Remember that I said one of the first things to know about Indians is that they don’t respect your personal space? Well I hadn’t had to deal with it so much. But Saturday night I went out walking trying to see the tomb of Saint Thomas. Somehow I got lead astray and didn’t make it to the tomb itself. I ended up in a neighborhood called Santhome. It had been raining on and off all day Saturday so I decided I’d turn back toward my own neighborhood as I was on foot. I was on Greenways Road which is an intensely busy road from about two blocks away from me until it ends (I have a video of this, but am having trouble uploading it to this blog, will work on that).
Crossing the street therefore is a tricky undertaking. In fact I’d be willing to wager I could make money just teaching it to foreigners here. The secret is basically go, and BELIEVE that no one will hit you. Well, I got lazy. I got run over by some jackass street vendor who was trying to make a lefthand turn into the rightside lane out of busy traffic. I was already walking and then I was abruptly stopped by running into the back of this guy’s cart. He flashed me a dirty look, but realized that I’m over a foot taller than he and so he just road on.
At that point it started raining hard and I was about half a mile from the apartment. I went and bought a snack from a sweets shop (not a sweat shop, they don’t show those to foreigners) and then found some street vendor making chicken biryani. When they realized I knew some Tamil they opened way up and were so happy to see me. At first, like usual they thought I was just some tourist staying at the nearby hotel and didn’t know anything. What I know it that this guy’s biryani isn’t that good. But I only paid 60 Rs for a chicken leg and chicken biryani, so I’m not feeling like I got ripped off. All told I spent 66Rs on food. When’s the last time I had dinner that I paid for in full for $1.30? I’d venture to say not recently.
After that I went home and just stayed in. Crappy Saturday night.
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good effort...every bit counts!
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