Continued from here.

Thankfully, the prop-job got us to Chennai just fine.

We arrived Thursday late morning-ish and were immediately whisked away to yet ANOTHER vendor’s location. At this point, I was VERY stabby. People who wanted to talk to me didn’t know, but they were taking their lives in their hands

So, y’know when you’ve had just.about.enough. and yet you have to put on your big girl panties and smile and act nice and ladylike and you really just want to take the fifteenth free pen that you’ve received and find the nearest throat to stab it into? Yea. That was about 3 p.m.

Here’s one thing that I”ve never told y’all about me. (I know! I can’t believe it either.) When I’m sitting in a conference room chair (which, srsly. Way.too.fucking.often.) I have to have it raised to the highest height. I’m 5′9″ and if my thighs aren’t parallel to the floor – if my knees are above my ass, I mean – then I can’t pay attention to the meeting at all. And I’m paid fairly well to pay attention. So, yea, it kinda sucks.

The chairs in this conference room? Every time I leaned back – and I mean even a little – the chair I was sitting in lowered. After 15 minutes I was licking my patella. Not happy, was I. Hence, the stabbiness.

Of course, I couldn’t be completely bitchy – especially after the stupidity of the morning. Even before the propeller plane, I almost decapitated the fingers on my right hand and was just grateful that one of the vendor reps was willing to find me some antibiotic ointment and a bandage.

(Hint: Never, EVER, stick your hand into your makeup bag without checking to see if the plastic guard fell off your disposable razor. You will be in pain and possibly bleed profusely.)

Thankfully, these sheets did not get stained from the blood, people.

What else can I tell you about the first night in Chennai? Well. This happened. And I know this place. And this person. And I was with the guy who lives NEXT DOOR to this person. Weird. Really strange to be thousands of miles away and know exactly what is happening in your neighborhood to your friends at the exact same time it’s happening.

I can also tell you that the bar under these ribbons? Which was right under and outside my room’s window? Had a girl that sang REALLY bad ’80s love songs until after midnight. So, yea. Another thing that made me stabby.

And then there was the fact that we got there Thursday and my phone stopped working and the only way Mr. Hot and I could communicate was through G00gleTalk and I never heard his voice for 5 days. And THAT? Made me even more stabby.

—- But yet, I survived. Well, sort of. But that’s another story on another day. —-

Continued from here

Wednesday flew by. Well, as much as any day spent sitting in too-cold conference rooms, listening to people try to explain why you should select them for a partner, can fly. Maybe I just went comatose.

Also, try as I might, the only thing I can remember about dinner was that we had assigned seats – and guess who got to sit next to Douchenoodle #3? He wanted to give me Chicago real estate advice.

Okay. In all fairness, he is from Chicago, but really – picture George H.W. Bush’s smirk-y face spouting off about the pros and cons of ‘burbs versus city living (for 3 hours)while sitting in a hotel restaurant in India, in December, surrounded by Christmas lights, while it’s 85 degrees outside. Rather surreal (or maybe it was the different wine with each course of the 7-course meal) (I guess I do remember a little more about that dinner than I thought) (But only because I’ve been sitting here for 15 minutes staring at this paragraph and TRYING to remember) (Now my brain hurts).

Annyyyyywayyyyyyyy. I made my excuses for an early-ish night.

Thursday morning, we headed back to the Bangalore airport after I snapped some more photos on the hotel grounds. These are from the Leela Palace Kempinski.

Never have I seen so many different kinds of palm trees.

Of course, I thought to myself, “I’ll remember what the name of this is”. Ha! Anyone know? Anyone? Bueller?

The only elephants I saw during this trip.

I wondered why I kept hearing running water.

We left for the airport in our Mercedes sedans (We’d been carted around in Toyotas and buses up to that point…this vendor brought out the big guns to go along with the multi-course meal.) and once again, I handed over my suitcase to the mysterious woman behind the counter.

We made our way through security, grabbed coffee and something that was supposed to pass for a croissant and waited for our flight’s boarding call. The driver had warned us that “this is pretty foggy for Bangalore”, so we weren’t horribly surprised when we were delayed for 30 minutes. Heck, it gave us time to grab another cup of swill coffee.

When we did finally get out to the plane (we had to take a shuttle out to the furthest reaches of the tarmac) and into our seats, I snapped this photo so you all would know I was NOT traveling in the lap of luxury the entire time.

At least no one had to crank the propellers to get us started.

Breakfast on the plane? Corn and cheese sandwiches.

—- You think I’m kidding? Go look. Ours, however, weren’t toasted, dammit. —-

Continued from here.

