birthday massage

so i'm not in pondicherry.  i was to be starting the rickshaw run today, but things did not go as i had hoped.  we were going to celebrate my bday there too, last night, hanging out and exploring pondicherry.   i quickly came up with bday plan b.

i thought it would be a nice treat to have an in-home massage, and called a woman who came highly recommended.  she showed up 30 minutes late, without calling me, was totally rude, and had no massage table.  in fact, all she had with her was a mangy, very old and very used, dirty soda bottle in which she had the 'massage oil.'  she marched into my kitchen and started looking for my cooking oil, so that she could mix the two together and rub my skin with it!  ewww!!  it smelled like rotten peanuts, and the whole flat REAKED the rest of the day.  barf.  she then wanted to massage me on the marble floor.  huff.  i realized i was 100% unimpressed with her ... never mind the fact that her tardiness left us with not enough time to even go through with the massage, i did not feel comfortable getting naked for her, and politely apologized, asking her to leave.  shit.  she turned into a little, female, indian version of the incredible hulk.  she started SCREAMING at me!  calling me 'chutia' and losing all control over herself.  i paid her for the oil (a total scam, at 400 rupees for 1/2 a soda bottle), and told her in no uncertain terms that she needed to leave my house.  i threatened to call the police (which really doesn't mean anything here, but i just didn't know what else to say!), and held the door open for her while she continued to scream.  she finally left, and i could hear her still yelling at me in the hall, and all the way down the elevator!

i then called a buncha spas, trying to book, but they were all full at such a late hour.  since we were about to head to the breach candy club, i thought i'd try booking there, too.  haha.  their response?  'i'm sorry madam, we only do ladies' massages in the mornings.'  !!  it was like 130 in the afternoon at that point.

oh, india.

the day turned out great, though, for having no real plan.  i ended up spending all day and night with great friends, great food, and great, big, huge amounts of tasty beverages.

happy new year!

rickshaw driving in pune

karilyn, paul, stacie and i rented a car and drove out to pune yesterday.  stacie's friend anji heard about our rickshaw run, and absolutely insisted we come to pune for rickshaw driving and maintenance lessons.  anji has a business with his son, giving enfield motorcycle tours of india.  we happily obliged, and found ourselves stalling all over the busy roads of pune this morning.  eep.  i have to admit i was freaked out at first.  it was definitely scary, but we had a great teacher.  although he was not exactly a master of the english language (if he wanted us to speed up he'd say, 'more race!'), he was able to ease our fears and we're all very excited now ...  to get to pondicherry and hit the road!

(thank you stacie, for being such a good sport ... organizing all this for us, even though you've broken your wrist and now can't go on the run!)

pune has pugs and nice light!

how to keep a karma kab healthy

things learned:  child labor is alive and well in the pune rickshaw world, it takes at the very LEAST 9 rickshaw-walas to teach 3 foreigners rickshaw maintenance, and the necessary tools include scissors, plastic, 'nipples,' and duct tape.  oh, and a tree.  if we get a flat, we have been instructed to tip the rick and lean it against a tree in order to replace the tire.  i love efficiency.

in pune for rick lessons

gross

a desperate solution to the roach invasion of the new flat ... the ant graveyard, or the kitchen sink ... the color of the water, day one in the new flat.

the 'we have internet' happy dance

 ... only, we didn't, and wouldn't for almost another week!  if you look closely, you can see the internet guys negotiating with the old man who lives in the building next door, who didn't let us string our wire around the outside of his building.  jerk.

moving day

the byculla flat that was not to be

although i loved the old, colonial style of this flat, we didn't like where it was located.  the old man told me it was next to a nursery.  i thought, 'sweet!  plants!' ... i was wrong.  it was directly across the hall from a different kind of nursery.  

this was the same old man who, when stacie and i went to see the place, had a huge screaming match in front of us with his wife, who clearly hated me ... about how desperate they were for money, and how she should shut the bleep up and find him the keys so we could look at the place.  she kept screaming in hindi, and he would yell back, 'we need cash in our pockets NOW!  now fetch me the keys!'  it was highly dramatic.  our friend richard orange suggested the place to us, after he saw it.  they hadn't liked richard and his supposed (well, there was NO WAY they could have known) swinging bachelor lifestyle, and she certainly thought no higher of me!

rickshaw run!!

early this year, karilyn told us about the rickshaw run.  it's an event held twice yearly in india (and other countries), in which 70 or so teams of randomly selected people buy new rickshaws and drive them across india.  the point is to raise money for charities, and at the end the rickshaws are donated to families (i'm sure there is much tuning up and repair work, first!) who can use them as a source of income.  well ... we thought at the time that this sounded like an excellent adventure, and entered our names into the lottery.  sadly we were not chosen, but karilyn's group was, and last week one of her team members broke her wrist so hey!  i get to go on the rickshaw run!  wheeeeeee!  (at least i think i will ... there's still the pesky issue of obtaining my international driving permit, and a few other details to work out.)  but provided those kinks get ironed ... yes, i am going to drive a rickshaw, along with karilyn and paul, roughly 2,000 miles from pondicherry to shillong.  in two weeks.  it's going to be INSANE.  

if you would like to donate to the cause, you can make a donation (as small or large as you'd like) by going here or here.  OR, you can help sponsor me personally in this endeavor.  i've joined at the very last minute, and have until now not done any fundraising at all!  if you'd like to donate to my own sponsorship, drop me an email.  (nixonb@gmail.com)