ChrisandCin

Long time now post anything…sorry.

We have been organising and then flying down to Indonesia last week. But here are some snaps from everyday life this week. (hold your mouse over to see my caption and click on a pic to make it larger)

Just wait til this melts, I think then they will realize its not ice from outerspace…. but a big junk of blue shit and pee from a airliner!

This was on the front page of the times of India today!

“This bluish ice-like object, weighing around 7 kg, fell into Manipur’s Mongshangei village on Sunday. “We heard a big bang in our home around 2.15 and saw our kitchen roof ripped by the icy mass,” said a local. Outer Manipur MP T Meinya, who is also an astronomer, said it may have fallen from a rocket or a spacecraft. “If it’s a meteor, it should emit heat.”

Well its been a while since a post, as I had to go back to the USA for a week, and then upon my return there was a rush to get everything done for a operations inspection from Indias aviation authority…which of course and as expected didnt go so well.

But lets chat about traveling as a passenger out of India.

It all starts at the airport check in…

Normally check in is easy, you can bring your friends and family with you, but oh not in India. For some reason the public isnt allowed into the terminal building unless they have pre purchased ticket! And then this ticket doesnt allow then in too far, just to the arrivals area, so really its pointless.Problem was the day I left the sale of tickets for the terminal was banned due to some security reason, so there was crowds outside the nasty terminal blocking the entrance all complaining they cant buy a ticket to walk the 50 ft into the terminal.

But I get in using my crew pass, and make my way to the xray machine, where you must get your back xrayed.This is the xray for your checked bags and the fools are opening bags and complaining to people that they have screw drivers in their bags, one woman has a nice knife set. All these items are deemed somehow dangerous and are removed… how they will be a danger in a checked bag I will never know as they also seal the bag with straps after its xrayed and deemed safe, so I have no clue as to the logic here… do they no realize this aint a train and there is no access to your bags in flight?

But eventually you make it to check in, only to notice that behind the check in desk is piles of trash, just literally trash everywhere and dirt, and its not a little bit, its 3 ft high in places! Welcome to India I think to myself.

After checkin you go for interrogation to leave the country, where you beg for permission to leave! I havent figured out the logic here, I am sure there is no logic to the process. You also have to pass a Customs and Quarantine desk… why they are on the departure side I am yet to figure out, but they never stop anyone, they just sit there like rocks staring at you as you walk past them.

You then make it into Kolkatas luxury international terminal departure area.

Its a luxurious area I am told, where you can not do much but sit or buy a drink for 400 times its actual value from the one and only shop in the area, or you can buy a bottle of duty free liquor that for some reason is 3 times the retail street price.

The toilets in Kolkatas int l terminal are disgusting, they make you gag. As you walk in they look clean enough but then you realize they are like all Indian toilets, cleaned with water only so it stinks of piss, shit and vomit. Its hard to hold my breath but I have to pee badly so I brave it. I notice on the way out there is one of those sheets with the cleaners signoff every hour.. whats a joke, I bet it dated 1984 …

Now I go back and sit down, the seat it dirty, the floor is dirty and then I am just staring at the trash can. At first I cant figure out what I am staring at, then I realize the trash can has things moving on it… then I focus, and its covered in maggots! This is it, pity I didn’t have a real camera with me, the cell phone camera doesn’t do it justice.

But eventually I board the Emirates flight on the first of 3 flights that will get me back to Miami, with the first stop in Dubai, before the next flight to London.

Now boarding any flight with Indians is an experience, there is some animalistic instinct that comes out in Indians when it comes to transportation. They have to get to their seat, and sit. They have no respect for order, no respect for others, and its just a free for all mad dash to push and shove onto the plane, like its going to leave without them so the have to get on board. The majority cant follow instructions about which seat it theirs, nor can they understand the numbering and letter system so this of course caused chaos.

The guy I am sitting next to stinks like pee, really bad. He has this nasty dirty person aroma. You remember when you were a kid and would play in the garden and dirt, that’s the smell of this guy, but add to it the smell of pee, and sweat and you have the aroma I am beside. Even though I am cold I am forced to put the air vent on full, thank god this is a plane that still has overhead individual air vents I think to myself. It was so bad I was thinking of buying some duty free perfume to fix the smell. And to add to it all, this stinking guy has decided that he can place his elbows over into my space… he gets offended when I tell him to move his arms. He also decides as the plane powers up to take off that its a good time to make a phone call! , I tapped his phone and told him he could be sent to jail in Dubai for that and to turn it off now… he glares at me, but actually stops the call and turns the phone off… idiot.  Thankfully the 4 hr flight isn’t long and I am away from this stink and now I will board a flight without the Indian travellers (or less of them) so life instantly returns to normal. Actually its returned to normal as soon as you get off the plane in Dubai. There is beef burgers for sale, dunkin donuts and starbucks… ahh the civilized world.

