India 1

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I changed vehicle and environment ...


Airports

All seemes good until the captain doenst want to fly  through the densed layer of clouds. On another airport the machine lands. Delhi airport is closed due to bad weather conditions.

All that, after I spent the whole night on Almaty airport in noise and amongst too many people on one spot, not sleeping.

Well, everybody else in this machine has the same problem, also the Kazakh National Rugby team, who wants to go to Mumbai for an international tournament. Everybody is quite relaxed about it while we wait for the weather forecast over Delhi. I am not. I knew it would be wrong to fly and make appointments for the same day and the day after the arrival in Chennai. Who knows when I will arrive there now.

The day before yesterday there were the birds in the sky over Bishkek. A kind of crows I guess, getting ready to fly away before it gets cold, it must have been thousands of them. The next morning, yesterday, the day of my departure to India, they woke me up because they were sitting in the trees of the neighborhood, noisy as they are, but also they managed to time it with the exact moment when the walnuts are ripe, just a little shake on the twigs of the walnut tree makes them dropping on the metal roof, creating an insane mixture of noise with the screaming of the crows. 

-Time to leave- , was all I could think. Just needed the customs declaration of my bike, to get out of Kyrgystan without problems. Of cause noone was interested in those papers at the border, I could have sold the bike on the black market and went to the police to declare it stolen for the insurance ... .

Then, when looking out of the airports huge, full wall windows, I see rain for the first time I am in Bishkek.  -Time to leave ... -

 

Welcome to India

One day too late it seems. The bad weather entered also the north of India somehow, I dont know if there are connections. It is the first time also, that I have a problem with a plane because of the weather, and I really flew a lot all over the world. The Vulcano on Iceland, yes, when I was nailed down in Arizona, but that was another part of nature.

-Welcome to India-, I could think to myself, when I try to find a counter of the Kazakh air-company, or their alliance for the next flight to Chennai at Delhi Airport, which I arrived at three hours too late. Heavy armed soldiers are guarding each door, not allowing me entry without a valid boarding card. But where do I get a boarding card if I am not allowed in?

-Try at the end of the building! - ... Ok, just about one and a half mile with the luggage ... .

"Jet Airways" says that only Astana Airways can change the ticket, themselves they only can sell me a new one to Chennai.  -Where are they?- -At the other end of the building!-  Thats about two miles across the exactly symetrically build airport along all the entrances guarded with the heavily armed security.

Just a phone number is all I can see at a window, someone borrows a phone to me, meanwhile the Kazakh National Rugby Team found the same window with the number, - noone at the other line.

To make it short, after several phonecalls and always new numbers to call, even the promise a responsible person would meet us at the window with the obscure phone number, who never came, I ended up running in between the two ends of the airport several time, buying another ticket from Delhi to Chennai from Jet Airways, leaving the National Rugby Team behind after I told them they should make a scandal out of it and call the minister of sports in Kazakhstan.

-I hope you still get to the game tomorrow! Good luck and let all your anger out on the field.- Huff, these chunky guys have real tough handshakes.

 

Chennai 1

-Welcome to India!- doesnt stop. After being 42 hours on airports or in planes, I reach the Hotel in Chennai at midnight. Several servants welcome me professionally helpful and also honest. A good hotel room can make you feel really well after traveling, its just a pity that I will only stay for one night and meet artists from Chennai the next morning before I go with a taxi to Auroville.

Padmini is a choreographer and Pravin a visual artist who organise themselves with others as the group Basement 21. Quickly we find a common understanding about the unfortunate mechanisms of the art market and curators. Thanks to the local Goethe Institute in Chennai we found each other and hopefully can collaborate on the idea of presents.

While this meeting was only stressed because I had to leave to Auroville very erly again, my encounter with the taxidriver was continously so, because he was insane mentally. Maybe normal for many, but I could see the pathological signs of the abuse of pushing-drugs and sleeplessness, resulting in physical tics in hands and face and maybe even halluzinations. I could not see his mind of cause, but sometimes he slowed down without any reason on a free stretch of the road, while he normally would go full speed in heavy traffic, using the horn constantly and swearing to other drivers.

He must have seen things I have not, why would he use the horn even on an empty road, or before we cross a patch of water?

Everybody seems to be on the road. Many with small bikes, and I see some nice old Bullits as well. It would have been great to come here with my 1200GS, but in this kind of traffic?




Auroville 1

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Aron on his Enfiled in Auroville. I forgot the name of that model, but it is indeed a real Enfield and Aron is one of the few real biker there, no kidding, see him on the dirtroad! The front mudgard is missing here, because it got a scratch and it is drying now after the paint job. The front break-cable was ripped, waiting for replacement, but Aron said the back brake is fine enough for a while. Check out the front light of his bike! Cool kids there in Auroville, the grown ups, well, see the other chapters ... .

Contact: thomaslehmen@thomaslehmen.de                                                                              © Thomas Lehmen 2013