It’s been 14 years since my last trip to India. It hasn’t changed one bit!
There’s still perpetual chaos. Constant sounds of horns and motorcycles. There’s so much pollution you can’t see any stars at night.
The roads are overflowing with buses, cars, motorcycles, motor rickshaws, bicycles, pedestrians, dogs, and cows. See my humorous take on Indian roads from my first trip to India: Driving in India
The buses never close their doors. That’s if they have doors. The passengers jump on and off without waiting for the bus to reach its stop.
It hasn’t changed!
I have been here two days. I have not seen a non-Indian the entire time. That’s likely to change in Hampi since that’s a tourist attraction.
I can’t understand a word I overhear. Tamil is the most common language spoken in Chennai. Other languages spoken in this city include Telugu, Malayalam and Urdu. I have no idea which languages they are speaking. The signs are always written in sanskrit but most also have English. Fortunately, almost everybody speaks to me in English. Usually if they don’t speak English, there is someone nearby who can translate.
I have been eating mostly food from street vendors. I can find a decent meal for under 150 rupees ($2). Tonight for supper I had Shawarma (a popular Middle Eastern dish) for 60 rupees served wrapped in paper on a plate. I went looking for a bottle of water. (I refuse to drink their tap water. I’m not entirely crazy.) One of the men chased me to get their dish back. I found my bottled water (20 rupees) and returned to the vendor’s stall. I showed him my bottle. He smiled and returned my plate. Sometimes language causes problems but they are easy to solve.
Electricity in India is unreliable. My hotel has a huge generator. Yesterday the power went off in my room. A few minutes later the generator started up . My fan and air conditioner soon came back on. I hide in my hotel room each afternoon. The 100° weather would be unbearable otherwise.
As expected my hotel room doesn’t have toilet paper. I did bring a small roll of toilet paper. (My late wife couldn’t stand the thought of not having toilet paper. She bought me a travel roll before each trip. I now have quite a few.) But, I never use it. Plumbing systems here are not designed for toilet paper. They will quickly clog up, which would make matters worse. And no, it doesn’t involve your left hand. All of the better toilets here have a bidet hose. You get used to it!
There are social distancing signs everywhere but they are universally ignored. India was hard hit by COVID-19 but they are recovering.
They are about as good with masks here as elsewhere. Indoors everyone has a mask. The mask frequently doesn’t cover their nose. In fact, it often doesn’t even cover their mouth. They wear it like a scarf around their neck. Not that different from at home.
Having been lost without my cell phone yesterday, I spent the day trying to get an Indian SIM card to work. I had a motor rickshaw driver bring me to the local Airtel office. In addition to my passport, they needed my eVisa. Fortunately, i haven’t lost this copy of my eVisa (yet). The process still took hours!
I had brought my old cell phone for the specific purpose of using it in India. I tried unsuccessfully to get the new SIM card to work in my old cell phone. I eventually gave up.
I can’t install it in my current cell phone because it’s locked to AT&T. I’m waiting for my unlock code from AT&T. But, my phone is the North American version and might not work here even if I manage to get it to accept the Indian SIM card.
I brought my old international flip phone on this trip. It’s a four-channel, unlocked phone that I have used in India before. I intentionally left one suitcase in Dubai to save weight on this segment of my trip. At the last moment I decided to leave my old flip phone in the suitcase that I left behind. Bad decision! I should have stuck with my earlier packing list. These impulse decisions are turning out to be bad decisions.
It’s easy to find WiFi here. I might not be able to get cell phone service. Sigh…
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