India- Days 1 and 2

Disclaimer: This is very long and detailed, and mostly for journaling purposes! My mom said she'd like detailed updates, and I thought Matt's parents might also. Anybody is free to read, but feel free to skip also!

INDIA

Days 1-2

Our trip here was fairly uneventful. Of course  on the flight from DC to Frankfurt we had the classic baby crying for 2 hours, and the large man sitting next to me who took up all of his space and about half of mine. By the time we got to Frankfurt our sense of time was already pretty turned around. When we asked an employee what time it was, she said "7 o clock" and we were so confused that we had to ask "morning or night?" The flight to India went by a lot faster, mostly because we slept the whole time. The airline we flew on, Lufthansa, was pretty nice. They gave us a lot of food, and drinks every hour or so. For dinner we had our first Indian food, which my stomach just wasn't quite ready for yet....

We got to Chennai around midnight, and made it through customs pretty easily, especially since we hadn't checked any baggage (that's right- we packed for 10 days in just two carry-ons and a purse and backpack!)

The hotel had confirmed that they would pick us up at the airport and would have a sign with my name on it. We saw a group of about 10-20 drivers holding signs inside, none of them were mine, so we went outside to try our luck. Oh boy. There was a huge aisle with at least 150-200 people surrounding, lots of them holding signs with names, everyone telling us to get in a cab with them. When we tried explaining that we already had a car waiting, they would say "oh yeah, that's me!" But as soon as we would tell anybody our car was pre-paid they would say "oh bye bye!" We carefully looked at each and every sign- no luck. As we got to the end we started getting nervous, but nothing had my name on it. We walked back through 3 or 4 times and found nothing. Every driver holding a western sounding name would shove it in my face and say "you jane? come with me let's go!" and try to grab our bags. We tried telling the guy who looked like he was in charge of the transportation that we were going to benzz park. His response "benzz park? i know where that is you're supposed to come here with me." Hm probably not... We went and asked a security person where to find a phone (even though we didn't have the number of our hotel on us... oops). He pointed us in the right direction, and when we got there, a man said "oh yeah this is where the phones used to be. not anymore" ahh. He was kind enough to let us borrow his cell phone, he even called for us, got the number for our hotel, then called the hotel and told them they forgot to pick us up. He said he would have a driver for us in 20 minutes. He seemed nice enough, so we trusted he wasn't part of a crime ring.  Nothing like waiting in the middle of the night outside an airport! The mosquitos were in full force, so by morning Matt questioned whether we had already contracted malaria :) The driver did come and safely deliver us to the hotel. First thing we learned: rules of Indian driving. They are:

Get in car. Honk horn twice (just to make sure it's working). Start car. Honk when you see another car, honk to get around cars, honk if you turn a corner, and most importantly, if there's a red light, then lay on the horn and blow right through it. And, when it's night, double the amount of honking. It's really loud outside!

 We got checked in and to our room, the people at the hotel have been very friendly so far. We finally got to sleep around 2:30 am...then woke up 10 hours later to the phone ringing. It was Dinesh (My boss's business partner here in India, who has coordinated my stay here). He had called to make sure everything was ok so far, and he gave me his cell phone number to call in case I needed anything today. Matt said he was feeling alert and awake, but I still felt like the walking dead. We went down to the hotel restaurant for lunch, and they were doing a buffet. I was already suffering from indigestion, so I was struggling with what I should eat. It took us about 1 minute to realize we were the only white people in the hotel...everyone at the restaurant seemed very interested in us. I was having a hard time not staring myself, because the women here dress so beautifully. The sarees are so ornate, and the nose rings and jewelry...everything is just beautiful. There was an engagement party going on in the restaurant which was neat to see. Everybody else was mostly eating with their hands, but we stuck with the utensils since they had them on the table. I already forgot the names of most of the food we ate... a few different kinds of rice with vegetables, some spicy chicken curry dishes (actually everything is spicy) and some "hong kong chicken". The naan here is delicious. For dessert we had mango sorbet and some asian tasting cakes (Stephanie you know- the sugarless chinese variety...)

After lunch we walked down the street to find an atm. We had brought traveler's checks with us, but the hotel said they couldn't cash them until Monday. The bank looked closed but when somebody nearby saw that we wanted to go in, he ran over and opened the door to let us in. 

In general, we are having a really hard time communicating with people! Mostly everybody at the hotel speaks english, but we still can't understand much. Their body language is so different, and they all do the classic Indian bobbing head...we never know when they are asking a question or not... so Matt and I usually just look at each other and then try to piece together whatever parts each of us understood. We took a little rikshaw taxi to T. Nagar, the big shopping market, and walked around for a few hours. Everything is pretty cheap, so shopping is great! I am so amazed at all the women's clothing. I had heard the big Indian cities are pretty westernized, so I didn't know what to expect. Most of the men wear pants and a dress shirt (some in man skirts), but pretty much all the women are in colorful elaborate sarees. I am sure we stuck out like sore thumbs, lots of people were staring at us :) We went into one of the bigger multi-level stores and looked at some saree fabric, the girls working there were so sweet. After giggling and pointing for a bit, a group of them came over to us and asked us in english where we were from, and what are names were. One of them said, "you two- very handsome!" When they would talk to Matt, they would then look at each other and giggle and blush. The streets are SO CROWDED!  It is both exhilarating and overwhelming to be pushed along through streets flooded with trash in a sea of people. So many smells and colors. We saw two other white people while we were out- 2 college aged backpackers who spotted us and yelled "hey! white people!" hahaha.

After shopping, we found a park (which would have been quiet except for the music being blasted from the center and surrounding honking from the streets) and sat and talked for awhile. We caught a taxi back to our hotel and took turns in the big massage chair in our room! We are still recovering from the jet lag so we are trying to get to bed really early. Matt has been discovering which televised sports he can get into here...so far: cricket and field hockey. The TV in our room mostly shows Bollywood style music videos. It looks like the only American shows that made it here are "Wipeout" and "The X Factor"- good to see the best of America represented! We just ordered up room service for dinner (gotta take advantage of the room service for 2 people for about 10 bucks!). Since neither of our stomachs are doing too well, we thought we might tolerate something not spicy better, so we opted for American food. Yeah I am feeling like a lightweight but my digestion is struggling! interesting choice on the food. the french fries were actually pretty good, but the hamburger and sandwich were...questionable. It feels like so much has already happened, it's just so hard to soak everything in! Tomorrow I'll start some training at SIP Academy headquarters- hopefully it goes well!