Getting There

It’s said that half the fun is getting there.

I’ve decided that my motto for India is a good, hearty 89.9% of the fun is getting there.

Between the bicycle rickshaws and the auto-rickshaws and the taxicabs and the buses and the trains (oh heavens, the trains!), I had to always repeat my motto.

And in the end, it made for a wonderful India.

The best, most preparatory moment was our first evening in port. Allie and Bryan and Kelly Rose and I had a late dinner at a lovely little rooftop place in the center of the city. Afterwards, we shopped around for a bit and then decided to head back to the boat far later than we should have considering I had a 3:30am wake-up call coming to me the next morning, which would begin my trip to the Taj Mahal.

SO…we bargain with our rickshaw drivers (we were two to a rickshaw) and start heading back to the ship. When we got to the port gate, the guards wouldn’t let the rickshaw drivers through, which meant we had to get out and begin a fifteen minute walk back through the dark, industrial port before finally arriving at the boat.

Now at this point, a huge bus of SASers pulls up, and Kelly Rose and Bryan decide that we should just hop on their bus the rest of the way back to the boat. But while Allie and I are still in the process of paying our rickshaw driver, Bryan and Kelly Rose start running, they hop on the bus, we hear the hiss of the doors closing, and it pulls away.

Great.

Just splendid.

Apparently Bryan and Kelly Rose pleaded for the bus to stop, but to no avail.

So now Allie and I are left alone, coughing in the dust of the tour bus as it drives away.

We are stopped by multiple guards asking to see our shore passes (which we had to carry with us at all times and present to any official who asked to see it). We enter the gate, telling ourselves that we’re going to be just fine.

We start walking.

And the guard starts yelling.

Walking through the port back to the boat was not allowed according to this man (because rules are fluid, and policies change by the moment).

At this point, Allie and I have our hands on our foreheads.

What to do?

What one must always do when in a pinch at night by the port gate of Chennai…hire the emaciated bicycle rickshaw driver that the guard motions over to peddle us back to the boat (I have a little hunch the rickshaw driver and the guard were in cahoots).

This sounds like a perfectly wonderful solution to our predicament, except for the fact that this man was at best the size of one my thighs. He’s literally straining just to begin peddling Allie and I.

It was at this point, amidst the squeaking of the bike chain, the grunting of our driver, and the fact that we were going at best a sprightly .001 miles per hour that Allie and I burst into hysterical laughter.

The hilarity of that moment was more than our overtired beings could contain.

We cracked up the entire way back, and felt as though we owed some sort of apology to this dear man with calves the size of spaghetti noodles for peddling us to the ship. Considering he only spoke Tamil, we settled for a tip and the sincerest bow of gratitude.

Little did I know that I was just being primed for the bus that would overheat, the train that would be two and half hours late, and the rickshaw driver who would take Lila and I on one wild ride.

A wholehearted hooray for the joy of getting there, right?

Love. Anna