Travel Chapter 19 India

I am writing this piece after we have been at sea for 4 days traveling out of Chennai. During this period, I realized what a great advantage it is to do this traveling by ship rather than by air.

One does not have to pack up trunks, get taxis, take planes which may be late and then repeat the process at the other end. On a ship, one goes ashore with what is needed for the days ahead and leaves all other things on the ship. On this trip, we are all 3 using backpacks which are easy to pack and carry.

But the real advantage of traveling by ship is that we have a lot of time between countries we visit. This gives us time to reflect on the experiences, the impressions and the first reactions collected in these countries. It gives one time to sit and discuss with other travelers about what one has seen, heard, smelled and felt. Jumping from country to country is dangerous in any case but a ship provides a period to absorb and to reflect on what one has seen. These days between ports allow the traveler time to sort out a lot of experiences and sort out the facts from the fantasy and to order the experiences in memory.

Now to our travels during our stay in India. You can see pictures of this visit at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/akeyserlingk/India2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCOibrM7FwpX_owE&feat=directlink.

We arrived in Chennai right on schedule at 8am. Indian authorities required that each of us complete 4 different forms: 1 form for arrival, 1 for departure, 1 for customs and one for landing pass. Amazing amount of paper but that was just the beginning. Although in most ports, the authorities do their review of passports as soon as we arrive and clear the boat within an hour, the Indian authorities needed well over 3 hours to clear the ship. We were then required to carry a shore pass as well as a customs form when we went ashore.

Anticipating this long delay, I had ordered a taxi for 11am to take us to Pondicherry. I went out ahead of the others to find the taxi on the pier but could not find our driver. I wanted to get my cell phone activated. In India, in order to get a cell phone one must go to an authorized store armed with passport, a copy of proof of residence and money to pay. Then one fills out forms required by government. The phone is activated but it takes 3 days to have full use of the phone pending government review of the documents submitted. If the documents clear, the cell phone is then given the full range of services.

But I did not have time or the inclination to go through this elaborate procedure. I enquired from the ship agent how I could get an Indian cell phone card. He said that I would find people willing to sell me a sim card. So when I got to the end of the pier where several taxi drivers were waiting, I enquired who had sim cards and a man stepped up, pulled out a stack of cards. He offered me one saying it would cost US$20. I then took the sim card and inserted it into my phone. Sure enough it worked although it only had the equivalent of US$ 10 on the card. My man then checked that the card was active by phoning my phone on the number provided on the card. I then paid him and I was immediately in business. I was hardly on land for more than 5 minutes and I had already broken two government regulations. I had acquired a cell phone without doing all the paperwork and I had paid for it in for currency. I am told that the paperwork is required for security reasons but if the cards can be obtained as easily as I had just done, I wonder why the Indian authorities go to such trouble. This was but the beginning of my exposure to Indian government regulations.

Armed with my new cell phone I rang the cell phone number of my driver that I had been given by the hotel in Pondicherry. I reached him but could not understand a word he was saying. So I turned to one of the guides who were waiting for the students who were going on tours and asked him to speak to my man. After a few moments, it became clear that my driver had not been allowed into the port area and that we would have to walk to the gate to meet him. We could have taken one of the taxis but they wanted $3 just to drive us the 1 mile to the gate.

For some unknown reason, the Indian authorities required all the passengers to walk or take a rickshaw to the main gate which meant walking on the main port road which was not only filthy with coal and other dust but dangerous as it was the main road in and out of the port with trucks barreling along at breakneck speed. On a previous voyage, we had been permitted to exit the port through a gate just in front of the ship but Government regulation now required the long march. When we finally got to the gate, it became clear that the real reason for this was that the rickshaw and taxi drivers were paying of the guards at the gate to have access to the port to then be able to rip us off. Thus the bribing going on in front of us was also being paid by us. A wonderful picture of corruption in operation with 700 foreign tourists as witnesses.

So after the long march through the dirtiest port I have ever seen, in the noon day sun, we finally got to the gate 7 where we were allowed to exit after a close scrutiny by the guards at the gate seeking to find errors which would allow them to hassle out students. Nice welcome. We found our driver Ravi waiting there for us with a sign with our name. We got into his car and his first question was whether we wanted Air Conditioning or not. With temperature at 95 and the air filthy dirty with pollution, that was not a difficult question to answer. I know that this would ad $6 to our trip cost but well worthwhile for the 3 hour drive. I had agreed to the fare in advance with the hotel which quoted $40 for the trip.

We then headed out into the traffic of Chennai. I had the dubious honor of sitting in the seat beside the driver. This gave me a prime view of the chaos of traffic with which I never really got comfortable. Traffic in India is like no where in the world. I had been away from Indian traffic for several years and had forgotten how terrible it is. The only saving grace is that cars cannot go very fast anyway and road rage is an unknown thing in this county. Cars zig zag through mazes of motorized 3 wheel rickshaws, motorcycles, cows, trucks, buses while everybody is hooting their horns and mutually cutting each other off. It is the most amazing scene to watch except that one is so white knuckled that the experience is somewhat strenuous as one is constantly pressing ones foot to the floor or grabbing the “holy shit” handle above the door… Indians make maximum use of the small road space and there is nothing wasted. But traffic moves constantly, albeit at a snail pace. We stopped on the way out and visited the church of St Thomas who had come to India as the first missionary of the Christian faith. He lived many years in India and wrote and epistle which was not accepted into the New Testament. Apparently, mainly because he advocated that man really did not need a church to communicate with god. This of course did not sit well with church authorities and it was the beginning of what became know as the Gnostic believers. Many consider Thomas was influenced in his thinking by the various religions he encountered on his arrival in India. He is very much seen as an Indian saint and his Church in Chennai is considered a very holy place where his remains are said to be buried In fact, in the area we visited there are many Christian churches to be seen today and a good percentage of the population is still Christian. According to his gospels, he is seen as the father of the Gnostic belief which holds that no one needs a church for relations with God. This is the reason his gospel was not included in the New Testament.

