10.26.09
I woke up about 8 and finished getting my stuff together. I had the same breakfast of my grilled cheese type thing and waited for Shashank. One of the hotel guys called about 9:15 and escorted me to the campus gate. We waited there about 5 minutes and Shashank showed up. We got in an auto and went to the bus terminal. I am not really sure what happened, but we ended up following this guy into what looked like a booking agency and Shashank got my ticket. We stood around for 20ish minutes waiting for the bus.
The place next door to us had a homeless man sleeping outside of it. The people from the other store poured water all over him to try and wake him up. I was afraid he was dead because he didn’t move, but after they poured a pot of water directly on his head he stirred a little, but still didn’t get up. He must have been really tired. When Shashank and I left to go to the bus, he was still there.
After some mild confusion, Shashank put me on my bus and we said goodbye. He wrote down the address of the port gate and told me not to pay more than 200 rupees. He also arranged for the bus driver to help me find an auto when we get to Chennai. He had to pay them a little bit, but it worked (I think it was only about 30 rupees which is <$1)
We got on our way, but things quickly turned south. After picking up a few more people, we got stopped. I really wasn’t sure what was going on, but someone finally told me that the bus I was on did not pay their road tax. After about 45 minutes, we got back moving again. Turns out that we ended up going to another bus depot and we were kicked off the bus. Great. So here I am on the side of the road by a bus terminal in the middle of Bangalore. I have no idea what is going on and no idea how I am going to get to Chennai. I met a nice guy from Tibet because neither of us spoke whatever language they were speaking. Eventually, this nice Indian man took pity on me and tried to explain to me what was going on. His name was Ganesh and I decided to attach myself to him because he had to get to Channai for a job interview. I figure that eventually we would get there. After standing on the side of the road for about 20 minutes looking completely confused another bus pulled up. I asked the bus driver if it was going to Chennai and I got the annoying Indian head bob that could mean a variety of things. Everyone else that was on the original bus got on so I got on as well. I sat next to my new friend Ganesh. Ganesh loved my sunglasses. He was trying them on and asked me how much I paid for them. He also loved my nalgene, but he was very concerned about whether or not it was India water or US water. Then he started asking me about my life at home. He asked how old I was and if I was married. I figured my best way to answer was to say yes, I was married. Then of course he asks me about my husband and what he does, so the only thing I ca think to do is make something up. I ended up describing a mix between Brian and some made up person. So thank you Brian haha. Apparently, my answers appeased him because he quickly went to sleep.
As we are slowly getting closer and closer to Chennai, the not in my stomach slowly got bigger and bigger. I was supposed to be in Chennai around 5:30, but with the issues we ended up not getting in until 7:30. That means that it was dark outside…great. Before we got off the bus, I started talking to a guy that was about my age who was sitting behind me. It turned out that he wasn’t from Chennai, but was studying there. When we all got off in Chennai, he ended up helping me get an auto to the port. He actually got be a discount. He said that he could get it cheaper, but at this point I didn’t really care as long as the driver knew where the port gate was because it was a bit away from the bus terminal. The driver assured me that he knew where it was so I decided to pay a little more and just get to the port. It was so stressful getting off this bus because it is dark, I am by myself and there are a ton of drivers hassling to get you to go with them. So as I am riding with my driver, I am trying to relax because there is nothing really I can do. I am going to make it eventually. I started taking in my surroundings and watching my driver. That is when I realized that my driver had a twitch. It was probably the cutest, and most funny thing. It probably wouldn’t be that funny normally, but the events of that day I just had to laugh. But my adventures were not over. Turns out that my lovely driver, which I have come to affectionately call Twitch, does not know where the port gate is. We end having to stop and ask about 3 other drivers to see if they knew where it was.
We came around this corner and who do I see by James and Rosario and I felt like I was going to burst into tears. The stress that I had been carrying around all day just melt away. The ship was still there. I made it back without getting mugged. Everything worked out! I have never been so excited to see the ship in all this time.   I made it to the port gate and had to check in at security. I found a rickshaw driver and he drove me to the ship because I was not about to walk through our port at night since it is such an industrial port.
I finally got on the ship and dropped my stuff in the cabin and pretty much ran to get food at the piano bar. That roast beef sandwich was some of the best food ever. I was exhausted, but I found Katie and she told me about the Taj and Varanasi. It sounded amazing. We both eventually just crashed.