Truckin...

I took a bus to kerela (it cost 450
ruppees), and then lived with some friends there, ate some real malali
food, met some really cool people... had a blast. I was able to help
them pack up their things for the move too - but guess what? I also
went back to bangalore in their moving truck...
It wasn't actually a 'moving truck' - it was cheapest to hire a
truck that had come from bangalore, and had to return to bangalore
anyways, but had no cargo. So we did that - it was a giant Ashok
Leyland truck... all their stuff barely fit in one corner (actually,
the truck was so big that they couldn't get it down the lanes to their
house... we had to carry all their stuff to a larger road.)
But this was a real interstate indian transport truck... There were
two drivers and myself... They would take shifts driving, so we went
all day and all night. They couldn't speak a word of english, and I
couldn't speak a word of malali... We started in Kerela, drove through
tamil nadu, and arrived in bangalore... They had a 'bed' but it was
more of a plank behind their seats, quite cramped, and I had to share
it with one of them when I was sleeping. It was great though - I'll
never get another chance to do that. We saw everything - so many
sites... life and death - argh. India can be painful.
I would hide when they came to the checkpoints (because it could
cause problems if the police found a foreigner in their truck). So I
felt like a smuggler or something...
Anyways - one of my roles was to guide the truck to the
destination... but I coudn't pronounce a word they could understand...
when we got close to bangalore, I pulled out a map to guide them. When they saw the map they started and tried to suppress a laugh... I
don't think they would have been more shocked had I pulled out a
compass and a sextant. So - since they thought maps were useless, and
they couldn't communicate with me, they grabbed some guy by the side of
the road, and hoped he would help them. He was a pretty useless guide
though, so they lapsed into silence...
I guided them by map. I would say 'left' or 'right' and then the
guy by the side of the road would translate it into some language, the
next person would translate it again, and finally the driver would
respond...
Despite their misgiving about my navigation skills, we arrived at
the destination without a single wrong turn.
So yeah - it was pretty fun.