Shit happens. . . then you have good luck.

So there we were the other day, chatting in the atrium-like area of the India Habitat Center and a huge (2 inch diameter) load of bird crap lands between Jimmy and me. Well, it didn't exactly land between us. It actually grazed his pants and then landed. When we came back up to the office, our colleagues both told us that getting crapped on by a bird is good luck. Good luck? Sounds like Indian logic to me.

After a bit of "research", alright Googling the phrase "bird poop good luck" and looking at the first two pages, I've come to the conclusion that it isn't an exclusively Indian superstition. It's global. And in the US? I'm not sure, but there's a good chance that I've just completely missed hearing anything about this in my first 22 years of life in the greatest country on earth. The various pictures in this post are birds of India. The raptor sits outside our window on the 6th floor and shrieks for hours on end. There aren't any pigeons by our windows though when its around so I won't complain too much. Here's a link to another blog that has done extensive internet research on the subject.

Indian Traffic Explained?

Hmmm. . . Indian traffic. Where to begin. There's really only one rule: don't wreck. That's it. How you go about following this single rule is up to you. Lanes? Nope. Speed limits? Riiight. Police? Where?

One of the guys at work explained it best when he said that traffic in India operates much like a herd of animals. That isn't to equate Indian drivers with cattle or sheep, but rather the actions taken by various drivers are analogous to what one might witness with a herd on the savanna. You've got large and small animals, leaders and followers, youngsters and old guns. Just as a heads up, this post is by no means a comprehensive analysis of the situation. Nope, I just take some terms used to describe groups of animals, alliteratively applied them, and discuss it a bit. The general idea is this: bigger vehicles (older, larger animals) have the right-of-way all the time, but still must look out for smaller vehicles (younger, smaller animals). If not, well. . . this video shows what might happen.

That having been said, here's are the designations I've given to different groups of vehicles, in parentheses is the animal group which the term typically describes:

• a bloat of buses (hippos)
• a clan of cars (hyenas)
• a rookery of rickshaws (penguins and sea lions)
• a scurry of scooters (squirrels)
• a brood of bikes (chickens)

When we first arrived I thought vehicles honked just to honk. While I'm not entirely convinced that some rickshaw drivers don't just honk at us to piss us off, I've found that on the whole there's a reason for the honking. Drivers honk before entering an intersection to let others know they are coming. They also honk simply to indicate their presence. Say a car is driving along the road, it will honk at a pedestrian to make sure they don't hop out into the middle of the road randomly. Rickshaws will also honk at a bus as it changes lanes just to let the bus know where it is.

As for passing, the only rule is that if you're going around another vehicle, you'd better be bigger than anything that could be driving towards you in oncoming traffic or you're out of luck. Also, don't hesitate. Ever. He who hesitates, well . . . you remember the rest of that line from The Cable Guy. And don't be afraid to threaten or stare down someone who has messed up the "flow" of the herd. We learned that in the middle of an intersection at 10:30pm one night.

Riding with the People and Too Much Food

Two weeks down and Jimmy and I are officially men of the people. After touring Delhi last weekend, we decided to head out and hit up one of the seven wonders of the world: the Taj Mahal. Although located less than 200km away, the means of getting there was a train ride that we waited to book until the morning of. Horrible idea. No reservation to be had so we got a 60 Rs. ticket that simply guaranteed us the right to be in the general vicinity of the moving train. That meant standing the entire 3.5 hours. Our co-workers had warned us of this, but as Jimmy put it,we were just going to be "riding with the people".

We got to Agra and proceeded to book our ticket back for the next day. AC chair car of course. One day in advance? Nope, still waitlisted, number 95 and 96 on the list to be exact. With that we were off to get our hotel room and see the sites. Agra is a town of over 1 million people, close quarters, pollution that seems to rival Delhi (although not quite), but also has 3 UNESCO World Heritage Sites within 40 km of it: the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, and Fatehpur Sikri. Day One saw us hit up Agra Fort, two sales pitches, the Baby Taj, and the back side of the true Taj Mahal across the Yamuna River. All in all, a successful day, despite succumbing to the pressure of Jamal and Bikas to take those humiliating tourist pictures "holding" the Taj or jumping over it.

