Arrival In India

We arrived in Chennai, South India around 1:00 a.m. early Saturday, having left for the airport at 5:00 a.m. the previous day. We dragged into the hotel with drooping lids and with much soreness of hindquarters - but no other ill effects. This was achieved on the flights by drinking a ton of water and not eating anything that we could not recognize or that was an improbable color for a food. We have learned well from past experience. Lufthansa is a nice airline and their business class service is very pleasant. However, darn little can make a 4-hour, a 9-hour, and an 11-hour sequence of flights an agreeable experience. There's also an unwritten rule that your connecting flight will be in the terminal located at the farthest possible point from the plane you are exiting. This is well known.

Several previous days of packing frenzy had left us sleepless and in our usual pre-travel disagreeable mode. Before you can leave town of course, the classic THREE THINGS must go wrong. We started with an overflow of essential facilities in the bathroom the day before and then worked our way up through crises two and three the next day; involving a late-night trip to the UPS warehouse facility in Redmond to pick up a missed package. Once those were done we had a fairly easy time getting to the airport, through lines, security, and onto the plane. The husband is usually the font of all knowledge, so several times in-flight I tried asking him questions about things. The poor dear was so beat he just blinked at me owlishly and said, "I'm off-line." At one point while he was napping, someone's watch alarm went off and he turned to me and began fumbling with my arm and searching through my blanket for his bedside alarm to shut off. Won't admit it now. Never happened.

Even though this is my second trip (and the husbands fourth - or is it fifth) it's easy to forget the immediate effect of the differences in climate and culture. Being a fiber and color junkie, I was already half-drunk with color joy in the waiting area of the gate to board for the last leg to Chennai. Women everywhere in beautiful saris - almost all silk and high-quality cotton since these were the first-class passengers. I was tempted to get out a notebook and write down all the color combinations I could see. I'm always amazed that even if the base color of a fabric is screaming pumpkin or neon pea soup, the patterns and complementary colors are always beautiful and the effect as a whole is perfect. It's such a feast for the eyes. All the women in the airport in Germany were freezing in their saris so they had various wool cardigans and jackets on - a strange combination.

As soon as you leave the plane in India, that familiar steam-room humidity envelopes you. The smells are different. Buildings often smell slightly moldy or mildewy no matter how clean or modern. Perfumes, soaps, lotions and cleaning materials are often based on natural smells, such as cardamom or sandalwood and have a musk base. It's an instant aromatherapy. In the hotel (a nice Marriott this week) the usual toiletries are included, but all the scents are India scents, and they all seem to be soothing and calming. In the halls of the hotel, scented oils are kept warm in vases. Nothing is cloying or acrid or overwhelmingly commercially perfumey-smelling. The spousal unit and I are very chemically sensitive, whether it's perfumes or bug spray or cleaning materials, so it's a welcome break. Depending on the time of year of course, the hotels do spray heavily for insects and can make it instantly miserable for us.

I'm always fascinated with product names in English in other cultures. The UK is a ton of fun, starting with laundry soap names - but that's another entry. So far I found an enticing bag of rice chips in the hotel store called "Tomato Mischief." The toilet in our bathroom is made by the aptly named "Hindware" company.

We've had a couple of meals so far - lovely soups and dal in the large restaurant downstairs. Then, the evening meal in the more private dining restaurant. It was their very first night of adding a special new DJ for the music with your meal. Turned out to be Indian disco....loud enough to make you think you were on a firing range. Our plates were making small leaps up and down on the table to keep time. We probably won't be eating in that restaurant again. But the good part? We can now both qualify for service dogs for the hearing - which will let us take them everywhere!!!