HICKMAN FAMILY - Lifetime in Asia
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​

A trip to India...


Mumbai airport was my entry point and stands out as they are upgrading the airport. However, for current travellers (and certainly for passengers for the next couple years) it is like picking your way through a mine field... It is great to have wheels on your suitcase but mine did not survive being dragged over chunks of concrete, the smallest being the size of your fist (and that was inside the terminal). Third failed suitcase this year!Bangalore was where I spent the most time in a car as the property I was visiting was way out of town. I timed my arrival exactly at the right moment to experience when thousands (no exaggeration) of trucks are allowed to enter the city (banned from entering the city 6am-9pm, to help solve the already impossible road congestion). I hit the roads from the airport at preciously 905pm. Imagine thousands of dark, smelly, angry, woolly mammoths lumbering to life and taking over every lane, shoulder with total disregard to direction of flow... Imagine the smells that a huge beast that has been sleeping for a 1000 years would give off (internal and external) spewing and blackening already polluted skies... Not one with head nor taillights, no side or rear-view mirrors and every one of them painted with the words "OK to Honk", on the back. The one rule everyone follows, ALL THE TIME! "NO FEAR" best describes my driver who got us through it all, amazingly unscathed but weary after 3 hours of dodging huge over loaded semi's, oh, and did I mention the cows (literally the kind that moo! a sacred beast in India) are wandering aimlessly through the maze of broken down and diagonally parked trucks and randomly crossing the road at every street-light-less curve? The drive back to the airport the next day was no less memorable...

Chennai presented me with a 900am appointment. To which I am happy to report I was 15 minutes early for! Dressed in a crisp white shirt, my "power red" tie and freshly pressed suit even if I do say myself, I was looking like something out of GQ! I headed to the elevators to find them 'under repair'. All four and the signs looked like they had been there a long time... The office was on the 12th floor, easily do-able in an air-conditioned building... (I think you know where this is going), did I mention it was 94 degrees with 98 % humidity and then there were the resort catalogues I was toting along with computer etc etc... By the time I arrived I looked like the poster boy for The World's Dirtiest Jobs'. The only crease left on me was where my shoulder strap had sunk in well below normal shoulder skin level... Calcutta was memorable on so many levels... Most of which (traffic, heat, smells etc.) I have already mentioned so won't repeat myself... Add to it flooding from monsoon rains, a huge impoverished, highly illiterate population headed by government officials who say things like (no joke, this is a real quote) "we need to stop hydro-electricity from entering our state because it will take all the electricity out of the water and we will be powerless"! Need I say more... But to leave on a positive note and show my glass over-floweth... I am not going to even mention the diarrhoea or fever that kicked in midweek.. I will say India is the best place in the world to be a driver (bus, truck, private car etc). Where else can you climb behind the wheel of a vehicle with no prior experience, no licence, no tests, no rules, no right of way... NO FEAR! Its back to Vietnam next week I am sure to have something to report...
Picture
www.JosephHickman.com
  • Home
  • Family Photos
    • Hickman Family Photos Dec 2024
    • 2022 December Photo Shoot
    • 2021 Thanksgiving in the Desert
    • 2020 Random Photos in the Year of COVID
    • 2019 Family Singapore
    • 2018 Hickmans in Singapore
    • 2017 Singapore Family Photos
    • Christmas 2016 Family Photos
    • Margot Geraldine Bateman
    • Alexis' Baby Shower
    • Alexis' in Singapore Sept 14
    • Hickman Ancestry
    • The early years...
    • The 70's
    • Joe & Gerri's Wedding 1976
    • The 80's...
    • Christmas 1998
    • Christmas 1999
    • Hickman Holiday Herald 2000
    • Kathy visits Singapore
    • 2001 off to a rough start
    • Christmas 2001
    • Hickman Holiday Herald 2010
    • Hickman Holiday Herald 2011
    • Alexis' Graduations
    • Alexis & Adam Engagement
    • Alexis & Adam's Wedding
    • JR & Cui Engagement
    • JR & Cui Mei's Wedding
  • Moments
    • Fight Cancer
    • Alexis writes about Cancer
    • Aquaria
    • Joe's Ankle Break
    • Taco Bell
    • A trip to India
    • Buying a Singapore home
    • Only in China
    • BMW & Cantalopes
    • The Sofa
    • Alexis' Car
    • Flying on 911
    • Unforgettable gift!
    • A very long trip!
    • Harry & Sylvia go to Hong Kong
    • Things I like
    • You get to travel
    • Pearls of Wisdom
    • Nepal
    • Travel to China & Thailand
  • Travel
    • PanamaCruise
    • 5-Night SE Asia Cruise
    • 24-night Cruise - Singapore-Japan-Singapore
    • Disney Mediterranean Cruise
    • Alaska Cruise
    • Cruise to New Zealand
    • Cruise Life - A new passion
    • Cruise to 'No-Where'
    • Phuket 2019
    • 2019 April - Hong Kong Disneyland
    • Royal Caribbean SE Asia
    • Thanksgiving in the Desert
    • Trip to Fiji and Sydney
    • Yangon, Myanmar 2005
    • Angkor Wat 2013
    • Burma with Alexis
    • New York 2013
    • Gardens by the Bay
    • India 2012
    • Hokkaido, Japan 2012
    • Kathmandu 1999
    • Queenstown New Zealand
    • Alexis & Joe head to Beijing in 2005
    • Vietnam over the years
    • JR & Joe in Borneo
    • Weekend in San Francisco
    • Joe in Myanmar Dec 2006
    • Pine Lake Manor
    • Bangkok, Thailand
    • Trip to Tibet
    • Sydney, Australia 2004
    • Trip to Thailand, Myanmar & China with Kit & Darren
    • 2002 Trip to Kunming & Lijiang
    • 2002 Trip to Ho Chi Minh with Gerri
  • Videos
  • New Page