Day Two

This morning I decided to skip the rickshaw and walk to the city center (which I later gave up on having gotten lost in no time at all) and I saw three cows and two stray dogs eating out of a pile of garbage. Sure enough, there was a cow eating a plastic bag... That was one of the few pictures I have taken so far. I haven't felt so much like taking pictures yet since everyone is already staring at me from every direction.

I bought a veggie peeler and some biscuits at the grocery store when I got into town. The veggie peeler is for the mango I bought yesterday that I'm not sure I should bite into or not without being worried. The biscuits are to hand out to all of the women with babies nipping gently at my heels as I wander around, the little boys with deformities making hand-to-mouth gestures, and the myriad other beautiful people in need of...anything.

It was getting dark as I ate dinner yesterday off M.G. road in downtown Bangalore, so I thought it wise to head home. I had written down the address to the hotel, but soon learned that pretty much NO ONE knew where I was talking about, no matter how many people I asked or how seemingly close the hotel was. I ended up in the City Market area, where Bangalore had been hiding all of its crazy. It's Diwali right now, and I'm not sure if that's why there were so many scrambling people all over the market, or if it's always like that at night. From there I tried to find the hotel on foot, but was obviously in the wrong area. I ended up surrounded by a gang of young (and surprisingly handsome) rickshaw drivers, all obviously lying to my face when I asked them if they knew where the hotel was and charging me huge amounts of money to help me find my hotel. I tried to haggle their prices down, but since no one knew where it was, I eventually just got into a rickshaw and let one of them give it a go. It was late and super, super overwhelming at that moment. Everywhere people yelling and hissing and staring and traffic a constant flow of noise and chaos. At one point my driver hit a motorcyclist. They both stopped and nodded politely to each other and continued on their way. At an intersection I looked to my right and saw a family of three on a motorbike, two parents with helmets, and one tiny child with no helmet. I waved and smiled at the child, who waved back and then they all sped noisily away. My driver stopped to ask three people along the way before finally finding the hotel. I was happy to pay him whatever at that point, and he and I introduced ourselves and had a moment to giggle at the scenario, afterwhich I darted inside to play ukulele for about half an hour and then passing out by 9 PM.