We woke on the morning of April 8th a bit sad. We were leaving our spectacular hotel, with a pool we never got a chance to swim in, and headed back to Mumbai. The next day, Saturday the 9th, three of our party would leave: Mom, Auntie, and Fez. But we still had fun things planned in Mumbai, and another airport adventure, so we did okay for the day.
We headed down the stairs for breakfast, and were surprised to see Auntie sitting there, but without Mom, her roommate for our trip. Auntie told us Mom wasn’t feeling too hot. In fact, she acted out Mom’s own description of her health by standing up, shaking her hips, and saying “I’ve got the Bombay Boogie!” Well, with that demonstration, we all had to laugh at Mom’s misfortunes. Auntie said, while Mom had said that, that Mom seemed to be in great spirits, so we ate our outdoor breakfast peacefully and headed back upstairs to pack.
Before she left, Auntie gathered a big stack of toast, butter, and jellies. I think I have mentioned before that the juices are always weird tasting in India. The same is true for the little mini table jellies. The sugar content is just different, and always tastes wrong to our American tongues. Throughout the week, we had systematically tasted and rejected the various flavors, so Auntie piled up the one flavor we hadn’t rejected (since we hadn’t tried it yet) and stacked it atop the bread.
Fez packed while I filled out, with entirely too many details, the comment sheet about our trip. I’d been filling a bit out each day, so I had very specific memories in regards to what we thought the tour guides did right vs. wrong. Certainly it was too much writing; I was practically crossing my words like there was a paper shortage, but maybe it was helpful. Fez and I decided to visit Mom, and see how she was feeling. Fez brought along her book and was going to head to the pool after the visit. She’d sit by it, darn it, even if she didn’t get to swim in it!
I believe I mentioned before how confusingly our hotel was laid out. In fact, it isn’t a hotel, but a 200-year-old haveli, or British mansion. It had multiple courtyards, multiple levels, and plenty of tiny staircases. Also, the room numbering made no sense whatsoever. All three of our rooms, despite being in different wings and levels, started with the number one. So numbers didn’t get you too far when room hunting.
Fez and I had been to Mom and Auntie’s room the first day, when we checked in, and thought we were re-tracing our steps. But we were so lost! We found the room number right next to theirs, but not their room. We wandered back and forth, got lost ourselves, found our own room, and tried again. Try, try, try. Eventually we found it. It was quite close to our own room! Oh well.
We knocked on the door and Auntie opened it. Mom was sprawled out on the bed, looking dead with exhaustion. Apparently she was sick, repeatedly, in the middle of the night. Eventually she woke Auntie to open the medicine, because she’d been too weak to do it herself. But the last couple of hours she’d been doing better; at least she wasn’t stuck in the bathroom.
We stayed and chatted. I decided to use the bathroom, and a very curious room layout problem was pointed out. From the bed, you can see directly through the glass bathroom door into the glass bathroom shower. Weird. Fortunately, the toilet was off to the side and not visible from the bed!
We amused ourselves by taking photos of the shower from the bed, and watching a movie. Fez soon left to sit by the pool. Two minutes later, we heard a knock. “Can I use your bathroom?” we all laughed at Fez, who didn’t decide to do it before she left the room earlier.
But it was quite a process for her. The double bathroom doors were slightly too big, or stiff, or something, and wouldn’t completely shut from the inside. When I had used it, I just jammed them together the best I could, and left it alone. But not Fez. She stood there, trying to shut the door, for a full minute! Of course, we sat on the bed, laughing at her, and had complete visibility of her attempts due to the full-length glass doors. Eventually I took pity on her and slammed them shut from the bedroom side of the doors. Weird how they only would shut from one direction.
Eventually she emerged and headed back to the pool. She later said it was very pleasant and nice.
I stayed for another twenty minutes or so, and then left the pair of them to Mom’s miseries. I went back to the room (remarkably easier to find than their room) and finished our packing and that comment card.
Fez and I looked at our massive collection of bottled water, and started drinking rapidly, as we knew we’d have to dump them at the airport. When we were bursting full of water, we headed back down to check out.
We boarded our van, drove the short ride to the airport, and said goodbye to our Watcher and Driver. They were pretty nice guys, overall, and we gave them a good tip.
Along the drive I amused myself at a stop by watching a man futilely chase a dog that had stolen from him. I think the dog was playing with him- he kept slowing down to give the man a chance! The dog was so thin, and had droopy nipples- I wondered if it was a mother with babies. The man was in a faded red shirt, with an orange sack hastily thrown over his shoulder. He kept running with one arm outstretched, as if he could more easily grasp the dog that way. But soon the van began to move again, and I never figured out whether the man caught the dog or not.
A representative from the tour agency met us, and stayed with us through the hotel checkout and all the way to the airport. We all thought that was rather odd, especially since I’ve lived here for four months, but as he pointed out, often the tourists might not even speak English, so then it would be a complete disaster trying to check in for their flights. So he very unnecessarily got our boarding passes and showed us through the front door.
