What whitey wants, whitey gets…most of the time
Like I mentioned last time, the plan was to catch the jungleboat ride at 3:30pm from the ashram to get to Kollum, where we’d have to spend the night and then figure out how to get to Kanyakumari (at the very tip of India) via Trivandrum the following day. It all sounded a bit exhausting and we’d been traveling pretty hard, so I took immediate note when I noticed on the travel info board that one of the options to Trivandrum was a pre-arranged taxi for 1500 rupees (about $38). And then it occurred to us that maybe we could just get driven all the way to Kanyakumari and be done with it. The conversation about whether or not to spend $75 to buy ourselves a whole day where we didn’t have to do anything lasted all of about three minutes.
As it turned out, an Italian guy came along too so we only paid $25 each for the five hour taxi ride to the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu, but we still felt like decadent western mem sahibs stepping into our silver SUV with tinted windows.
We kept it going by checking into a hotel with cable tv, a balcony overlooking the ocean, and… wait for it… room service! Surprisingly, we managed to wait until the staff had dropped off our bags and left before jumping around singing, “I love it! I love it! Yay!!” Mary vowed to do nothing the next day except watch tv and order room service. As I write this at 5pm we’re laying on the bed watching the Discovery Channel and trying to decide what to order up for dinner. It’s the best thing ever.
All this ease and luxury made me ambitious. I’ve needed scotch tape so I can tape all the little odds and ends I’ve accumulated – ticket stubs, newspapers clippings, etc. – into my journal. The concierge pointed me to the main bazaar, where people pointed me to a general store, but the store was out of tape. As I was leaving a man in a storefront called out, “Madame, internet.” “I don’t need internet,” I replied, “I need cello tape.” He pointed across the street to the general store. I told him I’d tried but they didn’t have it. He looked at me like the clueless, incapable child that I basically am in their culture and said only, “Come.” We went back to the general store where a typically long, involved exchange took place in Tamil before Internet Guy was satisfied there truly was no tape to be had. So he pointed me to another store I never found.
I’d already asked about three hundred people but figured I’d ask one last person before turning into the driveway to my hotel. The exchange went like this:
Taxi Guy: Madame, taxi.
Me: No taxi. But I do need cello tape.
TG (clearly not getting the t-word at the end): Tomorrow?
Me: Maybe. But now I need cello tape.
TG: Temple?
Me (trying not to laugh at his serious, concentrated attempts to guess what I wanted): Tape.
TG: Tape, tape, tape. (Long pause before an idea dawned on him and he made a hand-to-mouth gesture) You want eating?
At that I couldn’t help laughing. “Usually, but not right now. Thank you for your help.”
So now we know what whitey wants: taxies, temples and eating. Sounds about right to me.
Tags: Kanyakumari
sandyo
Don’t forget rugs. Whitey also wants heavily discounted oriental rugs, packed for air travel or shipped directly home.