Taxi Math

I'm not good at math. In fact, it gives me the sweats. One place that I don't like to do math is in a taxi cab. I like to look at the meter, pay the fare and give the driver a couple bucks tip. In Kolkata though, you need to do some math to figure out the correct cost of your far. There's two types of math problems:

TAXI MATH PROBLEM #1: To get the correct cost of your taxi, you need to DOUBLE the fare on the meter and then add two rubies. Yes, whatever the meter says you should then double it. For example, if you ride to the Memorial Monument and it says 23 Rubies, the correct cost is 46 Rubies plus 2 Rubies extra. I know this sounds like a scam (DRIVER: "Yeah, so, uh, you actually need to pay double what the meter says) but it's truly how it works. My Lonely Planet warned me about this and so did the concierge guy at our hotel.

TAXI MATH PROBLEM #2: This is the math that really pisses me off. Here's the problem: If you take a taxi from A to B and it costs 70 Rubies, then how much should a taxi from B to A cost? If you're like me, you're thinking 70 Rubies, duh! Well, not so much in a country where everyone is trying to rip you off. Huyen and I took a taxi to a part of town where there was no subway (we took the subway everywhere else which was actually pretty great, albeit crowded). The fare there cost 70 Rubies. After dinner, we approached a cab and asked him to take us back to our hotel. The cab driver wanted 300 Rubies. In fact, every driver we asked wanted something ludicrous and refused to turn on the meter. Finally, we found a guy who would drive us for 100 Rubies. We found him about 1/4 of the way back to our hotel since we had started to walk. In my math world it should have cost us ____ (whatever 1/4 of 70 is).

Besides math problems, there's also sometimes geography problems. Luckily, I was always good at geography...although that doesn't apply in India I guess.

Here's the geography problem: we had to take another taxi one afternoon and the driver dropped us off at the WRONG part of town. We knew it was the wrong part of town but the guy wouldn't stop arguing with us that it was exactly where our hotel's business card said it was. He kept pointing at the card and then pointing to where we were. Well, the guy was clearly illiterate (an English problem) because he had dropped us as some point in town FURTHER away from where we had started. In his defense, both parts of town started with the letter "R". Luckily there was a subway nearby so we jumped on it and got back to our place thirty minutes later.

Oh, India.

Beggars

(PICTURE: A pretty common scene in India.)

I hope I don't come off as completely insensitive and as a total a-hole by writing this blog because well, that's how I feel a lot out here. As most people know, poverty is a huge issue in India. Like in most Indian movies you've seen, there are street beggars everywhere. It seems that you can't go more than ten feet on a sidewalk without someone asking you for money or rattling their can at you.

My heart goes out for the kids who are on the street because god knows how the hell they ended up in their situation. The thing is, there's millions of kids begging in this country and after a while you start to almost become desensitized to them -- and well, that's terrible and makes you feel rotten.

More than a few times, I've had kids and other beggars latch onto my arm. Coming from the states (or I would think almost any developed country), having homeless people grab you is something that is way beyond our code or acceptable conduct. Frankly, you feel violated. But worse than that is when you end up feeling like the bad guy because you have to yell at a homeless ten year old to get off your arm.

But then, the cynic is me starts to think: Are these kids trying to scam me like half the people in the country (another blog coming up)? For example, the other day Huyen and I were walking down the street and some kid (probably around ten) starts asking us for money. The kid was filthy, very skinny and walking with a limp. After I told him no about six times, he grabbed me by the bicep and basically had me drag him along with me for ten feet. I finally stopped, gave him an evil look and said, "No!". I clearly scared the kid and he let go. I then watched him walk away WITH NO LIMP.

The point is, the begging here is a double whammy. First you feel horrible that so many people have to beg. Second you feel like a jerk for getting mad at people for the way they beg.

Oh, and then there are stories like this (where I got the picture from)...

First Impressions

(PICTURE: At night, men just gather on the street and play chess.)

Crazy. That's the world I would use to describe my first impressions of Kolkata. I would say "overwhelmed" but really I found myself laughing and staring in the relative safety of our Ambassador taxi. Huyen and I kept on pointing at things and saying, "Whoah, did you see that?" or simply, "Oh my god."

There doesn't seem to be an inch of space wasted in Kolkata. There's something going on seemingly everywhere. There were tons of people standing/squatting/sitting on the sides of roads or hanging out of cars/rickshaws/bicycles/buses. There were animals which seemed to be out on joy walks, enjoying the garbage buffet that lined the streets. There were posters and advertisements that covered every wall from the airport to our hotel.

