Asteroids in Real Life

The inside of an auto-richshaw. Takes notes: You'll be using these a lot!

I have officially arrived in the land of Curry and ... Uh, more Curry. And after the worse luck with my first flight, actually wound up arriving 30 mins early for my Mumbai flight.

Not a lot to report right now, I'm still pretty knocked out from last night, and because I can't sleep on moving vehicles = still going on 3 hours of sleep from yesterday.

So I'm pretty knackered right now.

But, that said, I did have my first Indian experience tonight: riding in a car! I've always heard how dangerous it is to drive in India, and 've seen all the amazing race/ travel shows that give you proof that it's not a wise thing to do. Brother, TVs got nothing on the real thing!

Remember the game Asteroids that used to be in every arcade in the 80s? For any of you who can't recall, in Asteroids you are the pilot of a small rocket ship as you try to find your way out of an asteroid storm. You can shoot the rocks to make them smaller, but the end result is the same: there's a shit ton of stuff constantly moving towards you...see where I'm going with this?

Just change the ship to taxi and the rocks to others cars and it's like you're in India!

It's absolutely crazy! I thought Vietnam was bad, but these guys actually SPEED UP when something's in front of them! At first I found it kind of quaint - a little queerity that belonged to India, but when we almost hit a woman and tried to run down a kid on a bike (to be fair he wasn't yielding), I got that "so this is how it ends" thought in my head.

Thankfully we got to the hotel okay, which has to be a testament to the drivers skill and not the worn breaks or tiled roads we drove on... Yeah, the roads are tiled here, not paved. Doesn't that make them more slippery?

Anyway, the main thing is I made here and learned a valuable lesson: no matter how bad you think drivers in your country are, there always be worse ones somewhere else .

Day 0 - Sleepless Nights, Big Feet, and A Touch of Meat

Well,after months of planning D-Day is finally here. Yesterday was a mad rush to finish a million errands that should've been taken care of weeks ago...what can I say? I procrastinate.

I had A LOT of clothes that needed buying for this trip, and stupidly forgot that yesterday was the last day of the Chinese New Year - a holiday I spend 500km trying to get rid of. I spent most of my time at a small "resort" in Mui Ne, and stupidly believed that when I got back on Thursday, that I would've missed the brunt of shops closing. Wrong!

All the major stores were still closed yesterday afternoon, so I wasted a good four hours trying to find the clothes i needed at the roadside stalls.

I managed to get TWO shirts that fit and a pair of shoes that feel half a size too small. Lucky for me too, because these are going to be my "trekking shoes" too. At least I got a discount on them.

The rest of yesterday was spent finishing up the other websites work, which took a lot longer than expected. I didn't eat anything until 10ish last night, and then I made the mistake of drinking pepsi = caffeine rush... Yeah, I'm going on three hours of sleep right now

But that's okay! I've made it to the airport, gouty my way through Viets who can't understand why people would ever queue for something when they could jump the line instead, gone through customs and ate at the first Burger King in Vietnam!

That will probably be my last taste of meat for quite a while. It seems like everything Indian I've ever met is a vegetarian so I'm expecting a lot of veggies when I get there. And no Beef. For a month. Me = Sad face.

Yup, in q few more minutes my flight will leave from Saigon, and after a layover in Kuala Lumpur, I'll be arriving late tonight in Mumbai. Can't wait as the 21 Days of India starts today!