At the end of Day One we dined on the roof of our hotel with plenty of other foreigners and a decent view of the Taj. Two notable occurences took place:

1. A British girl who was sitting by herself and smoking up a storm suddenly passed out and fell out of her chair. The best way to deal with that? Apparently by crowding as many people around her as possible. Despite my acute awareness of the Good Samaritan Law from Seinfeld, I was unsure if it existed here and had no access to a hotshot lawyer like Jackie Chiles, so we kept our distance and let the first 20 people on the seen take care of her. Take home story: smoking in an already massively polluted place and not staying hydrated are a horrible combo.
2. Jimmy and I, who hadn't eaten for about 8 hours, were starving. For that reason we ordered a good size meal: two bowls of plain rice, one bowl of jeera rice, four pieces of chapati, three curries, two bottles of water, and two Cokes. Jimmy ordered half and the guy was about to walk away before I stopped him so I could order the rest. He gave me this incredulous look and explained that it was too much food. He then proceeded to bring over his "manager" and they tried to dissuade us from ordering any more. It wasn't like the US where the waitress goes, "That's a big meal, sure you're up for it?" and still brings it out. Nope, they were actively trying to prevent us from ordering more food. The only reasons that we could come up with were that the tiny kitchen couldn't handle it, or the cook was just lazy. Regardless, we order everything we wanted and downed it like champs. Only later did we realize that our meal was just 150 Rs. less than the cost of our hotel room.

Day Two started bright and early at 5:15 to see the Taj Mahal at 5:30 when it opened. We then headed out to Fatehpur Sikri, about 40 km outside of Agra, which is easily one of my favorite sites here in India. I'd even put it up there with the Taj. The trip back to Agra was interesting given that the bus had to have a rolling start before they could get it to fire up.

Back at the train station we learned that we had only moved up to number 14 and 15 on the waitlist and therefore had to refund our tickets and buy the 60 Rs. standing tickets again. Things were much closer this time, but we did meet a variety of people, from Anil the application engineer to Vikas the MBA student. Plus we had to endure being posted up near the bathrooms and constantly being in the way of the food vendors and their shouts of "COLD WATER COKE", "VEG CUTLET, BREAD OMELET", "CHAI, CHAI", and more. We did manage to miss out on the agressive transvestites this time who would clap there hands in your face and expect money. Clapping your hands isn't much of a trick if you ask me.

The day ended with a crazy rickshaw ride back where they guy actually sped up for red lights, almost hit two people, and stopped directly in front of a rickshaw coming from the side just to stare the other driver down. With few other options Jimmy and I got some Indian McDonald's and called it a night.

Destination Delhi

Since the last post on this blog, a number of things have occurred:

1. Dan and I somehow made it safely out of Thailand.
2. Dan graciously retired from both UNC and the blog, the latter of which is clearly a more impressive accomplishment.
3. I'm back in Asia.

Given the past blogs, #3 might seem slightly odd. I'm spending just short of 12 weeks here in India, 10 of which will be spent interning with a company in New Delhi. One week down, 9 to go.

Delhi is, well, insane. The traffic and development make Bangkok look like one of the cleanest, most well planned cities on the face of the earth. Not that it isn't, it's just that I realize how fortunate we were in Thailand with the metro, Skytrain, lack of trash, personal space, taxis with AC, and more.

Oh, and the cool temperatures. Delhi is vicious. I shut my computer down at 11pm and it's still above 90 degrees Fahrenheit. At the peak of the day? It passes 105 with degrees to spare. Luckily my bedroom of the apartment has AC.

That's it for this first post. Pictures are being added to my Picasa site which you can find on the right hand side of the blog.

One last thing, I'm already regretting not getting a rabies vaccination. It's not stray dogs and unlike Thailand it isn't because of my entirely rational fear of bats at dusk. Nope, it's monkeys. Walking back to our apartment the other night Jimmy and I saw what appeared to be a cougar lurking towards us. Turns out it was a female monkey with her child hanging onto her chest. Two others formed the rest of the posse that just happened to set up shop outside our aparment. Not cool. Luckily my fear allowed me to wait them out and then sprint upstairs to make sure every window was locked. One thing I won't do is follow the example of the former mayor of Delhi.