We then drove on out about 30 miles south of Chennai when we started in at the Fisherman’s Cove hotel where we had stayed on our last trip to India. There we went for a walk on the beautiful beach and then had a lovely mean of the best Indian food. We then carried on to Pondicherry which is about 130 kms from Chennai. The road we traveled was a two lane highway with the usual collection of modes of transport including bikes, taxis, trucks, cows and an assortment of sheep and goats. Despite all this, traffic does move albeit slowly.

We arrived at hotel, the Coloniale Heritage at around 4 pm. It was a converted old French house with 6 rooms. We got the biggest room which had a high ceiling, air conditioning and even a little garden off the room. The manager of the hotel was a French woman married to an Indian. We dropped our things in our room and Emmett did the same in his room. We then headed out to the walkway along the coastline. It was a beautiful wide walkway with lots of people enjoying the afternoon sundown. It was clean and houses were well painted. The whole area of Pondicherry is called the white sector. I am not sure that is because the houses are white or because the quarter was reserved for the French living there. Interestingly, the official language of Pondicherry is reported as French and the street names are not only in French but are written on blue signs as they do in France today.

Nick and Milena arrived an hour after us. They had flown into Chennai from Delhi and driven down to Pondicherry also by taxi. It was a fun reunion as we had seen them last in Nassau, Bahamas when we first left. Emmett was quite pleased to see his parents and had many stories to tell.

We had a fun family diner that night and turned in early to our respective rooms in the hotel. The next morning we had arranged for a three bench taxi to take us out to visit Aurorville which is a kind of ashram con peace community set up in the 1960’s. It is also a tourist attraction. There are many Europeans who joined the sect and took up residence there. They are the last remnants of a community which was supposed to reach 50,000 persons and today has only 2000 residence. So one sees many elderly white persons pedaling bicycles around the city. The place has an enormous ball set in a garden which has the diameter of about 8 stories. In order to enter, one must make reservations several days in advance. It was an interesting visit but somewhat frustrating as one feels excluded by the sect.

That afternoon I went to a little hotel down the street which had an internet café. I was told that I had to register before I could use the internet. I asked why, and got the usual answer:”Government regulation”… I struck up a conversation with the hotel owner who told me that he had finished the hotel 18 months ago but he had only received permission to have enough power to run 3 rooms. I asked why and was told:” Government regulation”..

That evening we met up with George and Maggi Thomas . He is the professor of Linguistics on the ship and both Emmett and I take courses from him, although different subjects. They were staying also at the same hotel.

The next day, Brigitte and I headed back to Chennai with our driver. Emmett stayed with his parents to do some sightseeing at Bahamalipuram which we had seen on our previous trip. It was also good for Emm to have a couple of days with his parents.

We returned to the ship after 2 days away and found our ship to be totally dirty from standing 2 days in the dirty harbor of Chennai. It is so dirty that one does not even see seagulls who no doubt cannot deal with the coal dust and polluted air. Our ship is white and blue but in Chennai it became grey. Every railing and floor was cruddy with black soot.

The next morning we went from the ship to the hotel where Nick and Milena were staying for breakfast with our Indian computer guy , Tumul Sharan. He had come in overnight from Bangalore to meet with us. Tumul is the person with whom I developed the family website:
www.keyerlingk.info
He now is the one who administers the website. It was a fun lunch as we had not seen Tumul in 5 years and it was a good occasion for Nick to meet him. Nick and Milena were off at 11am heading to Delhi and Montreal. The 3 of us with Tumul headed off to a local shopping mall where we ambled around and I bought a very nice silk shirt. We had lunch with Tumul and then returned to the ship and Tumul went off to visit a friend in town.

We had hoped to have Nick and Milena visit the ship. The ship had given the necessary approvals and sent it to the Indian authorities who refused to give them permission to enter the port. When I asked why I was told:”Government regulations” This time I was really ticked off with Indian Government regulations. I pressed them to tell me why and I was told it was because Nick and Milena had Tourist visas. Of course, they had tourist visas as they were tourists. When I continued to question the logic as all 800 of the passengers of this ship had tourist visas and came and went into the port, I was again told: “Government regulations” I gave up and continue to believe that India is choking itself because of a plethora of Government Regulations.

Prior to the departure of the ship, I had a conversation with the local ship agent who was about to leave the ship. I said I was very upset that the Indian authorities had required our ship passengers to exit the dirty port of Chennai after walking almost a mile to the main gate rather than a gate in front of where the ship was tied up. Not only is the port the dirtiest I have ever seen, it also the most dangerous one as passengers must walk the distance to the main gate or take one of the taxis or rickshaws which were standing at the foot of the ship. Each one of these had bribed the guards at the gate to get into the port and we were paying these bribes each time we used the any one of them. I said the impression left with our students was that not only did corruption exist but that it was blatant. I really felt that this was a shame for India to project this view of the country. I told him that in my opinion, the only reason the authorities had required that our students had to go the whole mile to the main gate was that the guards wished to collect bribes from those drivers who came to the ship. I strongly suggested that next time if this ship decides to come to Chennai he should lay on a bus to take passengers from the ship out to a local shopping center from which they could continue on their own. He said he would discuss it.

Even our Captain and the program director got caught up in the mess. They had gone to dinner together and when they returned the guards at the gate did not want to let them return. Eventually they were allowed in but obviously they were looking for bribes but picked the wrong persons.

So we left India. The impressions are there. One day I would like to return to India but this time I would like to visit the northern part of this huge continent.
Cheers