There was the nonsensical. Coming from Hanoi, I thought driving couldn't be worse. I was wrong. Nearly dead wrong. We'll get into this in a later blog but people had barely any grasp/care for safe driving. Either that, or as I suspect, people just can't afford new brakes.

And then there was the poverty. As we drove in, you could see the squalor everywhere. There were cardboard and scarp metal homes anywhere there wasn't a concrete and brick one. On the streets, there were people begging on nearly every corner. At one point, we stopped at a red light (yes, we actually stopped) and a kid (probably 8) came up to my window holding his sibling (probably two) begging for money. The kid reached in and grabbed my arm. This would be the first of many times this would happen.

At the end of our one and a half hour trip to our hotel (which if the roads were empty would probably have taken fifteen minutes max) our taxi pulled up to a street which was totally under construction. The driver signaled that he couldn't go down the street and told us to walk. Frankly, we had no clue if this was where our hotel was (it turned out to be about a five minute walk down the alley) or if he was just tired of driving us. After grabbing our bags we gave him a little tip. He then started to complain that we should give him a lot more. Really? A lot more of a tip for you not dropping us off not at our hotel (he clearly could have gone one block up and circled around to our hotel)?

In the end, we got to our hotel which was a sanctuary of peacefulness compared to the rest of the city. These first impressions though would last and only become cemented over the coming weeks. We'll delve into lots of these things in upcoming blogs.

Kolkata: Airport Pick-Up

(PICTURE: An Ambassador cab.)

My friend Kevin scared the crap out of me when I told him that I was going to Kolkata. You see, he and his wife Beth went to India for their honeymoon and spent their first couple of days in Kolkata. When I asked Kevin for some advice, he told me to fly in and get the heck out. This scared me because I consider Kevin to be one of the best travelers I know. If this warning wasn't enough, he and Beth insisted that we allow them to treat us to a night at a 5 star hotel when we arrived. It took a lot of arguing but finally I convinced Kevin that it wasn't necessary. Kevin relented and said that he at least wanted to get us a driver to pick us up at the airport because we shouldn't be winging it when we first arrive since he was sure Kolkata would be unlike anything we'd ever experienced. I agreed and Kevin attempted to arrange a driver. After a few days, Kevin told me that he was having trouble getting us a ride because "things are never easy in India." Wiser words were never spoken.

I told Kevin not to worry and arrainged a pick-up with the hotel I booked (for the record, we stayed at a really awesome boutique hotel/art gallery). The hotel sent me a confirmation email and told me that a driver would be waiting at the exit gate with a placard. Naturally, nobody was there when we came. Huyen and I waited for about twenty minutes before we decided to give up on the pick-up. The problem was though that we didn't have a phone to call the hotel and the pre-paid taxi booth was inside the airport. This was a problem because we were now outside the airport and you needed a ticket to get back in. Luckily, the pretty-face-rule works in India too and Huyen sweet talked an army guy with a machine gun to let her into the airport. Huyen paid for a taxi and came back outside.

We took our prepaid taxi receipt to the taxi line and told a circle of drivers where we wanted to go. Not one driver actually knew the spot and they debated on it for about 10 minutes. Finally one guy said to follow him and led us to his taxi which was not in the taxi line. Two other guys grabbed our bags and escorted us to the taxi. The two other guys apparently were homeless men who took our bags to get a tip. Heck, I respect that since they're not just sitting on the street begging for money (I don't mean to sound heartless but when you can't go twenty feet without someone asking for money you don't mind giving something to someone whose going that extra mile) . The problem is we didn't have any small denominations so we ended up giving them our leftover Thai Baht...which they seemed happy to get. Our taxi driver got into the car and shewd off the beggars. He then turned on the Ambassador cab, which rattled to life, rolled down the windows and we sped off into Kolkata...

Flight to Kolkata

Our first real taste of India came on the flight to Kolkata. The plane was filled with probably 95% Indians which made for an interesting couple of hours. One of the things I had heard about Indian culture is that personal space isn't something they're really into. This became quickly apparent as the lady next to Huyen more or less cuddle up next to her and went to sleep. No kidding, she ended up taking up about 25% of Huyen's chair. Behind us, about four Indian guys crammed into the three seats once the plane took off (although I don't think before the unfasten seat belt sign went off). The guys played cards behind us and weren't exactly not kicking my chair every thirty seconds.

