First Impressions

So I've finally made it to India in one piece and it's going well.  I think I would have been blown away had I not lived in Asia for the past 4 years.  Less surprises me today than it did when I first stepped out of the Bangkok airport all that time ago, but our first few days haven't been without a few little shockers.

To begin with, I can now honestly say I know why India has the highest motor vehicle accident rate in the world.  The driving here is absolutely insane.  For one the two lane roads become 3 or 4 lanes when scooters, guys pushing a cart or the people constantly passing everyone else are factored in.  Now my general impression of India is that things go at a reasonably slow pace, you'll probably wait 10 minutes just for a waiter to come take your order.  But when driving is concerned it seemed like everyone but bus drivers and our lone taxi driver were willing to endanger their lives rushing into incoming traffic just to shave a few minutes off of their drive.  That said, our taxi driver was nice and I got a chance to ride in that famous Indian car that I've heard mentioned so many times: the Ambassador.

Arriving in Varkala we got to hike around in our backpacks looking for a place to stay.  I knew I wanted to be up on the cliff where a lot of restaurants were but that meant passing dozens of small shops and guesthouses and having the same conversation at least ten times in 15 minutes.  Trudging slowly with big backpacks on we made easy targets.

Them:  "You want room/t-shirt/breakfast?  You come, take a look."

Me:  "No, thank you." (attempt to smile after only getting 3 hours of sleep)

Them:  "Take a look.  Good price.  You come inside my hotel/shop/restaurant."

Me:  "Not now, thanks."

Them:  "Okay, you come back tomorrow.  You promise okay, you promise me."

Varkala is a nice beachtown with a lot of restaurants and the like crowded onto a cliff overlooking the sea.  The place has a definite backpacker feel which I like but it strikes me as little different than other beach destinations on the Banana Pancake Trail in Southeast Asia.  The first day was cloudy but after we got ourselves settled in a hotel we headed out for our lunch.  The seating overlooked the ocean and I had my first meal: Paneer Butter Masala and a Chai Latte.

So all of that was a pretty normal beachtown experience in Asia.  As noted above I've found customer service moves slowly, the sales pitch is pretty direct when walking around and sometimes you have to be firm.  When I discovered our room had no hot water I went in search of the clerk and brought him back with another guy to take a look.  Five minutes later they were able to produce a slow dribble of hot water out of the showerhead.  I started speaking to Jess in Chinese (woohoo, I have a secret language) and then asked them to change the room.  Promptly the clerk's friend tried to convince me our room did in fact have hot water, couldn't I see that the dribbling showerhead was in perfect working order?  I stood my ground, politely insisting they change the room.  Since we'd only paid for one night we had some leverage and got a nicer room.

Our one fun adventure was when Jess found my plug adapter didn't convert voltage so her hair dryer was useless.  This is apparently a necessity which inspired us to head off in search of either a hair dryer or a voltage converter.  After walking the length of Varkala Beach and into the laidback villages, all while trying to explain in simple English and funny hand gestures what we were trying to buy, we finally broke down and hailed a rickshaw to take us into Varkala town itself.

We then spent some time asking at a few electronics shops where we might be able to purchase "an electric machine that you use to dry your hair...vrrrrrmm" and finally got pointed to the Titanic, the most eclectic shop I've ever seen.  I took one look and almost turned around, there was no way this place had a hairdryer.  The left side of the entryway was all medicines and shampoos, the right side a bundle of various toys.  Near the counter there were tons of knickknacks, including a few crucifixes complete with dead Jesuses that hung off of chains containing Chinese lucky money coins (I have no clue who thought to put those two together).  In the back were a few women chatting over jewelry displays.  But enter we did and after passing the busy clerk at the counter we headed back towards the women.  They didn't seem to speak English so we waited while another shop clerk helped a European couple find some board game (board games were located on the top shelf, above the bath accessoraries).  When asked for a hair dryer he looked puzzled for a moment until rushing towards the front and looking under, over, behind and between other boxes and random products.  Finally, behind the opened front door and under a few other boxes, he pulls out a box that was lying on the floor where no customer could possibly see it.  Mission accomplished!

We returned to the beach triumphant and in a good mood after the successful mission.  Jess took her hot water shower that we fought so hard for and was in good spirits.  And just as she's about to plug in the blow dryer there's a two hour long power outage.  Needless to say I had an unhappy girlfriend and we changed hotels to one with a generator the next morning.  So there's my first couple of days in India, a few hassles but just enough interesting experiences for me to want to sink my teeth in deeper.  Tomorrow we're off to Alleppey where we can take the houseboats Kerala is so famous for.