The New World

Namaste everyone. Liza and I have arrived safely in India. We spent a week in Chiang Mai and a couple of days in Bangkok.

Our 12 hour bus ride to Chiang Mai was relatively uneventful. I felt sick a lot of it and had to sleep for a couple of hours. Someone threw up all over the aisle about eight rows back, which of course made it worse. Got to our guest house in Chiang Mai, where Liza went to bed. I went downstairs for a beer to salute St. Patrick in the beautiful court yard. Two days later we moved to the guest house across the way. It was the same price but with a TV.

I went for a walk on one day and saw four of the 300 temples. Even I am starting to get tired of temple pictures. The highlight was a Monk in a glass box meditating. I could not believe my eyes. This man was in a full trance inside a glass box. My shutter finger was getting very itchy but I could not bring myself to take a picture of this. It took a lot to just get up close for a close up, which is when I realized he was made of wax. I still couldn't take a picture, it was very powerful. This was to honour a monk who has since passed away, but there were photographs of him giving his own wax statue a blessing.

The next day we did yet another cooking course. This one (Baan Thai) was the best one yet. They gave us fruit plates so we could taste some of the fruits we hadn't been brave enough to try yet, and a recipe book. A real recipe book, not a photocopy of Internet printouts. It was a full day and we took breaks between meals. Still at the end we could not finish our dishes, and ended up having to waddle our bloated selves to our taxi. The food was delicious (although mostly deep fried), and we met a few really nice people in the class.

Walking down the street one day we came upon a dental shop that offered laser tooth whitening. I was only 9000 Baht, which is about 300 dollars. A good deal... very good deal. We were informed that we might have sensitive teeth for the next day. That didn't sound too bad so we gave it a try. The whitening included a cleaning and a foot massage. After about 4 passes (15 minutes) it started to feel like someone was hooking live wires to my teeth. They had to stop and made a mold of my teeth so I could do the milder home version. For the next 5 hours I kept getting these zings of pain through my teeth. Liza made it through ten passes. Our teeth do appear a lot whiter now, though I don't think I'm going to be doing tooth paste commercials any time soon.

The other thing we did was go to the hospital to get rabies vaccinations. Apparently rabies is epidemic in India, and they don't exactly have ideal medical facilities here. The rabies treatment is non existent. We were amazed to see how well the hospitals in Thailand operated. They were very top of the line. The service we got was also incredible, and included a checkup. We got our first shot but after finding out that there was no way to keep the subsequent two shots refrigerated we had to abandon the plan. New plan... Don't touch animals.

We took a train to Bangkok, and stayed there two days while waiting for our flight to India. Bangkok was alright. Khao san was not at all as crazy as I had anticipated. I think the only thing to say about Bangkok is it's very seedy.

Well here we are in Kolkota. We were prepared for the worst, and are at our most vigilant. We have been very pleasantly surprised. The people of India have been wonderful. When we got to the airport we had to hire a taxi through the prepaid booth. This is literally a hole in the wall just big enough to stick your hand through. Kinda like making a crack deal?

We arrived at our guest house, and while we were settling in to our room there was a knock on the door. The manager wanted me to come with him. I was concerned at first that he was upset that I gave him wrong passport numbers. He took me to a window and pointed to an elderly man that I had passed on the way into the hotel. He asked if it was this man that had taken me to the hotel. I said no, I already knew that I wanted to stay at his hotel before I even left Bangkok, and that this was were I had asked the taxi to take me. He yelled at the now three men now waiting at the entrance, and they looked up hurt. I asked the manager if he wanted a commission to which he replied yes. I rolled my eyes and shook my head, and started to return to the room. I then turned to the manager and explained that as I walked in the man outside had said Tourist Inn, to which I replied yes that's where I'm going. He just shook his head. At first I was a little nervous about three guys hanging outside the hotel that thought I owed them money and then something in me changed. I will not be intimidated into giving out my money to scammers. And as if to make I point I made a point of meeting eyes with the man on our way to dinner.

As we finished our dinner the power on the street went out. We headed back to our guest house and found the lights out there too. We were invited by a couple of the staff to sit and wait for the lights to return. They were upgrading the power on the street and they were expecting power within an hour and a half. The two gentlemen told us of all the good and bad things in India. They told us some of their life stories and were genuinely welcoming, and helpful. This was another one of those real experiences, we both craved, and has set the tone for India.... Hopefully. Kolkota is apparently the cheapest place, but also the worst place for scams and thefts, and so if we can handle this then we are in for a wonderful surprise.