this snow cave adventure of which he speaks? That’s a tale for another day, perhaps when I’m sitting on the beach in Sri Lanka, drinking a mai tai.

Hello to everyone from Chennai, India.

This first post is going to be a long one, as it includes my entire travel log up to this point, spanning several days. Oh, and sorry for the lack of photos. My computer isn't recognizing the camera and I didn't bring the camera software with me. If I find a solution I'll start posting pictures.

Enjoy.

12.13.06, 5:30am – Rain Tree Hotel, Chennai, India.

Jeez, what a long trip to get here. The flight from SF to Seoul was loooooong, Seoul to Singapore was longer than I thought it would be (like 6 hrs). Walked around Singapore with Dave (in the middle of the night), slept a few hours at his place, showered, then back on a plane to Chennai.

The Chennai airport was a stark stark contrast to the Singapore and SF airports. Low-ceilinged, dingy, muggy, smelled like my Grandma’s basement. I was pretty sure my bag was not going to show up since it had to hang out in Singapore for 7 hours and make the transfer of airlines. But, after waiting only 15 minutes or so, there it was. A quick trip to exchange a traveler’s check (involving some sort of phone call on the guy’s part) and I was off to figure out…Red Zone or Green Zone?

I had no idea which customs line to get in. I decided I was going to attempt the Green Zone figuring if I was wrong someone would let me know. I walked up to the customs official and handed him my declaration. He barely even looked at it or me so I just walked by him and out of the airport. Why would anyone subject themselves to the Red Zone? I don’t know. I suppose if you have something to declare? Chalk this up to my relative ignorance of international travel. At least I didn’t wait in an unnecessary line.

First impression of Chennai? Third world. For some reason I thought it would be more modern here, but it’s not. Some things are, like the internet, my hotel accommodations, etc. But, really, it’s a far cry from my western comforts. I’m sure it’s just a matter of adjustment, but, wow, what a shock. I guess that’s why it’s called “culture shock”. Oh yeah, I forgot. After we landed and we were taxing to the gate I saw, in the shade of the navigation signs next to the runway, what I thought were monkeys. I don’t even know if there are monkeys in India (I don’t think there are). Nope, it was people. WTF were two guys doing hanging out in the shade next to the runway? Seeing who could go deaf first? I thought I imagined it but then I saw another dude in the shade of a different sign. I need to ask Girish about this.

I found my taxi driver (hired by the hotel) among the throng of other taxi drivers. He was holding a sign with my name on it. That’s a first for me. He offered me bottled water (seal intact!) and we were off to the hotel.

It was about a half hour drive to the hotel and wow, what a trip. I now understand why my mom does not like to look out of the taxi windows when she’s in India. The traffic is just crazy. Tuk tuks (small, motorized, three wheel taxis), motorcycles (almost all with two people on them and very few helmets), taxis, buses, even an ox-drawn cart, all sharing the road. And the lane lines? Why they even bother to drawn them on the roads is a mystery to me. They’re not even guidelines, they’re completely ignored. Even the center stripe (when present, which is seldom) is routinely ignored. Just don’t hit anyone, that seems to be the rule. And these drivers know the dimensions of their vehicles to the inch, or even millimeter. I found myself very surprised that the car I was in didn’t have any scratches or dents on it.

My hotel is nice. Very western, which is comforting. God forbid we should shock all of Eric’s delicate western sensibilities.

I called Girish, we had lunch at my hotel, then we went to the office. I met the QA guys, Senthil and Ram, and the rest of the staff in the office, checked emails, talked a bit with Ram and Senthil, then at about 4:30 I hit the wall. Hard. I went back to the hotel and could barely keep my eyes open.

I miss my wife. Tremendously. Last night was tough. I slept from about 6pm to about 1:30am (with a call from Manickam at about 9:30, welcoming me to India). Then I was up from about 1:30 on. Not good. I watched 2 Barclay’s Premiere League soccer matches on whatever ESPN channel they have here (yay, western culture) and dozed intermittently, when I wasn’t missing my wife or feeling lonely or stressing about work or just being here. It’s kind of stressful being here. Can’t drink the water, can’t eat salads, fruits, dairy. I have to rely on other people to get around. Even something like getting more bottled water…I guess I just go into the store next to the work building. Where's the darn 7-11? It’s just so different here it’s stressful. I’m sure I will settle in but this first chunk of time is tough.

I wish my wife was here. She and I are a good team.

My “wake up” call should happen any minute. I guess I’ll go down and eat breakfast. The hired cab is coming to pick me up at 8:30. I think I’m going to hit the wall early today. I may have to go back to the hotel and nap at some point.

Time to get dressed and go eat some food.

---Eric