India: Days 5 and 6

The rest of my time in India was done independently. It was incredibly spur of the moment, and involves a good chunk of eating and shopping. Therefore, I’ll only point out the coolest things that I did and move on to Malaysia.

1.      With Maria off seeing the Taj, I became the leader of the group with regard to negotiating with the cab and rickshaw drivers. I think she must be rubbing off on me, because I was damn good at getting the deal that I wanted. Where the drivers wanted us to pay 200 rupees per person to get to the mall, I scoffed and snarled them down to 200 total for the group of 4. I actually was so stubborn regarding the prices I wanted that my group had to pull me away and tell me to just pay what they wanted at one point. I was PISSED. Sure, the difference between 50 rupees and 100 rupees is only 1 dollar, but I was NOT willing to get ripped off. The 1 dollar wasn’t the point. It was the PRINCIPLE of the thing. I am slowly becoming a beast.

2.      I went to a really classy, touristy Indian restaurant. I was NOT happy at having to pay American prices for India food, but boy was I treated like nobility. A guy literally pulled up with a cart, yes, a CART of different types of chutneys and told us to pick as many as we wanted. We also got a traditional Indian folk band playing on the floor right next to us. I got the try the wooden flute! I have a new fondness for that Indian cottage cheese thing. I don’t remember what it’s called because I’m in a room full of loud girls, but you know what I’m talking about.

3.      I went on a wild rickshaw ride. Seriously, I think our driver was drunk. And considering the nature of Indian traffic? It was like the roller coaster ride from hell.

4.      Gabriela and I watched half a Bollywood movie. I would have watched the other half, except for the part where it was all in Tamil with no subtitles. But I got the general gist of what was going on: super cool spy-cop-hero guy was trying to live up to his comatose father and stop an evil gangster but then his father comes out of a coma and it’s awesome but there’s a love interest who hates him and then there’s a train and OH NO WILL IT HIT THE HERO and also song and dance breaks. So yeah.

INDIA.