burrrrocrrrrazzzzy

fuckit, I am hot... and I am bothered...

Had a good weekend in Bangalore last weekend, and arrived into Mysore on Tuesday. Had a bit of a look around and looked at the different yoga options available. They appear to be as follows:

1. One week's very expensive yoga hanging around with pretensious assholes (who are here for months on end) in a nice neighboorhood,
2. One week's cheaper yoga with cooler people in a shithole of a neighbourhood, spending a lot of time hanging around doing nothing (once yoga is over at eight am)

Either way, it's very hot and unpleasant during the day.

I've weighed up my options and given that my stated goal is to get north asap (cos I feel bad having spent almost four months down south) and that I'm fed up with the heat, I've decided to cut and run.

I'm currently on the waiting list for a 30 hour train from here to Mumbai tonite, but that probably won't work so I'll have head to Bangalore and from there then to Mumbai tomorrow morning.

What a fucking day... I got my first taste of today's theme this morning at breakfast in my hotel. A fairly quiet hotel restaurant... One man shows me to a table (and then proceeds to stand around scratching his arse for the rest of the time i'm there), one man takes my order (and then proceeds to stand around scratching his arse for the rest of the time i'm there), one man brings my order (having been scratching his arse since I arrived), one man brings my bill (having stood around scratching his arse during my whole meal) and then I pay at the cashier (who has been sitting there playing with his balls since I came in). The restaurant has one maitre d', four waiting staff, three table cleaning staff, two general orderlies, two cashiers, god knows how many cooks... and three customers. Apart from a three second burst of activity twice a day, they all generally sit around scratching themselves and talking shit (actually, that's not fair, I don't know what they're talking, they could be on the verge of discovering the meaning of life)...

So next I go to the DHL office. I have to send a friends camera back to him. There's a boss, a cashier, a package wrapper and a clerk... and I'm clearly the only customer they'll be getting all day. The clerk blatantly doesn't know what's going on in the world... I'm tempted to remind him that he's in a DHL office in Mysore, where he works. After twenty minutes of too-ing and fro-ing about whether I can send a camera or not (including multiple calls to third parties), another ten minutes trying to find out the price, about half an hour trying to share with them the details of the recipients address (which they deem wholly irrelevant to the operation), I finally get to the payment stage. This is when I can't hold in my amusement anymore... The clerk having assured me multiple times that I can pay with credit card, when I hand him my visa card, he, the packager, the boss and the cashier all crowd around it, as if it were a piece of kryptonite which had just fallen from the sky. They don't know what's going on at all at all... With an insubduable smirk, I point to the credit card machine, at which the huddle gasps and moves over to it solemnly. They look at the machine, they look at the card... they know that one is the secret to the other and that somehow all can be made good with their combination. Unlike later on the in the day, when I get authentially riled, I'm still bemused by all this madness and show them how to plug the machine in, how to swipe the card... the bossman puts in the amount of 27 rupees and 25 paise. I correct it to read 2725 rupees (I'm too honest), put in my PIN and all five of us look at the screen... The bossman is astounded by my ability to work the machine, so I tell him I work in a bank to make it more understandable. Out comes the reciepts, which I rip off. I give him the one that says 'merchant copy'... He's points at where it says 'merchant copy', smiling... I show him my copy and point at 'customer copy'... He is verging on the delerious. He points at his copy and says 'signaturrrrr'. I point at the writing saying 'signature not required', but sign anyway... ye know, to make him happy. I shake everyone's hand, thank them profusely... they reciprocate and I leave, grinning ear to ear.

Next port of call... Train station! Oh, oh, I hear you say... the public sector. But atually, the trains are about the only thing which work quite well here. They are effecient and effective and I have no qualms about them. The only problems with them are due to communications with the clerks and also being too lazy to organise anything in advance and leaving everything until the last minute (which is my own problem)...

Then I went to the post office and to the internet cafe. Both were equally shitty organised and I found myself doing my usual trick: When I find myself getting snappy and riled, then I close my eyes, take a couple of deep breathes and say to myself: "Getting worked up won't help this situation, the best thing I can do is to enjoy it and try to make to make the best out of it.... Ommmmmmmmm na ma shivaya!"

I hope my next update will be from Mumbai very soon.

Be good,

Ur man in Red-tape-istan