However, the most telling example of how Indians aren't into following rules (blogs on littering, driving, etc. coming soon) came when the plane landed. Seemingly as soon as the plane touched down, nearly every Indian person jumped to their feet and began grabbing their bags from the overhead compartments. The Air Asia flight attendants got on the loud speakers and told everyone to sit down until we got to the gate. However, nobody listened. The flight attendants than basically went through the aisle and pushed people back into their seats. I really felt for this one flight attendant who looked completely dumbfounded and frustrated as she tried to get people to sit down; clearly this was a daily experience for her.

And with that, we begin the blogs on India...

Airport Scare

(PICTURE: Imagine me sprinting down those moving escalators.)

After checking in at the airport, we had about an hour and a half to kill...which left me just enough time to drop a Phuket curry off in the Bangkok airport bathroom. While I went to use the facilities, Huyen went to spend our remaining Thai Baht on some snacks for the airplane. We made a plan to meet at a very recognizable point in ten minutes. Well, after ten minutes I came back and Huyen wasn't there yet. I figured maybe she was in the bathroom or was really trying to stretch our remaining Thai money so I took a seat, opened my computer and watched a live stream of the Boston Bruins in the conference finals. After a couple of minutes of Huyen not showing up, I started to get nervous. However, the Bruins were on so my nerves were able to stay somewhat in check. After thirty minutes, I full started to panic.

If you've ever been to the Bangkok Airport, it's quite a gigantic place. I figured the worst thing I could do was to run around looking for Huyen considering there's probably 10,000 people in the International terminal at any one time. I decided the smartest thing to do was to go to our gate, thinking perhaps Huyen had gone there. Our gate though was the farthest one in the international terminal. I'd say it was a solid half mile from where we were supposed to meet. I got there pretty fast though since there were moving sidewalks all the way to the gate. However, of course Huyen wasn't there. I took a deep breath, maintained my composure and started jogging back to the point we said we would meet. Going back was harder since none of the moving sidewalks went in that direction. Just when I had gotten almost back to our meeting point, I saw Huyen. Initially I had been angry at her for not meeting where we said we would but that immediately went away when I saw how scared she was. It turns out, she went the wrong way in the airport and was waiting in section F, not section E. Huyen, who has never had the best sense of direction, got turned around when purchasing our snacks. Lets just say it was quite scary for both of us!

While waiting for Huyen/watching the Boston Bruins, I had checked my email. My friend Alex had emailed me a couple of times asking for help with our friend Brett's wedding speech. I told him that I didn't have time at the moment because I lost Huyen at the airport and our flight was leaving pretty soon. He wrote back, "Is this how the screenplay ends?" I thought that was pretty hilarious as it did feel like a very cinematic moment. Luckily, it had a happy ending as we found each other and got on our plane in time.

Check In Weirdo

(PICTURE: Air Asia flight attendants.)

If you've flown Air Asia before, you know that they are famous for having very beautiful flight attendants. In fact, I'm pretty sure they hire girls from modeling agencies to just walk around the Bangkok airport in Air Asia uniforms. I kid you not, there were a dozen Air Asia girls walking around the check-in area like runway models. Anyway, the girl who checked us in for our India flight was not one of those girls. She could have been very attractive but she was wearing a clown-level amount of make-up (I guess it is easy to get a complex when all your coworkers are hot). For me, paint-level amounts of make-up is an immediate sign that someone has some issues, probably not so hidden. This was confirmed when Huyen and I checked in. The girl took our passports and examined them for like five minutes. She did this in not so much a this-is-my-job way but rather a I'm-stoned-out-of-my-mind way. With bug eyes she looked over each page and after a couple of minutes said, "Your name should be Benjamin April because you're born in April." I smiled at her and I think said, "Well my father is born in August." Then she began to stare at our passports again and said, "You're going to India?". We nodded. She then looked completely perplexed, as if contemplating the creation of the universe, and added, "What's there to see in India?" I thought about handing her my guide book or a copy of Slumdog Millionaire (which I still think is over rated) but instead said, "I'll tell you next time I see you." To this she added a, "Yeahhhhhhhhhh."

After another couple of minutes she handed us our boarding passes and we backed away from the counter. Huyen and I both immediately turned to each other and started to giggle and slightly mock the girl. Well, perhaps we shouldn't have mocked her because for the first two weeks or so of our trip we basically hated India. Sure we had fun because we're together but both of us keep thinking that maybe we should have taken the clownish Air Asia girl more seriously.

I'm writing this post at the halfway point of our trip and my fingers are crossed that things will get better. For now though, bare with me on some slightly negative (and hopefully funny) posts.