Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
My first forray into Indian purchasing and haggling ended in disaster, I'm too english and reserved for all this cheeky bartering malarkey. I wanted to buy some silk paintings of elephants and the Hindu god Ganesh; as I'm trying to drive the price down hard, the bloke starts giving me this sob story about his kids with no fingers due to all the intricate painting, and his daughters wedding which is very expense, and he's struggling to get all the money together. Needless to say - I get ripped off!! But this is by indian standards don''t forget, so that means I paid about #4 over the odds - not exactly breaking the bank is it?
Another feisty tuk tuk journey sees the group transferred onto the local bus, which we tried to patch repair with various plasters and band aids, but that rickety old sharabang was beyond help I'm afraid. So complete with broken spring, and dangerously protruding metal we begin our really pleasant, unbumpy, undusty, unsmelly local bus ride - Joy! Unsurprisingly, halfway through the bus develops a puncture, so we have an impromptu stop at some random village, while the driver struggles to fit the spare, surrounded by a crowd of nosey spectators. As usual we are mobbed by beggars and kids wanting either money or sweets or both.
Top tip: never offer one sweet to a group of dirt besmirched street kids - one of the girls on the trip threw one out to screeching pack as we stopped at some lights, and all hell broke loose, it was fisticuffs at amber, and tears at green, as a young boy copped for a shiner in the not so sugar coated fracas.
When our current mob of kids realised they wouldn't be getting anything, they moved onto the much more amusing pastime of stone the white tourist. A shower of stones rained in at us as we rushed to close our tiny bus windows, suffocation is preferable to stoning any day.
Unfortunately as we had already been on the road for two hours, and despite my best efforts, I could no longer control my slack bladder, and Javed our guide was forced to persuade a local family to allow me to use their outside box - squatty lav, situated at the side of the road - as you can imagine, NICE! But I won't go into detail - tmi I feel.
- comments