Driving Miss Louise Crazy

Well another week has passed by very quickly and so I thought I should post again.... now, what to write about??  The week has consisted of work work and more work, which I don't like to talk about on here for obvious reasons and so the only thing I can talk of is the drive to and from work, which is slowly but surely increasing my baseline blood pressure by 2mmHg per day....

Now for those of you that have never been to India, I will give you some background.  In my 30 years of being on this planet I have travelled to a number of places that would not be classed as "first world' or "western"....... however, I have NEVER encountered the sheer ridiculousness that awaits us on the streets of Bangalore.

So this week Simone has started doing a few more cases which are running later into the evening.  This means that I finish at 4pm, drive home from work and then go back to collect him at an unspecified time, as unfortunately, you can't always put an exact time on how long it takes to save someones life ;)

Now the journey to work is only 3km..... and I dread having to drive it every single time..  WHY?

* There are absolutely NO rules on the roads of India (or at least, none that are followed)
* I have almost killed about 20 people in a week- some by accident and some not
* When an Indian person approaches a junction, they DO NOT STOP and DO NOT even LOOK to see if there is something coming.  As a result of this you have to expect people to just pull out in front of you, and it is S O  A N N O Y I N G..... I am used to it now though, so I drive with the 'expect the unexpected' mentality, however this only came about after a very close encounter with a two wheeler that pulled out approx 4metres in front of me as I was travelling at 40kph
* There are hundreds of people walking in the road.
* Beeping is incessant
* The term 'road' needs to be used very loosely.....  There are bumps and pot holes (and when I say pot holes- you would be better to imagine craters) for the whole journey
* The cows

Ok, so now you have an idea of how it is to drive the the hospital......... Close your eyes...... picture the drive... and then MULTIPLY IT by a thousand, because most of the time I do it.... It is in the dark.  And when I say 'dark' in India, I don't mean like when it is dark in the UK and there are shops lit up and street lights lighting up the path for you..... oh no no no.... I mean it is PITCH BLACK.....And all the other muppets that drive here in India either drive with their FULL BEAMS on which completely blinds you OR without any lights, ensuring that the horrendous journey of people... pot holes... bumps.... beeping... cars pulling out in front of you.... is made a thousand times worse, because now you are also temporarily blinded.

I always start off the journey so positively, and about 400metres in I am ready to put my foot down, and run over all of the fuckers that are getting in my way......  Whilst screaming "you f*cKing idiot get out of the road" "what the f*ck ar you looking at?" "you stupid tw*t"....... oh if only they could understand me..
Mental note to self... Do not want to end up in an Indian prison for homicide.  M U S T    C A L M
D O W N...... yep, it has been well and truly proven, I am definitely a Quinn.

On a lighter note, we now have our documents from the visa office.... hooooooooooorrrrraaaahhhhhh..... So, if I do end up rotting in an Indian prison then I am at least in the country legally :)

When Simone and I first arrived here we were always laughing at the amount of people or 'things' we have seen on a two wheeler.... And so we started compiling a list of 'what have we seen on a two wheeler today'.  Many of you will know as you will have seen in other countries that they put very slamm children on two wheelers in these countries, and it never ceases to amaze me when you see a child who is no older that 12 months holding on to the handle bars of a moped.  I think the most people we have seen on one bike was 5 people... a 3 adults and 2 children.  So what is all this about needing a 'family car'????? Total bloody shite I say, just get a moped.
We have seen some strange things on them including....
          * A hedge trimmer
          * A fridge (yes a fridge)
          * Microwaves (yes, that is plural, and one actually fell off right at our feet)
Oh I could go on and on.......... However, I will leave you with one photograph that we managed to take, which I think pretty much sums it up...........

Well, it really has been a very long time since I posted, and now SO much has happened that I really don't know where to start..... so here goes.

I think it was March or early April that I last posted and  from that time up until the end of april, nothing much happened.  We went to work, came home, ate, went to the gym and slept for the most part.  And then some excitement was lingering as we were expecting the arrival of Jody and Nick, on 29th April, to be precise.  Luckily this was a sunday and so we were able to get up at the ghastly hour of 3.30am, to be able to travel to the airport (by taxi-no way are we driving that far, even in the middle of the night) and pick them up.  I was so very happy to see my old friend and BBF Jody, who by-the-way had turned 30 the day before her arrival.

So, they stayed with us in our house in Bangalore for one week, where we mainly drank beer and played tennis (not together).  The weather had turned slightly shitty prior to their arrival and so for the most part it was cloudy, but it was still hot.  They had a small trip to Mysore for one night and then returned ready for our trip as a foursome to Kerala.

I cannot tell you how happy I was to be going on leave from work, especially as it was due to be a LONG (unpaid) leave of 2 weeks- one week in Kerala and a one week visit back to the UK (hurrah).  I know that I CONSTANTLY drone on about it...and I'm annoying myself... but..... ONE DAY A WEEK OFF IS NOT ENOUGH.   I don't give a stuff who you are, what you say, and what you do.....  I'm telling you that this six days a week mullarky sucks. No questions.