But with a short stopover here, I am thankful for the clean fresh air of Dubai and my nostrils have  recovered from the sensual onslaught of the last 4 hrs and I can now sleep my way to London….remind me to wear strong perfume on the next flight out of India please!

It was kinda nice, we got this trip to go take a old lady to see some temples. She was 90 years old , in a wheelchair and had recently recovered from years of being paralyzed.  So her wish was to go thank some gods, which meant a trip down to Madurai, then to Jamnagar. On a map its almost a perfect triangle.

The Trip

Normally we look forward to Madurai, as we stay at the Gateway Hotel, which is one of the Taj hotels. This time the hotel was a bit of a let down. The place has the old colonial feel, with the old bar full of leather couches and the pool table, with the old colonial architecture, but we were let down not by a dirty room, but by the management and restaurant. In true India fashion they have senseless rules, lots of them and the one thats annoying to a business traveller, is the way they separate any liquor item from the food, and present it right down to what you drank on the bill, but the food is summarized in one group as food. And they refuse to alter the bill, so instead of the company paying for the liqour like normal as its just part of the bill as it normally says Beverage service or something like that on the bill, it says 4 large bottle gin, 2 bottles Moet etc. The other bad thing about this place was the restaurant this time.  The waiters were all in these filthy uniforms that looked like they hadnt been washed in weeks, really really dirty is all I could say to describe them. And when you did get to order your food the problem was they would go into the kitchen place the order and then come out with a problem, ie sorry sir no lettuce would you like a greek salad instead? (by the way the greek salad was anything but greek, it was in fact a Indian salad of tomato, and cucumber with vegetable oil on it!!)  Then mains come, I ordered a chicken steak sandwich…I know how can a chicken be steak right!, but out comes a little bread roll with about 4 pieces of onion on it, and about half of a half chicken breast, together with a little dish of pineapple in mayonnaise, and a hand full of sour cream and onion Lays brand chips! WTF, I ask and get sorry sir we have no fries or coleslaw! Would you think about telling me at time of order next time maybe…or is that too much to ask?

But personally I would now not recommend the Gateway hotel in Madurai , unless they have done something about the service, lack of food and cleaned the waiters uniforms.

Jamnagar was not a nice place also. For one its a dry state! And the hotel the company booked us into was a old , dirty run down piece of shit. DONT ever ever stay at the Hotel Aram in Jamnagar. I must admit I have never been in such a bad restaurant. For one it was outdoor..which would have been ok, but of course in true Indian fashion there was lights, and so many lights that all the mosquitoes in the state were attracted to it. We asked for a mozzie coil, and were given about half of inch of a coil to burn under our table…yep did nothing!. The menu as you can see by the pics was filthy, the waiter never spoke, and look at the pic of my napkin and you can see that the table was really really dirty when I wiped it. To add to the insult of a dirty mozzie ridden restaurant without a beer in sight, it was vegetarian only!

One weird thing here I couldn’t get a pic of was the carpark disco. Yep they had a stage, with a guy playing cds loudly in the car park. Later on at night I could still hear the music blaring, so I opened my door and saw the little stage jam packed full of people dancing. Now that would be ok, but when my eyes came into focus I realized it was all men gyrating together, the women were sitting on plastic chairs in front of the dance floor with no expression on their faces watching them dance… really weird it was !

Here is the trip in pics:

We are lucky we bought the animals back from the USA, as we don’t think we could have dealt with a sick and dieing animal in India. By our standards India its just not humane in the treatment of animals or what you do with their body after the death.

George our cat we adopted in 1997 in Malacca Malaysia from the Humane Society died this week. He was perfect one day and the next day his temperature was dangerously low and he was having multiple organ failures. We will never know what he succumbed to, but he is now with his favorite dog buddies, Rover and Maddie, and Oscar.

But what other cat do you know has lived in 6 countries, flown numerous flights, lived in all climates from and tropical island in the Indian Ocean, to 9000ft up a mountain in Colorado’s Rockies. He had a great life, and run many miles and climbed and fell from many a tree (he was named after the movie George of the Jungle as he had a knack of falling from tries like the movie character).

George with his buddy Oscar