Holy Cow!

Hey Friends,

Yesterday was a long one. It started at 5:30 with a wake up and a stretch and a cup of tea. Then it was off to the train station at 6 with the lovely miss Emily and my luggage. Two and a half hours of standing room on the train later, we arrived at Narita Airport... sweet. Fortunately we left plenty of time because I had to repack EVERYTHING twice and mail some stuff.

When I first flew into Japan my bags were over packed and over weight by quite a sum. I was never charged for them when I left Portland... I would have been willing to pay a few bucks then... now I realize I just WAAAAy over packed. Anyhow, right around the middle of may I mailed a box home to the family. It was filled with all my overly prepared mistakes... shoes, pants, shirts, sweatshirts. And it also included some souvies from Japan... you'll see 'em later. This was quite a large box, and surprisingly inexpensive to ship by boat- it weighed like 40-something Kg and only cost me Y 8,400 (about 90 bucks). Not bad all things considered.

So I had thought I had cleaned myself out pretty well, and since Emily isn't arriving in India for another week and change, and she's got more stuff than me, I volunteered the majority of one of my suitcases to her stuff. I thought it would be ok even if we had to pay a few bucks to get them here on the airline. I happen to be a very spatially efficient packer so both of those bags got pretty heavy. As we stood at the ticket counter and had the bags weighed, they came out to be something like 28 kg over weight. I thought.... hmm maybe like 50 or 60 bucks to compensate for the overage... we're cool. But wait...

'That'll be Y 97,400 please'. Waaaaaaait a minute. Say that again.

'Y 97,400.' That's pretty much almost $1000! For two bags.

That's only a couple hundred bucks less than what I paid for my whole plane ticket... From Portland to LA to Tokyo to Singapore to Bangalore!

Ok. Only one thing to do. Get some big bags from the airlines, and start offloading stuff that Em can take with her or ship.

Then to the ticket counter. Try again.

Still 20 kg over. Crap!

Rearrange and pick out the stuff I can just throw away or mail to myself, or that Em can take or ship... Then try again.

Still 16 kg over... what now?

Reevaluate everything. Unload anything that is heavy and put it in my carry on. My back doesn't have a 28 kg weight limit, only a size limit. Unload more stuff to mail. Put 6 shirts on and two sweatshirts and a jacket... cut the weight, yo. I felt like a wrestler trying to make weight.

Finally! Only 2kg over. They are cool with up to 5, but I didn't want to go putting stuff back in after all that... plus I really had to get going to the post office and the terminal, and have some food if I got the chance. Oh yeah, and I really had to go to the bathroom this whole time- I nearly exploded.

50 bucks later we boxed and shipped some of that stuff, Em took some of it home with her... I don't know what her plans are for it quite yet. A trip to Charbucks for a coffee and a sammich... then to the terminal.

So we said our temporary goodbyes... and I was off to Singapore.

The flight was a nice and easy 6ish hours, good movies, food wasn't half bad and the flight attendants were beautiful. Singapore seems really cool and I hope to visit there for real some day. The people seemed super nice, it was ridiculously clean and $1 US is worth about $1.15 Singapore dollars (always a plus). I had some super spicy food and hopped back on a plane for 5 hours Bangalore.

This flight was not so smooth. It was actually very turbulent. My guts were churning for a number of reasons- none of which include air turbulence. Nope... it was definitely the combination of all the food and stress and what have you. I wasn't feeling bad or sick... just gassy. This is never comfortable when in confined spaces with lots of other people for many hours. I had some beer. Only added to the pain. Oh yeah then I spilled a beer all over myself... they make those little tray tables so damn small! Oh well. Everything else was great.

When we landed for some strange reason they checked everyone through customs and then through security again...(in that order) just to leave the airport. Whatever. So I waited for about 45 minutes for the bags... of course they were some of the last to come through. But I got them.

Next mission was to wade through the mobs of yelling people (seem to be common here), kindly notify each and every persitstent cabbie that "No, thank you. I will take the bus.", and to find the right bus to Koramangala. Then from Koramangala I was to have the bus driver arrange a continuing taxi to Soms... the hostel I'm staying at. If only things were that easy.

After an hour in what seemed like a high speed bus chase, through the crowded streets with no traffic lights and seemingly no rules either, we arrived at Koramangala bus stand. Here, G the bus driver (His name starts with a G but is way too long for me to remember) helped me procure a rickshaw to the hostel... "of course" the driver knew where I was wanting to go... I gave him the name and address and he said "no problem". Haha. Ha.

After an hour of driving around on bumpy unpaved roads, through pot holes, being chased by packs of stray dogs and asking everyone we saw.... no hostel. We ran into the police. Two guys on a motorcycle... surely they would know, thems tha Pooolice. Nope.

Finally, after another half hour of driving in circles and through the small alleys and side streets we roll up along a dark house. I thought to myself, 'Great, after all this time- and there is nobody here to show me to my room. Now what?'. The cops and the rickshaw guy stayed with me, and one of the police had gone to get a phone... we called, rousted Soms out of bed... and apologized profusely. He welcomed me warmly and apologized for the inconvenience.

I would have been screwed if it weren't for the patience and generosity of the rickshaw guy and those cops. I overly thanked them, and then tipped them all. Wow.

Now I'm here and it is the polar opposite of Japan. Beautifully loud and dirty, super real and very poor. I'll be writing more as soon as I can... the internet seems pretty shoddy here. Pictures will likely have to wait for quite some time. I will try to keep y'all updated.

Until next time, wow. What a great experience!

Peace and Love,

Chris