So I had meticulously planned our trip to Kerala to a tee.  We arrived to the airport and then we had a taxi (people mover- for extra comfort) booked to take us on the long drive from the airport to our first stop, which was in the western ghats, on the border between Tamil Nadu and Kerala.  So imagine my complete surprise and shock when we were greeted at the arrivals by none other than my IBF Grace Purcell..... and her better half, Adrian McCarthy............  In 5 short seconds of recognition, the holiday turned from a civilised, understated trip for four into a drunken, noisy and vomitty (Jody) trip for six..... and all was concluded when Grace Purcell pulled out a bottle of tequila and said "let's get this party started".................. bloody Irish.............
I really was SOOOOOOO happy (if a little bit shocked) that they were there and had made such an effort to a) come in the first place (as had Jody and Nick- respect) and b) managed to keep it a secret for the entire time I had been in India AND booked in to the same hotels etc etc.  Simone had managed to check with the taxi firm that the car I had booked could fit 6 people in so all was good......... except we had luggage too...... so the 6 hour journey was not quite as comfortable as had been anticipated but hey ho, I was the happiest person on earth at that moment.

So we arrived at our hotel and headed straight to the bar for a celebratory beer, then went on an elephant trek.........  I can tell you now that elephant trekking is one of those things that 'seemed like a good idea at the time'...... you want the photo, but apart from that 10 minutes on the elephant really is enough..... especially when the guy who is leading the elephant keeps hocking back his saliva and spitting it all over the floor.   Although I have to say I was rather enjoying it, as despite my despise for this habit some Indian people have, Jody's feelings regarding this are SO much stronger than mine, and I really really thought that she was going to vomit all over the poor elephant.  WELCOME TO INDIA JODY (even though she should know better than me, she lived here for a few years way back when).  AND the guy was also holding Jody's camera (and perhaps allowing some stray droplets of his saliva onto it)  so he could take pictures of us, and this really impressed her no end :)))))))))))))
What did not impress me was that the guy was taking thousands of photos of us on the elephant.... elephant with his head down..elephant with his head up.... elephant taking a jack fruit (???) from the tree... and then "wabalababababaalabahabahalalalabababa" (which means- "elephant, curl up your trunk for the photo"- in Malayalam, the only language the elephants understand).....and promptly covering me in elephant snot..... FFS.



Well the night ended with a nearly empty bottle of tequila and some rather heated discussions about the Beatles (ooops sorry The Beatles ;)  ) and so we went to bed gearing up for the next few days.  Jody spent most of them either sat on or face down the loo.  I think they call it Delhi belly or something, but hey, I have the stomach of an ox.  NOTHING will bring me down.



We went from the western ghats to a place on the coast, and spent the next 4 days doing what I enjoy most... chilling on the beach.  We had some lovely food, too many beers (where are all the cocktail bars damn it) and even a romantic candle lit dinner on the beach for six... We also hired mopeds and went cruising round the coast, and I can now say I am officially a seasoned two-wheeler driver.... Now Simone.... Where is your Vespa?

Then came our trip to UK.  The whole shenanigans of the visa was never sorted, I'm sure you remember the posts about our visit to the visa centre in Bangalore.
Well we were told, because our visa was never validated, we had to get an exit permit from the office, in order to be able to leave the country.  So let me get this straight.  Technically we are illegal in India as we have no documents of validation of our visa.... BUT we are also not allowed to leave the country to go to our own, without their say so..... hhhhmmmmm.
So we went there on our trip back from Bangalore airport to our house.  The guy was so very helpful and gave us the exit permit...... we were so thankful as our flight was leaving that night for the UK, and we had not even considered it as a problem.  Our thanks was very short lived....
"Thank you so much this is so great"
"No problem Sir"
"I don't know what we would have done without this"
"you wouldn't have been able to leave"
"Gosh, good job you told us about this"
"Yes sir"
"So we use this to leave and then when we come back what happens?"
"Oh no Sir, you can't come back.... This is exit permit only"
"Sorry?"
"Exit permit only Sir, you need a new visa from UK"
Oh ffs....... here we go again.......................     aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh

So we left India, went to UK and spent longer than expected (not that I'm complaining) because of this ridiculous visa situation that has gone on and on and on and on and on and.......

We went to the visa centre in London.  Almost got in a punch up.  Dealt with some arrogant jobsworth, who actually didn't even know his job, despite Simone trying to explain it to him a few times (!!!).  We then trekked to the high commission in a last ditched attempt to get it sorted, even though the jobsworth told us not to bother cause 'he was speaking on behalf of them'.  Well little did that silly runt know...... because after 20 minutes of standing in the high commission, our visa was changed..... by hand.... yes I mean physical crossing out.... with a biro....... in my passport........ biro...... IN MY PASSPORT..... ON MY VISA........  WT actual F?????????  We could have done it ourselves.  Good to know that the Indian system works, even in UK.  They do say that the embassies and high commissions run in the way of the country, but come on...... this is ridiculous....


This is India :)