First Impressions

I can't believe I am finally in India. It seems like it took a lot of work to get here. Honestly, I was dreading the trip a little b/c I have been doing so much traveling over the past two months and was ready to just spend a couple of nights in my own bed. In the past 3 weeks I have been in 3 countries, 5 different states, and 8 different cities so I am ready to stay put for a while.

The plane ride over was an interesting one. I arrived back in SA from DC at about 9pm on Jan 29 then I stayed up until 1am to pack and do laundry. It was really hard firguring out what to bring since everyone has told us most of our clothes would be inappropriate. The next morning I woke up at 7am to do some last minute packing and errands then I was off to the airport at 2pm with my travelling buddy Erica to catch our 4:20pm flight to India.

Our first stop was only an hour out in Houston. The stressful part was the flying from Houston to Dubai using Emirates, which was a 14 hour trip. I do not think the seats on Emirates were meant to accomadate anyone over 5 feet 4 inches. Anytime I moved I would hit my knees on the front chair. Then my back began to hurt and then my whole body. Also I have the smallest bladder in the world and I kept on having to tell the guy next to me to move so I could go to the bathroom. My flying buddy was excited about eating on the plane and kept on asking when we were going to get fed. I on the otherhand was not too exicted about any sort of airplane food. That kind of food always gives me gas and I was getting kind of worried since I forgot to bring tums. So I made the best of the situation and enjoyed the different movie options on my private TV screen. I first saw Gone Baby Gone with Casey Affleck, which sucked by the way. Then I started watching Ratatoue, which was such a better movie (Disney & Pixar easily excite me). I didn't finish my second movie though b/c I fell asleep, which were the worst hours of sleep I have ever had.

We finally arrived in Dubai and I kind of wish I had time to go outside of the airport since everyone has told me how beautiful it is in Dubai. From Dubai we catch a 3+ hour flight to Chennai. The plane that took us to Chennai wasn't as nice but was so much more spaceous. But the TV sucked and the volume kept on going out during the middle of the movies. We arrived in Chennai at 2am in the morning and were met with lots of stares as we exited the airport. We then hustled a $7 taxi ride to our hotel at the Comfort Inn. We got to the hotel safely and I was adament about spraying out room down with bug spray before we did anything else. Then I noticed how swollen my feet were. I think I had a good 1+ pitting edema all the way to my shins. I then took a shower and attempted to sleep. My roomie, Erica was knocked out but I just laid there staring at the celling for a couple of hours. I guess that's what happens when your body still thinks it is about 6pm in the evening. I woke Erica up at 7am and insisted that we be first in line for our complimentary breakfast. Breakfast was far from complimentary, it was more like a feast. I pretty much put everything I saw on my plate. It was kind of weird munching on stuff that I wasn't sure what it was, the oatmeal was a bit watery but everything else tasted ok.

We then attempted to go back to bed and watched some Indian TV for a while. We found a couple of English speaking channels. Our plan was to wake up at 10am and go shopping for clothes, but we didn't wake up until 3pm. Then we ventured out into the city on an autorickasaw (I think that is how you spell it). They are basically motorcycles with a car built around it. I think more developing nations should in invest in them, they are very fast and cheap. We only spent 90 rupees to and from (38.80 rupees to the US dollar) but I still think we were overcharged b/c we are tourist. We went to some mall called Spencer Plaza and made some purchases of cute tops and purses. The shop owners were working really hard to get us to buy stuff. As soon as you walked into their shop they would bring out all this stuff and pour it on the floor and tell you how nice it looked on you eventhough it really looked like crap. One guy put about 20 rugs on the ground begging me to buy one. I had to hurry out of the store b/c I think he was getting mad b/c I wasn't interested in buying.

Well, that is pretty much my first day in India. I am very excited that have not developed any travellers diarrhea yet, which always follows me when I leave the US. My first impressions of India is that it reminds me a lot of my home country Nigeria, except with less people that speak English. It is overcrowed like Nigeria, everyone walks everywhere or uses motorcycles, people drive just as crazy while honking their horn, and everyone is out to make a buck. The staring eyes are exactly what happens to me when I go to Nigeria, they tell me that eventhough I am Nigerian, I just don't look like I live there. Another diffference is that I keep on wondering where all the women are. Most of the time when we are in the street, all we see are men everywhere. It is kind of weird. I am looking forward to tomorrow b/c we will be driving to Vellore. Hopefully I will be able to get to sleep tonite and won't be too jetlagged.