WHY IS MY RIGHT LEG GETTING TIRED?

While getting myself to Bangalore has so far seemed to be a herculean task, getting from the Bangalore airport to the hotel was still a challenge ahead of me.

The last time I was here, I had my ordeal with the shifty taxi driver impersonators and through my naive trust in the indigenous of India got myself ripped off and scared senseless as I was led to a suspicious car, intimidated by a luggage lad who could not blink his eyes into paying a gratuity, and then transported into unknown provinces, scared I was being kidnapped and that I would be soon sold into slavery.  "Hut Boy" they would call me.  And every night, after putting the cow in the garage and clearing the monkey turds from the stoop, as I'd go to lie down on my rock, I'd hear "Good night Scoot.  Good work.  Sleep well.  I'll most likely kill you in the morning."

So now, having learned the tricks of the wiley non-taxi-driver airport posers, I exited the airport with confidence, saying "No" to this one, "No" to that one, and just giving the international "talk to the hand" sign language to the other.

I pity the fool who doesn't say no!

Feeling like a pro, I sauntered out of the airport and into the sultry evening air of Bangalore and queue up for a cab in the easily-found "taxi" area.  Like a queued pig in line for the slaughter, I too move with the herd, choosing optimism as a blatant mockery of fate.

Only over here I think they might call it karma.

And as karma, fate and chance would have it, I soon find myself in a cab, my bag in the back, and we're on our way to the hotel.

Except we're not.

Apparently we need to put some fuel in the car.  This would ordinarily roll off my back like so much acid off a duck's, but there's a lot of suspicious activity going on around the car while it is being fueled.  There are some dudes standing around a motorcycle as it is getting juiced up.  Nothing too odd about that, although the dangling, smoking sticks of potential energy of flaming death hanging from their fingers as they stand in the cloud of petrol fumes does put a slight twinge of anticipation into the experience.

Then there is the kid with the bucket.  He is walking here, there, to, fro, carrying the bucket and not really doing much with it.  As he approaches the car, I try and shrink down and pretend to be invisible, lest he decide I might pay for a window washing or need my teeth cleaned.  But then he veers off, once again following his unfathomable path.

Soon the driver returns, cranks up the ol' engine, and pulls out.

And NOW we're on our way to the hotel.

Except we're still not - not quite.

Since it is the middle of the afternoon - well before the end of the workday - traffic is terrible.

It was a lot like this, only worse.  Really.

It takes us about 2 hours to get to the hotel where it should have taken about 30-40 minutes.  All the while my driver is getting frustrated, throwing his hands into the air, saying various words that probably border on the obscene, and then giving up and taking alternate routes.  I am curious to know if we would have arrived earlier had he stayed on the primary route, but now I'll never know.

I'm sure that staying on the original route would have resulted in one less adventure, however.

With each new alternative route selected, he puts the petal to the metal and tries to make up for lost time.  He's a pro, too, exercising the skills only people who survive learning to drive in India can acquire.

Keeping the lane divider right in the middle of the car, weaving to and fro through mopeds, motorcycles, rickshaws, cars, trucks, you name it, he's violating at least 12 laws of physics any given minute.  The car is in a constant state of acceleration or deceleration with no steady state.  Certain death is surrounds us in a baffling cacophony of horns, bells, toodles and shouts.

When we're not tailgating, it is because we're slow enough that mopeds, rickshaws, pedestrians and other miscellanea are swarming around us like rats fleeing the Titanic.

When we're not jammed up with everyone else, we're tailgating someone or something, beeping and swerving as they mosey to one side or another.  And by tailgating I don't mean like that guy who was "on your bumper" when you were driving on route 95 the other day.  In India, you get close enough to test for the Casimir effect.

You know what I mean.  It's that physical force arising from a quantized field between two uncharged plates that can produce a locally mass-negative region of space-time that could destabilize a wormhole to allow faster than light travel.  Duh.

It isn't long before I realize that my right leg is starting to ache.  It's getting tired!

Turns out there is no brake pedal in the back seat of the taxi, and the continued pressure of trying to push my right leg through the floor to activate the brakes has tired my leg out to the point that my calf is starting to cramp!

You laugh, but you weren't there, man.  You weren't there.

In fact, I feel I am justified.  The taxi driver apparently has some device monitoring his speed and location.  Every time he gets going and starts drafting various vehicular facsimile at speeds that would stymie a fighter pilot, a voice announces: "Please slow down.  You are exceeding the speed limit.  Please slow down.  You are exceeding the speed limit."  At first I could not figure out why the driver would have this device but never actually slow down until he had to.  But then I figured it out.

This isn't a warning.  It's praise.

Finally pulling into the hotel from the main road is like escaping from a raging river full of piranha and climbing out onto a nice, calm shore.  The frenzy of vehicles is left behind, and we pull up to a set of guards pushing a metal gate in our way.

Time for the bomb check!

Using a giant dental mirror they check the undercarriage of the car, go through the trunk, and then pass us through.  And suddenly I'm in the lap of luxury.

I did not get a picture of the guys at the hotel, other than the fact that the uniform was different, plus the guy was different, and the car was different, it was the same.