I didn't pack for this

Who turned out the lights?

smarkham — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 04:40:10 +0000

So we took an overnight flight to Santiago Chile and arrived around 8am. It’s rather disconcerting to have an 11 hour flight and not have any time difference when you get there. Also I never sleep on the flight over so even though I was hyped on adrenaline and excited to be in Chile by the time we were eating dinner we were pretty tired. The Bed and Breakfast we were staying at had a restaurant across the street so we figured we would just go there for dinner. Shortly after ordering the power went out. No one at the restaurant really reacted, they just kept on serving food and brought a candle to our table. By the end of dinner I was looking at my friend thinking she looked as sleepy as I felt. We paid the bill and could even use our credit cards. Of course this ended up being the only night we rocked our heels and I managed to stumble down the pitch dark stairs but luckily only scraped up my arm. Then we stumbled across the dirt parking lot to the Bed and Breakfast. But at this point we saw that more areas were out than just our restaurant (it later turned out to be nationwide). When we’d arrived at our hotel in the morning the owner’s mother had been leaving and said the owner wouldn’t be back until the next day. She had given us a key code for the door but no key. Yes, an electronic key pass. Which of course wasn’t going to work when the power was out. The houses are all blocked off by fences with spikes on top and often with electric fence on top. The mother had given us the number to her other daughter…which we’d left in the hotel thinking we were just going across the street. So we stumbled back to the restaurant and tried in broken Spanish to explain the situation. They took us back across the street-in the dark, in our heels, but this time with a flashlight. They finally understood the problem was the power outage and tried calling the other daughter on the cell phone. They also tested the electric fence above the spiked fence and found THAT was still working (don’t ask me how). I couldn’t convince my friend that she could fit through the gap between the fences so we stumbled back to the restaurant where we had a nice Carmenere red Chilean wine on the house while they tried to figure out what to do with us. Luckily the glass of wine was about the right length of time for the power to come back on. Cause for the outage? Still unknown…

“But why Chile?”

smarkham — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 15:28:50 +0000

A friend of mine from college and I just got back from a 9 day trip to Chile. You, like the entire country of Chile might be asking why we went. For us it didn’t seem like a crazy idea. My friend wanted to take a trip, had never been to South America, and felt Argentina was too popular right now so why not go off the path to Chile? And me, well we know I never turn down a trip. Turns out a good cure for the end of summer blues is sneaking off to South America and catching some of their spring. But I think I know why the Chileans were asking that question. We ran into very few tourists from the United States (I’m reluctant to call us ‘Americans’ when we were in the other ‘Americas’) and those we did were mostly students taking courses. The tourists we did run into were mostly from Europe, Canada or Brazil. And the Europeans and Canadians were on month-long tours of the entire South American continent. So the question “Why are you only going to Chile” is because most tourists do the whole continent. Any “Why so short” is because Europeans take their vacations seriously and get at least a month of paid vacation. We met one British couple at the “2nd half” of their 6 month world tour. The girl was on sabbatical from her accounting job! How can you leave a job for 6 months and come back and still have it? I mean seriously, us United Stat-ians need to get our vacation act together because who doesn’t want to do month-long trips overseas?

Chile

smarkham — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 04:19:24 +0000

Just got back from a little trip to South America! Posts coming soon!

