Get it India!.... Oh shit, get it outta me!!

Dates of travel: 05 December 2009 - 22 December 2009

After a year in the job, my company decided it was too expensive for me to be going to and from South Africa all the time. They hired a local guy to do the job, hence saving on flights. This left me needing a new region to take care of, and I was handed Asia.

I have always had a bit of an interest in Asia. I studied Japanese all through high-school and was lucky enough to go there twice; once on school exchange at the age of 16 and then again with my brother on holiday at the end of 2005. However, that was the extent of my travel in Asia, before starting this job.

My first trip with this company to Asia was to the mystical sub-continent of India...

Now, a lot of tourists do consider India as a great place to go on their travels, if they can stomach the food. However, being a touring employee in the mining field, the places I visited were, as always, a little different.

This first visit took me to two main stops: Raigarh in the central-north of the country and Tiruchirappalli in the far south-east.

It took me two full days to get from Adelaide to Raigarh; via Singapore, Mumbai and then Raipur, followed by an 8-hour drive. Thankfully, I wasn't driving myself... I have met some crazy driving in my travels, but I have to say, India is up there in the list! While, in some countries, there are plenty of road rules and people just ignore speed limits or whatever, in India, it seems to me that the only road rule is:

"As long as you are beeping your horn, you can drive wherever you want and as fast as you please." 

Naturally, this scared me just a little. But it's all part and parcel of the fun of travelling to other countries, isn't it?!

The photos here were taken along the road to Raigarh, where we stopped to "take tea". It's kind of like a toilet break... you can't go driving too long without stopping for a tea. Welcome to India!

To the right is a photo of the room I stayed in at the customer site in Raigarh. It's probably a little pointless blogging about this, as it's not a public accommodation place. But anyway, there it is!

During the night, I was often kept awake by some kind of scratching in the ceiling. I was perfectly happy to assume there were rats or whatever up there, as long as they left me a alone.

But no!

In the photo, you can see a couple of brown vertical poles on the walls; these were I-beams used as part of the structure. Fair enough. However, the fact that they were I-beams meant that there was a big gap at the top where the ceiling was... I think you can see where this story is going.

On the dining table in the right-foreground of the picture was a fruit bowl. One morning, I woke up to find that a piece of fruit from the bowl had somehow walked off the table and onto the floor. And on closer inspection, I found it was half eaten.

Now you're glad it's not public accommodation, right??

After my time with the customer in Raigarh, I travelled back to Raipur. I stayed over for a night in the Hotel Grand Arjun, Raipur, seen to the left.

It's been far too long since this one-night stay for me to tell you anything about the hotel.

What I do know is that my room didn't have any unauthorised visitors during the night so... if you need a place to stay in Raipur, why not give this a go! Ha ha!

En route to my next destination, I had a one-day stopover in Mumbai. I did not experience any of the city, simply by choice after the experience I had in getting a taxi...

I arrived to Mumbai airport on a Tuesday morning. I collected my luggage and found a pre-pay taxi booth. The idea here is that you tell them where you want to go and they will tell you how much. You pay them and get the receipt and then take that receipt to one of their drivers outside. I did so, telling them I wanted to go to the Intercontinental hotel which was a stones-throw from the airport. I took my receipt outside and saw a sign saying "Cool Cabs" (the name of the taxi company) and started walking towards it. Then, I was set upon by a crowd of miniature Indians (they were children, not little-people) all offering to help me find a taxi. I motioned to fact that I had a receipt from Cool Cabs, and they said "Yes, Cool Cabs, this way..." and proceeded to take me in the opposite direction to where the sign was pointing.

I suppose that should have been my first clue...

The kid who had taken charge of me flagged down a rust-bucket taxi and told me this was my ride. I loaded my luggage and got in to find two people in the front; one driver and one passenger.

Clue #2...

I handed over the receipt and away we went. Not long after we had left the airport grounds, the passenger turned to me from the front bench-style seats and asks if I could change 1000 rupee. "I want to fill up the diesel" he says... I thought, "What, they don't have any change?" I tried to fob him off and tell him I didn't have any rupee on me, but he persisted, so I eventually caved. I pulled out two 500 rupee notes and made the exchange. He took the notes down in front of the bench seat and quick as a flash came back up holding two 100 rupee notes and asked me where was the rest. I stammered my way through trying to say I had given him two 500's, realising that I had just been scammed. In the end, I thought it better to settle the "debt" rather than risk whatever they might do to me and handed over another 800 rupees. I later worked out that was only about AU$20, so I wasn't too shitty!

About this stage, I noticed we were driving through a very poor, slum area. And before long, the driver pulled over and they said I should get out.

Yep. I thought I was about to be killed or sold. Another car showed up and they transferred my luggage into that and told me to get in. This driver barely spoke a word of English. We started on our journey, me still not entirely sure what was going on. We eventually made it to my hotel and the driver didn't charge me for the ride. I then put it all together:

1) Kids at the airport poach pre-paid taxi customers and take them to unlicensed drivers.

2) Passenger in taxi scams 800 rupees out of the gullible western tourist.

3) The kid and the three drivers all take a cut of the 800 rupees.

4) Repeat from the top.

I got to my hotel which was ridiculously swanky (see below) and decided I was going to spend the rest of my stay in Mumbai safely locked away in my room!!

My room at the Intercontinental Mumbai. My first experience with an overly ornate hotel room!

The view from my hotel room: the slums almost right up to the front door of the Hyatt.

The interior of the hotel.