Indian airports are different from US airports in that only ticketed passengers can even be in the building. So our agency rep had to buy a guest pass to enter the building with us. It was 50 rupees, I think (about $1). So I don’t know how that really deters any bad guys, but maybe he has to provide his name, at least. Before he left, I passed off the very full comment sheet. He folded it up and put it in his shirt pocket. I had the sinking feeling it would never be read.
Now, I've already described one dilapidated airport (Chandigarh airport), but I think Jaipur's was even worse. It was just so old and dirty. It was small, and we went through the double doors, passed our checked bags off, and found security. All of that was done in a tiny space, maybe the size of my apartment building.
Now, I've already described one dilapidated airport (Chandigarh airport), but I think Jaipur's was even worse. It was just so old and dirty. It was small, and we went through the double doors, passed our checked bags off, and found security. All of that was done in a tiny space, maybe the size of my apartment building.
The bathroom was the first place, as Sister pointed out, that actually required that wad of toilet paper we’d been keeping in our purses. My sister tipped the inside employees. I sure didn’t. No toilet paper, not even the nasty disintegrating napkins that are sometimes passed off as toilet paper. Why should we tip if they didn’t provide us with anything?
We wandered to the empty security line. Our flight was allowed to go through (only certain flights can go through security at any given time in India), and we amused ourselves at the description written on the wall, “Ladies Frisking Booth”. LOL, could you imagine calling the security check a frisking in the US? We did our best to keep a straight face while being frisked, as we shall call it, before meeting in the small terminal. By small, I mean it was about the size of two Chicago apartments, full of very widely spaced chairs. We sat by a window (Mom basically collapsed into her seat, poor girl), and waited.
The terminal was even more boring than the Kalamazoo airport. Yes, it had a duty free shop, full of chocolate and alcohol, but the guy inside told us you couldn’t buy the alcohol for a domestic flight. I can’t even believe there are international flights from such a tiny airport, but who knows. I bought some chocolate, at least, to pass around.
Oddly, there was booze and chocolate, but the food vendor didn’t have bottled water! We sat, and waited. The one scrolling marquee was broken, stating, “Welcom and have a n”. There were no screens or boards announcing flights, and we sat, growing more and more impatient. There wasn’t even an old-school wooden or plastic board that you could change the flight numbers by hand. Nothing whatsoever to indicate what was happening at the gate. Soon the time for our flight passed, but, looking out the window, there were still exactly zero airplanes on the ground. It was really frustrating to be left in the dark. A simple announcement, telling us it would be 20 minutes vs. 20 hours would have been appreciated!
Being me, I used the time to eat chocolate, read, watch poor mom do her best not to collapse on the bench, and use the bathroom multiple times. Eventually I looked out the windows to the crowd gathering in the security line. They weren’t letting anyone else in the room- I guess because they didn’t want too many people in the waiting space at the gate. So at least we had seats, and weren’t stuck standing in an ever-increasing security line.
About the time our flight was supposed to land in Mumbai, the plane rolled up. We patiently waited for the deplaning, and when a crowd of people gathered at the door, presumably to board, we joined them.
One thing I’ve noticed about India is that it is a very fun place to visit. I love seeing the Taj Mahal, staying in nice hotels with a good bottled water supply and pools, seeing the forts, eating the foods, and the tour guides are generally polite. But the logistics of living here, and traveling here, are a pain.
On a scale of politeness in crowds, 1 being India, and 10 being Japan, America must fit somewhere around a 7. We keep dropping in number. I think we used to be really polite when I was a kid…. And that spread of politeness between nations shows up best in lines. I keep hearing that the Japanese fled the tsunami in nice, orderly lines. Even the cars still took the time to stop and obey the streetlights. In India, there is a stampede killing hundreds every year, it seems. And again, America is probably somewhere in the middle. We act polite, but once you annoy us, the act drops and we fight back. And we stampede, too, just for Tickle Me Elmo on Black Friday, rather than for religious gatherings gone bad.
So there we were, the polite Americans, standing in the line to go through the gate and board the plane. An Indian man, maybe in his 20s or 30s, pushes up against me and tried to cut in line. I did my best to ignore him and maintain my place. But he continued to do it! We jostled near the gate, and finally, I very firmly stepped directly in front of him, and Auntie stepped to my side, to keep him behind two people rather than one. We succeeded, and handed our tickets to the agent first.
Before leaving, I turned back to look at him. The agent was talking, in a not-so-nice voice, to the man. He wasn’t even on our flight! He wouldn’t get out of line, and it took a big voice to get him to back off. He backed off about four steps. Urgh. Imagine how much better the world would be if we didn’t have people like him. Sorry, just my general dislikes of living in India always come to a head in the airport. Just once I’d like a flight where I didn’t have to fight to maintain my proper position in line.
We boarded our flight to finally head home. The flight itself was okay- it was the government run airline, which means the food wasn’t as good, and they didn’t give us the nice yummy juice box that you get on the other Indian airlines. But it was soon over and it was time to do battle with the Indian public again.
As I have mentioned in way too many angry flight-related blogs in the past, it seems to be a trend for Indians to jump up and push their way to the front of the plane as soon as we are allowed out of our seats, rather than politely waiting for row one, then row two, etc, to get up and leave.