Hit Me with Your Best Price

smarkham — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 19:55:51 +0000

From reading my guide-book I knew that there would be a lot of bargaining “opportunities” in India. And by opportunities, I mean traps. I already mentioned how my tour guides were in a habit of taking me to places that I knew already had inflated prices, but for the most part I felt like my driver had my back and looked after me (he even offered to turn the radio on for me to hear some Indian music…and immediately turned on “Barbie Girl”-no joke). But there was one incident on the road that put me off my game. It was just after the strike– he pulled over on the side of the highway and had us dodge traffic to get to the other side of the highway to get to a little building that was this woman’s shop. His uncle, who was another driver following the same route as us pulled over as well. (I found out later that he told the Swedish couple in the car that I was the one who requested the shop, and they thought “Why does this weird American want to stop here?”) Anyway, we get into the shop and the woman was very excited to see us while her three children ran up and down the stacks of rugs. She gave us a demonstration of how she made her rugs and explained there were some from camel hair, some from sheep, some from elephant (I might have made the last one up). At this point I realized there was no way I could leave here without buying anything– it was clearly expected of me. The good news was the driver kept telling the woman to give me a good price (as opposed to the guides who kept telling me the vendors were already giving me a good price– way to help me out, buddy.) He even said “actually, she’s my relative.” Hmmm not sure if the lady believed that one . . . I started off by telling the lady I wanted her smallest size rug. I appreciated the hard work she had put in, but the pattern styles really weren’t my style, and I really hadn’t factored in buying rugs on the side of the road. Bargaining always starts with me asking how much they are charging and them asking me how much I’m willing to pay. She asked me to pick out two rugs. Since I really didn’t want any, I offered her about a 1/3rd of her price for two– I didn’t even want one. We haggled back and forth over her calculator with her son translating the numbers I put in back to her. My driver kept insisting I was his relative and gave her some numbers too, but they were on the calculator so I didn’t see. (That’s the trick at the big markets to hide the numbers to make sure you can’t hear what prices other people are discussing). Anyway, we went back and forth for a while and finally, even though the son looked incredulous, the woman agreed to my price. When we got back in the car my driver was thoroughly impressed. Said he had been giving higher numbers to her than I had. Said he’d call me the next time he went to a market– had I been practicing bargaining? But I bought two rugs I didn’t like or intend to buy, is that really good bargaining??

You call this a shortcut?

smarkham — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 18:28:51 +0000

As I’ve already mentioned my driver and my ideas of shortcuts were widely different. I’ve already talked about driving on the wrong side of the highway, but I haven’t talked about our run-in with a strike. On our drive to Jaipur, my driver informed me there was a strike on the highway. I couldn’t understand what he said it was for, but we came across stones in the road blocking our way. My Swedish tourist friends said people had tried to open their car doors when they got to the strike zone. My driver didn’t really hesitate, he just turned around and drove back the way we came (on the wrong side of course) until he got to a turn off. Then, along with the rest of the diverted traffic, we were driving along unpaved, barely one-lane roads through little villages. It seemed to be the only road through most of these villages, and we were trying to pass large trucks and tour buses. This was probably the most nervous I felt my whole trip. I was sure we’d break an axle or a tire. Everyone came out of their houses to watch all the traffic go by (and nicely direct us if there was a fork in the road). My driver told me they were excited to see tourists. There was lots of little children waving at me, but when the young men flocked to my car kissing the glass and photographing me with their cell phones, I was a little nervous. But my driver was calm the whole time and proudly announced that while we only added 2 hours to our trip time, other drivers had added 6 hours!

Pack Your Trunks

smarkham — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:03:48 +0000

So, after asking if I’d be paying for my admission tickets, the third guide told me the line was too long to wait to ride the elephants. Now let me tell you, I didn’t get to ride elephants on the tour in South Africa, since I mistakenly chose walking in graduation over seeing Victoria Falls (in retrospect, who cares about walking at graduation?!) So I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to ride an elephant again. I told him the line didn’t look that long, and I was willing to wait. Later he admitted he felt the elephants weren’t treated very well. If he’d used that argument to begin with, I might have listened. But I’ve waited 3 hours to get into the Vatican, I think I can wait 45 min to ride an elephant. Unfortunately, in another country sometimes it’s hard to tell what is just culturally different and what is something you should react to. I did actually really enjoy the elephant ride. One of the best parts of my trip. My stomach was feeling the best it had felt, the blinding fog of the morning was lifting, and Amber Fort was majestically rising out of the mist. The elephant was slow and steady, and it was wearing bells that were tinkling gently. Very peaceful and very beautiful. The only problem was that despite the large sign stating not to tip, the elephant driver would not let me off until I tipped him. It ended up rather awkward…First he asked for my camera to take a picture of me behind him on the elephant, but I’d given it to my guide to get full shots of me and the elephant. Then he said something about money, and I was honestly surprised since there was a huge sign forbidding it. I mumbled that my guide had that too. Then my guide appeared to take pictures of me at the top of the climb with the elephant and of course the driver asked the guide for a tip. My unhelpful guide said to me “he’s expecting a tip.” My lie was exposed. The driver turned on the elephant and looked at me in disgust and said in a mocking tone “oh my guide has it.” Being trapped on his elephant I didn’t really have much ground (or rather I was several feet from the ground) to argue with so I said lamely “oh, I thought you were still talking about my camera…” but I could tell he didn’t believe me. He finally got me close enough to the landing platform so I simultaneously reached for my wallet and the latch on the bar to get out. I gave him 80 rupees which felt generous to me, but he just shook his head at me in disgust. Later I found out my Swedish friends had escaped without a tip, just like they escaped every maze of a guide shop without buying a thing…not sure how those kids did it.

