Today was mostly staying at home and unpacking and cleaning some more. I've been craving some American food all day. After 3 weeks straight of jiao-zi (potstickers), noodles, fried rice...i just wanted a burger. S. was fine, but he obliged me (what a sweet man!). The only things "western" available around here are McDonalds and KFC - and since we don't do McDees, it was KFC.
S. wanted to take a bus, which was fine, since getting a taxi at this time from out here in Boonieville is impossible. There were a lot more accidents than we'd ever seen in such a short period of time, even in the U.S. We didn't see one accident all the time we were in India. Fortunately, most car accidents aren't the twisted carnage one might find in the US, probably because folks drive slower around here.
On the way back, we decided to save some money and take a bus as well. There are only two buses that stop by our campus (509 and 523). We saw a 523 and climbed aboard. Our campus is off of a little side road left of the main road. This bus shot right past the left turn and kept going straight, much to our (mine mostly) trepidation. The next stop, where we got off, was at least 2 km past the intersection and i had never been to this part of the city.
It was quite deserted at the bus stop, with a couple motorbike taxi guys hoping to provide a ride. We headed for a footbridge that would take us across the road and hopefully back to our campus. It was pretty late (around 10:00 p.m.) and very dark. On the other side of the bridge, there were a couple restaurants. On a whim, S. and I decided to explore (since we were there anyway and probably wouldn't come back)...we saw an entire alley of shacks selling everything from blankets to shoes. It was a whole 'nother - quite alive - world out there. I would have never guessed even just standing at the bus stop, a hundred feet away. This market was much more dirty and it was outdoors. We picked up a couple items because they were unbelieveably cheap. After walking about half way through the alley, i was done, but S. saw some blinking lights at the end that he was curious about, so we decided to walk the entire length of this place.
The "lights," we discovered, were decorations for karaoke bars. There were about 15 of them with no doors sitting right next to each other (i.e. sharing a wall), forming a giant "L" shape. It was horrendous! Incredibly dissonant sounds eminating from each bar as tone-deaf singers tried to drown their neighbors, in order to hear themselves. Stick 15 tone-deaf people in a room, all singing a different song, in Chinese, at the top of their lungs and it's close to what we heard that night. My ears are still ringing. (There's an oxy-moron: a tone-deaf Chinese. You'd think they'd be really good since Chinese is a tonal language.)
We took a taxi back. The whole thing (the bus ride and taxi) ended up costing more than had we just taken a taxi back. So much for "saving money" - but then again, we would have missed out on the karaoke bars.