I tried to sleep on the flight from Hyderabad to Bangalore. The plane was nice and big and there was no one in the middle seat. Marvin Gaye was whispering sweet nothings into my ear(bud)s.

I was bone tired, but the flight was only an hour long and the flight attendants were scurrying about serving dinner, even though it was well after 10 p.m, so Marvin and I gave up and watched an un-subtitled Indian sitcom. I think it was funny.

Once we got to the hotel, though, I was greeted with this –

- and as hard as the previous hotel’s bed had been, this was soft. Soft and crisp and clean and…

I laid down and didn’t move until the next morning. It was the first full night’s sleep I’d had in 4 days.

*****lalalalala*****

Our hosts for the day picked us up in a bus to take us to their site.

(Aside: When I texted Mr. Hot that we were in the bus, he immediately asked if it was a ‘bus-bus’ or a ‘coach-bus’. I think he was concerned that we were taking this ‘act like the locals’ a bit too far. I assured him that I had an actual seat and was not sharing it with chickens or goats.)

These are some of the sights from the 3 hours we spent on that bus that day. Please forgive the quality – the roads were none-too-smooth.

One of the signs on this building says, “Opening Shortly – Hotel Anugraha”.

I took this one because I liked the apartment in the top center. What a view, eh? Also shown – the popular 3-wheeled motorized rickshaw (it’s yellow and green) – we once counted 12 people in one.

A construction site – and wouldn’t OSHA just have a conniption? No hard hats. No orange tape or warning signs. Hell, no shoes! The arrow at the top is pointing to the roof of a temple – intricately carved and painted.

Yes, Virginia, there really are cows wandering the streets. Although Hyderabad had far less than Bangalore, Bangalore had nothing on Chennai.

During my 2004 trip to India, we spent a day in Bangalore. This scene did not exist. There were no high-rise apartment buildings. The influx of I.T. jobs and western money has completely changed the landscape in this city.

And yet, not all of the city is ready or able to grow. Muddy streets and outrageous traffic is normal.

*****lalalalala*****

At dinner that night, once again under the starrs, we sampled more local cuisine. Lizards scurried around on the patio; desserts and cigars were passed around. (Note: For the record, I abstained from the cigars.) We laughed and joked – these were “our kind of people” – laid back; not so worried about gaining our business that they forgot about showing us just who they were. And we liked who they were.

Just as we were getting ready to call it a night, one of the guys stopped us.

Wait! You have to try this traditional Indian delicacy. It’s a Areca nut wrapped in a Betel leaf. It’ll help your digestion after all of this food.

He handed out what looked like a greasy green leaf wrapped around something with a triangular shape.

We all took one – stuck them in our mouths – and proceeded to chew. And chew. And chew. And chew.

The more you chewed, the more it grew. The more it grew, the harder it was to chew.

Imagine – eight Americans – standing around after too much food and too much beer – trying to masticate these things into submission. Someone made a noise that sounded like, “HELP ME” and we all started choking with uncontrolled laughter.

Spewing green slimey saliva was probably not the most formal way to end an evening, but it ranks right up there with one of my favorite memories. Laughter followed us into the hotel as we said goodnight to our hosts.

—- Unfortunately, I was wearing a light blue sleeveless sweater when I slobbered all over my own chest. That stain will NEVER, EVER come out. —-

Continued from here

Clean clothing. What a freakin’ luxury.

Dinner that night was out on the patio surrounded by sweet-smelling tropical flowers – none of which would have been blooming on December 6th back home.

One of the highlights was meeting a woman – an American woman – who was living in India as an ex-pat with her husband and 10-month-old daughter. Finally! Someone who could relate to the hell I’d been through – she understood how disgustingly helpless I had felt without a wardrobe full of clothes clean pair of underwear.

And! She drank vodka, not Kingfisher. We ordered Cosmos and commiserated.

*****lalalalala*****

The next morning, we packed and checked out of the hotel. The plan for Monday was to sit through vendor presentations from nine to six, then head to the airport for a night flight from Hyderabad to Bangalore.

Considering the fact that I hadn’t UNpacked, it was no big deal. However, the thought of checking my luggage again? I wondered if I could convince one of the drivers to take me the 350 miles. Then I remembered how they drove.

Instead, I threw as many clothes into my carryon as possible.

*****lalalalala*****

Back at the Hyderabad airport, boarding passes in hand, we made our way to the lounge (did I mention that I never, EVER, want to drink a pint of Kingfisher again?) for a quick bite (french fries!) before heading to security.