Misguided

smarkham — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 15:11:59 +0000

I love site-seeing, but I don’t love tour guides. The only one I’ve ever liked was our tour guide in Brazil, but who couldn’t love a woman whose primary use of the bus microphone was to implore us that there be “no more hard stuffs in the little room, only the yellow liquids, yes?” Certainly no one forgets our orchestra tour guide in South Africa, who was so misinformed we learned to do the opposite of what she said. “This place only takes credit card, don’t bring cash.” Ok, cash it is. “You won’t need to tip the driver.” Cash it is again. She was probably right when she advised us not to wear gold or silver jewelry, but she herself showed up on safari decked out to the max. Who doesn’t want to impress the king of the jungle? And one of the orchestra tour guides back on my first trip to Italy was entirely too hot to be on a bus with high school boys…

Given this track record, I was reluctant to book a guided tour in India, but really could see no other way around it. I had a different tour guide for each of the three days of my tour, which was ok with me since I felt more comfortable with just me and my driver. They were knowledgeable enough, but it was awkward just the two of us at the monuments. Usually I like to take goofy pictures with my friends or pictures only I might find interesting. But asking my guide to take a picture of me clowning around with the Taj Mahal just seemed out of place. I was quite envious of other groups taking group shots and posed pictures. The Taj Mahal guy did set me up in some poses, which turned out just plain awkward.

But the biggest thing about the guides that got to me was the tourist trap shops they would deliver me to on my way out. I was fooled the first time. My first guide told me he wanted me to see some local handicrafts before I left Delhi. Seemed fair enough. I was imagining a market where I could wander around and maybe bargain for a thing or two. I had no clue he actually meant a shop where I’d feel awkwardly obligated to purchase something. And even worse, it looked like a real store so I was unsure if bargaining was cool or not. In retrospect I realize I was had. I keep kicking myself for paying full price since I thought it was a more official store.

My driver seemed to have taken pity on me after I spent the first day passed out (potentially snoring and drooling) in the backseat the whole trip. When I briefly woke up, he seemed to be telling me that the guide shops would rip me off, and he would take me somewhere else later, but don’t buy anything at their shop. (He might have been saying “I have my own connection to a tourist trap, please wait and shop there”). It might be because I’m always trying to hide my foreigner status, but there is something fundamentally bothersome to me to be souvenir shopping where all other tourists go. I mean if only tourists shop there, it’s not really representative of the culture, right? I want to shop where locals shop with products they know and trust.

When the second tour guide dropped me off at his shop, I was ready. Well, that’s what I thought, anyway. He actually took me to three different places. The first shop had marble inlay like the Taj Mahal that had me drooling. The shopkeeper proudly showed me a picture of Hilary Clinton purchasing a table (the first shop featured Pierce Brosnan in a similar pose). Believe me, if she was shopping here, this isn’t the place for me! I couldn’t even bargain down the prices they were talking to ship them back to the USA. Every time I said “thanks but no thanks” they would take me to another room. The place was fast becoming a maze, and I had lost site of the exit! I made it out of the first place without buying anything, but he had another place in store! The second place made a big production of how Persian rugs of the area were made, and then finished with “Which one are you buying?” Again we were talking spending real money on them and having them shipped back. But the guy in charge finally got the idea I wasn’t buying big and showed me scarves, which I bought just to get out of there. Well this tour guide was crafty. He walked me right into a 3rd place, just a little booth outside of a monument. And then he was on the merchant’s side in the haggling dispute instead of mine! Two merchants and a guide all arguing against me! I just wanted to leave, but my guide wasn’t even budging. I kept trying to lessen the things I was buying to lower the price, but they kept telling me I needed to buy more! I bought some things, but I wasn’t happy!