People started rushing past me, and, in a stroke of brilliance or idiocy (your pick), I heard our tour guide’s words, “you can’t change people, only yourselves.” So, I figured, why get angry with these people when I can’t change them? They’ll all rush. But I can change myself. I can fight back. With that, I threw my large backpack in the aisle, blocking all the people who were trying to charge past. I then very, very slowly took my time in waiting to stand until they were actually letting us off the plane. I then picked up my backpack from the floor and made sure every single person in every single row before me got to get off of the plane before I did. I bet everyone behind me hated it, but I felt empowered to fight against their annoying pushiness. Thanks, tour guide!
We hadn’t landed at the gate, so we walked to board the bus that would drop us at baggage claim. Again, people from behind me tried to push me away from the door. Again, I just swung my backpack hard, planted my feet, and pushed my way back. I guess I’m just turning into a pushy Indian. But I like being mean back! I really, in general, am not a mean person, I swear! Indian airports just bring out the worst in me.
My sister, for the first time in the history of our lives, had to use the restroom and not me. I need to document that, because no one who has ever traveled with us would believe it otherwise. So we rushed as fast as we could to the restrooms (there are only a couple of stalls) and then went to grab our bags.
My driver met us, but counting him, there were seven people we had to cram in to the car. At 4:30 am it was okay trying to fit that many people for a 20-minute ride to the airport, but at 4:00 pm in traffic it was a bad idea. Sister and FBIL decided to take an auto-rickshaw with me, as they hadn’t been in one yet.
My driver specifically told me to make sure I found one that would use the meter, rather than a fixed rate. It was hot. I walked along, arguing with one driver then the next. In India, the drivers can just refuse to take you somewhere, and tell you a big fat lie of a fixed rate. It is weird. But it is India, so I’m used to it now. I found one that would take us home, and asked, “meter”. He nodded yes, and we crammed inside. Three is a tight squeeze. I insisted on sitting in the middle so they could look out the sides. Once we were crammed in, he said, “no meter, 250”. (250 rupees is about $5) I started arguing, but it was hot, and so we just went. He made up a bunch of lies, about how if I wanted to use the meter I’d have to go inside and fill out paperwork, etc, and pay an extra fee of 50 rupees. I knew they were falsehoods, and I figured that if he wants to cheat me, I couldn’t change him. But I could cheat him back. Cheered at the thought, we started out.
Now, Mom, Auntie, and Fez seemed to really enjoy their rides in the rickshaws. But they got to have short (maybe 10 minute) rides through relatively slower and thinner traffic in my suburb. It was also shaded, so between the breeze from going fast and the shade, they are pleasant drives. But on the highway, in stop and go traffic, the black roof of the auto is awfully hot. On the highway, in a tiny auto, darting between big vehicles is a lot scarier. And, in stopped traffic, breathing the diesel fumes from the trucks is very unpleasant.
We drove along, them gasping appropriately for hairpin turns directly in front of vehicles ten times the size of ours, but soon came to a low, short tunnel. We looked at the stopped traffic. Apparently, in the other direction of travel, a truck was stuck inside the tunnel, and traffic was backed up in both directions due to it. We were directly inside the tunnel (it is more like being under a bridge, the tunnel isn’t too long) when traffic stopped. It was awful. It was so hot, and we thought we’d pass out from the fumes.
After five or ten minutes, we cleared the tunnel, at least, though traffic was still backed up. The novelty of the auto was dead for Sister and FBIL. The driver, despite telling me he knew where my neighborhood was, started making wrong turns, so I directed him home. The ride was long, and I’d been planning to only give him 100, but I wasn’t sure how long we’d been sitting in the car, so when we got out I handed him 200 instead. We started fighting, he told me I was cheating him, I told him he cheated and lied to me first. Actually, he really did, because he agreed to the meter before I got in the auto. Some of the building employees came out, heard our story, and agreed with me. Fuming, he drove off. Right then, my car pulled up with the rest of our party.
Very happily we headed up the elevator to drop off our suitcases. We’d originally planned to learn how to play cricket, but, for some reason, travelling just wears people out. We could walk for days in the hot heat, but the airplane really did us in.
When we’d rested a bit, and enthusiastically greeted my husband, we wandered to my very favorite grocery store. I love this store. Every time I go there, they surprise me by having random items that the fancy expat-friendly stores doesn’t even have. I also now know all of the employees, by their faces, at least, so it is a friendly place to go. It is my own little Cheers, minus the booze and baseball talk.
Auntie, who works in a cereal factory, found a box of cereal made in Michigan!! That was fun, so we took a picture of it. I showed them around the store, smiled apologetically to the employees for their behavior (you don’t really pick stuff up in India- you tell them what you want and they get it for you) and then we picked up a couple bottles of wine/beer before walking back home to relax for the evening.
Beds were scarce, so poor Sister and FBIL got a thin mattress on the floor; Fez continued on the couch. But it was our last night together, so we all enjoyed the evening.
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