I’d forgotten about security in Middle- and Far Eastern countries. Women go to a separate line and are wanded/frisked behind a curtain. I made my way to the SHORT line (Ha! Take that, you penis-bearing co-workers), stuck my laptop case and carry-on onto the conveyor belt and slipped behind curtain #2.

My bra and socks (WTF? they were just plain cotton socks) set off every alarm there was. Fortunately, the armed, uniformed (and very bored looking) (female) guard waved me through.

As I reached for my stuff coming through the x-ray machine, her male counterpart (lounging in one of those old metal patio chairs with frayed webbing) stuck his baton between my hand and my bag.

You have fuckers in there?

Well, that’s what I heard anyway.

Excuse me?

I leaned in further to see if it was just my perpetually stopped up ears or if he’d really asked me if I had packed a vibrator in my bag.

You have fuckers in there?

Leaning closer wasn’t helping.

I’m so sorry, I don’t understand what you’re asking me.

I tried, in my nicest, most non-threatening tone.

“Gawddammit”, I thought, “What now?” I had visions of being taken to a secret room and strip-searched or worse – never to be found again. Sweat started trickling down my back. What would Mr. Hot do without me? Would he mount a search like Liam Neeson in Taken?

I was mentally running through everything that could be considered a “fucker” in that bag.

My mascara was a little small to be mistaken for anything like that, wasn’t it?

Pluckers?!? Tweezers!?!

He gestured towards his own massive eyebrows.

Oh! Yes. Probably.

I smiled weakly, ready to hand over my favorite ‘pluckers’ just to get away from Major Manjeet. He laughed and told me, “Go ahead”

I grabbed and ran to where the guys were just exiting their own security lines and we made our way to the gate for the next leg of our adventure.

—- Did I mention that Kingfisher is not only the name of the national beer, but also the name of the airline we flew from city to city? —-

The phone rings once at 5:40 a.m. and then stops. I try to get back to sleep, discover it’s useless and watch Juno. The subtitling is hilarious. “Shit” is what comes out of their mouths (it’s televised in English, but also subtitled), but the words on the screen say “Crap”. Juno’s stepmom bitches at the ultrasound technician and “Dick” is what I hear, but “Aggressive” is what I read.

By the end, I’m crying. I don’t know if it’s because I’m so flippin’ tired or because I still don’t have my luggage, but decide I’d better wait until I calm down before I call Mr. Hot. It’s after 9 p.m. at home, and I know he’s watching college football and sitting in the blue recliner with the pets. I can’t wait any longer to hear his voice, so I pick up my phone. At $2.50/minute, it’s a quick conversation, but I feel better so I get up, shower, and try on the shirt I bought at the bazaar.

Here’s what I discovered: Indian women have no boobs.

If I wear this shirt in public and have to sneeze, everyone’s going to see a lot more of the Hotfessional than they bargained for. I put on my (thankfully dry, finally) underwear, my jeans (these fucking things are going to get burned once I have more clothes) and the t-shirt I wore on the plane. My socks still aren’t dry, so I rummage through my stuff for the other toiletry kit I snagged. The socks they pack in those things are good for one wearing and that’s it, so if my bag doesn’t arrive today, I’m going to have to go barefoot in my sneakers.

I walk down to the front desk and ask about my bag. The clerk tells me that they don’t know where my bag is, but she’ll check. I go get breakfast and then head BACK to the lobby to see what she’s found out.

The B.A. desk is closed until 2 a.m. ma’am, so our airport representative cannot get your bag, if it has arrived, until then. We see by your records that you’re checking out at 8 am, but we should have your bag here by 7 am tomorrow.

I swear, it’s all I can do to not break down sobbing (again). I head back to the restaurant to have another cup of coffee and try to figure out if it’s worth the possible shame of exposing everything if I take a deep breath. One of the guys from work is there, so I sit down with him. One of our hosts comes by and offers to take me shopping. A waiter comes up and hands me a phone,

It’s the front desk ma’am. They wish to speak with you.

Fearing the worst (my bags went back to Chicago?), I say hello.

Ma’am, we’ve just spoken with British Airways and they have your bag. It is being couriered here and will be here and we will deliver it to your room within the hour.

Thanking her profusely, I hang up the phone, finish my coffee and dream about the conflagration I’m going to build when I torch these Levis.

Three hours later, I’m sitting here, still wearing these gawddamned jeans and t-shirt. As they say in India, they are “in-time”, but not always “on-time”. I just hope “in-time” is before we check out tomorrow morning or I’m not leaving.

*****lalalalala*****

5:00 p.m.

Oh mah holy hell. I have clean clothes. I may survive this after all.

—- The Bucket List was even funnier in its subtitles. Entire sections of the dialogue were just…missing. —-