Arrival

39 hours later, after "sleeping" on floors in the airport and in economy seats on the plane, and watching Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps twice, and having our internal clock completely turned around, we step out into the Bangalore International Airport. It's around 2:30 AM and we spot Luther easily, towering over the crowd of small Indians holding up American and German names on bright white paper.

Somehow, because of a large overhang, walking out of the main doors we don't realize that we are actually outside until 5 minutes later. There's no snow? It's not 20º?

It's still dark out so our hour ride on the taxi is fairly (and thankfully) underwhelming, but we get our first taste of No Rules traffic. By this point it's nearly 4 AM but there are still small crowds of people walking around the bus depot where we are dropped off. It's only a few blocks to the hotel but on the way I experienced 1,000 different wafting scents (mostly unpleasant). There was a man peeing on the side of the road and 15 or so different rickshaw drivers insisted that we needed a ride.

The hotel is simple, but pleasant enough. Most importantly it has a western toilet and a television that provides mainly English television. We are happy to see Luther and he makes a wonderful host, providing water, bananas and my new favorite treat: Good Day Rich Butter cookies.

We settle down under small, thin blankets and close our eyes. Unfortunately instead of sleep we discover the one thing about India I will remember the most: Sound. It's 5 AM and there are people yelling, someone building wooden scaffolding, a radio, a television, constant traffic horns, coughing, spitting, general buzzing and moving. As if jet lag alone wasn't enough to keep me up.

Welcome to India.