Jan 30 - First Day in the Office

I woke feeling relatively good at 7:30, showered (making sure not to get water in my mouth), brushed my teeth (bottled water), got dressed and went to breakfast. My car is scheduled to pick me up at 10 to take me to the office.

The grounds of the hotel are very pretty and tropical. There is a court yard with a huge tiki bar in the center (with moat no less) and a swimming pool. You pass through this court yard to get to the breakfast.

For breakfast I had an omelet to order with cheese and veggies. I figure since it is cooked, the veggies and cheese should be safe (I hope so). I also asked for a bottle of water (I had to pay 180 INR, about $3.50 so I will bring my own from now on). I also had Poori Bhajji, which is like fried bread with thick vegetable soup poured on it, and was very, very good.

The drive to the office is one I will never forget for a myriad of reasons. The traffic was horrendous. Gridlock is everywhere and motorcycles and pedestrians shoot through between cars. Cars come from all directions into the intersections at once, no one stopping. There are simply no rules of the road here except "Don't die, don't hit cows". Only when my hand was almost numb did I realize I had a death grip on the overhead handle. It literally took an effort to uncurl my fingers from it. The only thing that slows traffic are speed bumps. These are not like speed bumps in the US. Imagine a telephone pole partly buried in the road and you have a good idea of what these are like. I am told that most of these are home made by the people who live near by to keep traffic down and slow on the roads in their area. I can see that some look professional, and some look very home made, and all scrape the bottoms of the cars that go over them even at slow speeds.

The other part I will not forget was what I saw along the way - my first daylight view of India outside of the hotel. We have all seen the pictures of poverty on TV for missionaries soliciting money for Africa, etc. They are hard to look at and used to joke about Sally Strothers, at 350 lbs., talking about starving people and that she could feed a village with what she ate. There is nothing funny about poverty, period. I got to see it up close and personal and it's stunning. What we call poverty in the US is not even close to what they have here, by a long shot. I am not going to keep harping on this, but I would not be honest in this blog if I did not mention it here. I did not take pictures out of respect for the people - how crass would it be for a "rich" westerner tourist to take picture of these poor people that others might find "interesting". Enough - it's said, and it's burned in my memory, and I will not keep dwelling on it here.