India Belated

I'm on my 6th day in India, which means this blog is a bit late... But it's here. My dad is on a mission to be interviewed on a radio station here, so I've finally had a bit of time to do something like this. 

So this trip began with a few days in Japan, then two weeks in Australia, and now, India. 

I might write about Australia later, but for now, India. The first thing I noticed on the way from the plane to the gate was the smell. A strong, hot smell like car oil and spices. That's mostly all there is in Chennai, actually. My dad and I bought a pre-paid taxi ticket and piled my skimboard and luggage into the old... car? Wow, it looks like a beetle, but it's got a soft lining on the inside. No seat belts. I was soon to learn those are rare here... Our driver made up for his lack of speech with his car horn. The only part of the car that was clean was the horn, because he pushed it so much. 

There aren't any lanes on the road, but I'm pretty sure they drive on the left here. The only thing that clues me in on that is that the steering wheel is on the right, not the left. When there's no opposing traffic, the road becomes a massive one way street. Once in a while there will be someone going the other way on the right... or the left, either, really. 

Driving here is economical in a way. Whole families ride on a single motorcycle. 

So far the most I've see

n is four people on a motorcycle, two parents, two kids, no helmets. Wait, no that's a moped. How do they... The entire street is moving so fast I don't quite get to figure it out. 

The food was a lot more terrifying to me than the road, though. Thanks to my dad, I had already heard of string-bean like man-killers that set your mouth on fire. 

So i wasn't looking forward to it. I ordered the Thali, which is a mixture of local dishes. 

A large silver platter is put in front of me, lined with little cups of terror around the outer edge. So I carefully dipped my fried something-or-other in a cup of spicy looking death and put it in my trembling mouth... Not bad. Not bad at all. So the food turned out to be quite good. 

So my first impression of India: Awesome place. The food is great, I've even skimmed a little, too, but I'm glad I'm not doing any driving here. It's good to be here.