Magnificent India - Day 1

Reached Thiruchirapalli International airport. It’s a new building which was opened few weeks ago as their expansion project. We had to go through Influenza scanning as India and Malaysia have been identified as infected country. The moment I walked out of the airport, I felt so excited and happy. It’s some sort of mixed feeling just like in the movies and with that heat and smell of sand. Got into our Tata Sumo and drove off. The first thing I heard was the sound of the honking drivers. Its madness, they keep honking and honking nonstop. The reason they do that is to inform another driver that he is either at the back of him, going to overtake, taking a turn, going to stop.

Since no one follows traffic rules in India, honking is the only method of communication in between the drivers and other road users. I was looking outside the car window and saw small huts called as “kudusai” in Tamil, surprisingly equipped with satellite dish and tv. Who said India is poor, no they are not. They have all the resource and money, sadly sometimes they failed to either appreciate it or don’t know how to utilize it.

It took us 2 hours to reach the village called as Silathur. To make it simple, India > Thiruchirapalli > Pudhukottai > Arathangi > Silathur. Or in other words its like Malaysia > KL > Klang Valley > Bangsar > Taman Bukit Pantai. I was under the impression that the village will be that typical ones just like in the movies and I was abit freaked out on how am I going to shit. You know in village they shit in open field and bathe either at the river or motor-pump.

Guess what? I was absolutely wrong! The village is so beautiful and modern. Houses here looked like bungalows, double storey, triple storey, fully aircond, toilet inside the house, cable tv and everything that a modern home will have. I asked our host how come this place doesn’t look like a village, he said that everyone who lives there are all working in overseas. For instance the neighbor of our host is a chemical engineer in US. Most of them are working in USA, UK, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi. No doubt they could build such a huge house.

And no there were no kids running at the back of our car when we arrived. We were received well by everyone and was so happy that I came. We ate talked and time to sleep. For the note, we are 2.5 hours ahead of India timing.

Photos @ http://picasaweb.google.com/rujjcoomarh