Not surprisingly I was fed up by the time I got to the third guide, and I was just waiting for him to spring something on me. Unhelpfully he started out asking if I was paying for my admission tickets. The other two guides had paid saying it was covered by my tour, so they just had to turn in the receipts. But this guy didn’t seem to believe me. Then we had a dispute about the line for the elephant, but more on that later . . .

Read My Lip

smarkham — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 12:23:17 +0000

My cousins and I have recently been teasing my uncle that he’s the last man in America with a mustache (Tom Selleck excluded of course). Well India is single lip-edly making a push to bring them back. And they are doing it in a big way. Literally:

Please just take a moment and take it all in: the symmetry of shape and color, the variation of length, the complexity of the pattern, the curiosity about how it came about. Did he start with a full beard and prune it to this? Or was this the plan from the start and he used a stencil to outline it from the beginning? He wasn’t the only one, there was also this guy:

Note the shadows it makes on his shoulders. It’s similar shape to the first one, but a little lacking in range of lengths and shading. Tom Selleck, you’ve been put on notice.

Pictionary 4

smarkham — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 14:00:23 +0000

India had a lot of great signs to contribute to my blog, but unfortunately many were on the road and we blew past them too quickly to catch… My favorite ones that I missed were:

“Promises and Road Rules, two things I never break” – Doesn’t say much for promises.

“I made a promise to my child not to use my cell phone while driving”- A cell phone? With all the driving I saw the cell phone talking was the least of my worries.

And there was a “no donkey crossing” sign, but of course, the donkeys crossed.

“Good Horn, Good Brakes, Good Luck”

smarkham — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 17:59:24 +0000

This was the phrase all the tour guides told me I needed to know to understand driving in India. The best way I can describe the driving is really skilled drivers–with zero rules:

Red lights and stop signs? Just a suggestion, plow through with horns blazing. I saw a crowded intersection with a police officer directing traffic, and my first thought was “they should get a stop light for this spot” and my second thought was “no people would blow through that, a live person in uniform might have more authority.”

Lanes? Just ride the middle of a lane and drift over to whichever one seems faster. Obviously this means the need to signal for lane changes is out since you’re already in the middle of two. Instead just hit the horn and flash your brights.

Passing? Same idea as lane changes, hold your horn down as you go by a truck and flash those high beams. Even if traffic is locked up so tight there is no possible way anyone can move, you should lay on your horn and leave it going until traffic starts. Trucks even come with special labels on the back commanding you to “Blow Horn” because they will assume no one is near them if you don’t. Trucks themselves are equipped with custom horns, much like custom ring tones on cells. Imagine the horns of NYC and multiply that by oh, let’s say 1000 decibels.

Bikes and motorcycles? Back in the USA I usually try not to startle them and give them a wide berth in case they do something stupid and fall, but in India they get the old honk of the horn to get them to move and their tires tailed.

Pedestrians? Back in college I always thought it was chivalrous and endearing when my male Indian friends would help me cross the street. They’d soccer mom block me as if I was about to dart across the street and then guide me across with a hand at my back when it was safe. Well in India it was necessary. I kind of wanted someone holding my hand when I crossed the road because the basic rule was step out and see what happens. Speed up and slow down as necessary to avoid getting hit. I even saw people in dark clothing running across the main highway at night. It’s like a game of dodgeball–with your life.

Littering? Just chuck it out the window– my driver did.

Traffic jams? You know in the USA how there is always one guy riding the breakdown lane? Well in India that’s every guy. They don’t have a breakdown lane, but every car is driving on the divide of pavement and dirt to sneak around the trucks. Again horns are the only indication you are squeezing between two trucks. But my all time favorite traffic jam “short cut” (my driver’s words) was when we just crossed the median and drove on the left hand side of the opposite side of the highway. Why not if they had more room, right? Hell we even passed people on this side of the highway.

To think I was nervous from a little backing down one way streets to snag a parking spot in France. Despite all this, I only saw one accident my whole trip: a truck tipped sideways down a ditch in the median. He’d probably been trying to cross to avoid the traffic…It was good I only saw one accident since I didn’t see or hear a fire truck the entire trip. I did see one tiny ambulance though.

Here are some examples of all of the trucks with their brightly decorated messages on the back reminding drivers to USE THEIR HORN!