Perous Secret Diary - Keep Out: February 14, 2007

ladies and gentlemen...
step right up.

Flew ‘how the other half (2%) live’ class through the night to Bombay (aka Mombai).
Had a good flight of course, unlike Ms. Hood who had the pleasure of flying cattle class.

Would have had a nice long time in the ridiculous Virgin ‘Clubhouse’ before the flight but having caught a bus to terminal 3 from the long stay car park, I had to catch another back... and then another back to the terminal again, because I’d left my essential (for this job) 70-200mm lens in my car.
Balls.

The Virgin Clubhouse is surreal; a cross between Barbarella, Gattaca and something else.
Ms. Hood, as my guest, cussed me for forgetting my lens and disabling her from getting a free haircut/ her shoes polished/ a jacuzzi/ a three course meal etc... (all gratis once you’ve paid 10-20x the amount of a standard ticket... or know someone who has)

8 and a bit hour flight.

Then a 5.5 hour wait at Bombay airport which has no Virgin Clubhouse but does have cold marble floors and/or very uncomfortable seats and no benches/sofas.

don\'t drink the water

Flew another 2 hours to Chennai on a domestic flight (which was MUCH better than anticipated).

We were met at the airport by a driver with a card, who speaky no english. he speaks tamal. Unfortunately we do not.

Had (almost) the most scary 3hr drive out of Chennai and over to the south east coast of India to pondicherry (the most scary drive was being driven back from bosnia at 100mph on snow covered roads, with a driver taking the ‘racing line’ through bends he couldn’t see round... I phoned mrs.perou to say ‘goodbye, I love you’).

The driver liked to stay in 3rd (gear) all the time... even when overtaking equally slow/fast moving vehicles and especially towards oncoming traffic on the other side of the road. this driving towards things seems to be the way to go here. Very narrowly missed buses, lorries, cattle drawn trailers, people etc... the driver and everyone else with a horn during the whole journey beeped every single vehicle he/they saw, presumably to let them know we were there (and about to crash into them).

Ms. Hood slept through most of this.

Just as I was thinking to myself, ‘how do I know we can trust this silent stranger, who’s been driving us hours out of town to somewhere?’ the driver pulled over the car, turned the lights off and without a word or sign of reassurance got out and walked off into the darkness.

Ms. Hood continued to sleep.

I assume he’d gone for a whiz as he came back shortly after and carried on
the driving.

Saw about a thousand things I wanted to stop and photograph, all just in quick strobing flashes as we drove past things illuminated by the car’s headlights: giant shrines to shiva(?) huge statues of giant zebras, emaciated cows in people’s doorways, no street lighting but fluorescent strips lights strung up in a kind of Blade Runner (spread out) shanty town kind of way, posters and signs. after a couple of hours of this I had to close my eyes too because of the sensory overload.

happy valentines day

On first impressions, India smells a bit like Mali: hot and sweaty mixed with fires burning: charcoal and occasionally plastic.

Ended up in Pondicherry at the beautiful beach resort we’re staying in.
It’s not as photogenic or interesting as the ‘real’: the under privileged outside: it’s a tourist resort for rich folk but it’s VERY chilled.

Continuing the ‘leaving camera gear behind’ behaviour, left my snappy camera in the car we’d been brought to the hotel in.

Had a late mild curried dinner by the pool.
And realising I’d lost my camera (more angry that I’d lose some good shots) went to bed grumpy.

Something funky’s going on with the internet here too...