It's India, baby!

A small update:
• I am in India
• I bought a 350ccm Royal Enfield Bullet
• I will travel around India
• I don’t smoke
• I hope my insurance covers all that shit








5 ways to find out that you are in India:

1. The most important part of a vehicle is the horn.
2. You feel like in a retirement home because you and your friends talk about deceases all the time.
3. You take diareah tablets like vitamin pills.
4. You take a nap on the beach and wake up because a cow is licking your face.
5. Fruit vendors on the beach offer you banana, papaya and marihuana.


I am in India. In Goa to be precise. This place rocks! It’s been 2 weeks now, that I spent here and I think India will take me a little longer than I had expected.
I flew in from Bangkok and spent the night at the Mumbai airport, in order to get a train the next day and cut the costs for accommodation. At 5 in the morning two blond finish girls showed up, running around like chicken (sorry guys :-)) asking where to book domestic flights to Goa. So I joined them and we went to Goa together. Frankly I did not have any plan of what I would do once I arrived in India. Since then I am officially a “travel parasite”. We spent 7 great days in Goa before they left back to Finland, where it is freezing cold at the moment I think. Kathi, Miia and Henry if you’ll ever read this: I had a really great time with you and I’m so looking forward to see you guys snowboarding down the mountains of Kitzbühel.





The wobble

Negotiating or bargaining with Indian people is always a fun experience. You enter a shop and try some clothes, then you ask the price and start to bargain. Not expecting anything unusual to happen you see how the head of the person you talk to starts to wiggle from one side to the other. It seems like the head is rolling off his shoulders, and you think: “Hey my friend, does your neck hurt or is this some kind of hypnotic game.” We call it “The Wobble”. Indian people wiggle theirs heads when arguing or discussing something. It’s just fun watching it. I tried to do it as well and it really works. Whenever I talk to an Indian now I immediately start to wiggle my head, and he does it as well. This can last for the whole conversation, facing each other talking about prices and doing the wobble. It is a very good indicator for finding out if the person you talk to knows what he or she is talking about. Meaning when you ask for the way and the other person starts to wiggle his head you can be 80% sure that the following answer will be bullshit. Compared to China and Thailand this is a great improvement, because there is no such indicator on those countries, they just let you walk in whatever direction appeals to them, in order to not loosing their face because of not knowing the right answer.


Shanti

“It’s the shanty, man!” You hear this line everywhere around, and the only way to find out what the shanty is, is to live the shanty. Shanty is waiting for your order in a restaurant for one hour, and being glad that it came so fast. Shanty is getting out of your room to buy a piece of soap at the grocery store 10 meters away and returning 2 and a half hours later. Shanty is like yesterday but tomorrow. Shanty is everything in lower gear. Sometimes it seems to me everything is so leaned back here, that I wonder how people can stand upright. Possibly it’s because of the drugs or the food or the water, but people in Goa are definitely not willing to win a price for living on the fast lane. “Shanty, shanty, man!”


Soap story

My finish friends and me rented two beach huts for two persons each. After settling down we went to some bars to get used to this place. Next morning I woke up, went to the bathroom and started to wash my hands. Then I noticed: The soap is gone. I asked my roommate Henry if he had seen my soap, “no”. The next day I was alone in my beach hut because the finish guys had left to go home, and I made my way to the grocery store to buy another soap. I put it on the sink locked the door and went to sleep. Waking up in the morning taking a shower, reaching out for the soap and, - guess what- the soap is gone! I thought someone must be playing tricks on me- it wouldn’t be the first time, right ;-)?
A mouse actually stole my soap two times. Such hygienic animals!