I have done my fair share of traveling. My first big trip that I took without the guidance of my parents or a professor was to India. Of course, I didn't pick someplace conventional, like California, or even Europe. I chose India.
I went to India with two friends from college. We were there to work at a rural hospital and experience third world medicine. I don't think any of us knew quite what we were getting ourselves into.
During our first day in Mumbai, I learned two very important lessons about travel.
1. Be very selective about what you choose to pack in your carry on luggage. For some reason I thought travel Scrabble (which was never played during our entire 2 months abroad) trumped tampons. Bad call. Our luggage was lost in Moscow, and there were only 2 flights a week from Moscow to Mumbai on Aeroflot. That meant I would have to wait several days to get my suitcases and 2 tampons were not going to last that long. It was kind of awkward, just a few minutes after meeting the pastors sister, asking her where I could buy tampons. (Cultural note: apparently they don't use tampons in India, making the conversation even more awkward. I had to describe why I needed tampons since she didn't know what tampons were. If you ever run into a similar situation in Mumbai, ask for "Sanitary Napkins.")*
2. Always ask for a business card. To get to the shopping area where we were to purchase Indian clothing (and sanitary napkins), we had to split up into two, separate autorickshaws. Jenni and I got into one. Brittany and the pastor's sister got into the other one. The pastor's wife was the only one who knew where we were going, and she gave strict instructions to our driver to keep up with the autorickshaw in which she would be riding. After riding about 2 blocks through the congested streets of Mumbai, however, we got separated. Jenni and I realized that Brittany and the pastor's sister were no longer ahead of us. This is when the panic set in. We didn't know where we were. We didn't know where we were going. We didn't know how to get back to where we started. We could tell that our driver was lost and didn't know what to do. After driving for a couple of more minutes, he decided to pull over and motion for us to get out, hoping that we had not noticed that our guide was nowhere to be seen. Jenni and I started emphatically telling him that we would not get out of the rickshaw (difficult given the language barrier, but the panicked pitch of our voices probably gave him an indication of our message). He started driving again, and after just a couple of more minutes, we saw Brittany standing on the side of the road looking for us. Thankfully, she was easy to spot because she was wearing pink. Oh, and she was caucasian, too. The pastor's sister was, understandably, shaken. She was afraid that she would have to call her brother and tell him that she had lost 2/3 of the girls who she was asked to take shopping. It was then that she taught us an important lesson: take a business card from your hotel. If you get lost, show someone the business card and, even with the language barrier, they can help you get back to the hotel. Or, at the very least, remember the name of your hotel.
*Another note on "Sanitary Napkins" - when I was departing from Delhi, India for England at the end of our trip, I was pulled aside by airport security. Apparently, I had a suspicious item in my bag. The security man searched my bag and pulled out the offending item, a tampon. He asked me what it was. I told him. He didn't understand. So then he raised his voice at me and asked me, again, what it was. Once again, I said it was a tampon. This only angered him more. He raised his voice a little more. Finally I told him it was a sanitary napkin. He looked embarrassed, put the tampon back in my bag, and told me I could go.
I went to India with two friends from college. We were there to work at a rural hospital and experience third world medicine. I don't think any of us knew quite what we were getting ourselves into.
During our first day in Mumbai, I learned two very important lessons about travel.
1. Be very selective about what you choose to pack in your carry on luggage. For some reason I thought travel Scrabble (which was never played during our entire 2 months abroad) trumped tampons. Bad call. Our luggage was lost in Moscow, and there were only 2 flights a week from Moscow to Mumbai on Aeroflot. That meant I would have to wait several days to get my suitcases and 2 tampons were not going to last that long. It was kind of awkward, just a few minutes after meeting the pastors sister, asking her where I could buy tampons. (Cultural note: apparently they don't use tampons in India, making the conversation even more awkward. I had to describe why I needed tampons since she didn't know what tampons were. If you ever run into a similar situation in Mumbai, ask for "Sanitary Napkins.")*
2. Always ask for a business card. To get to the shopping area where we were to purchase Indian clothing (and sanitary napkins), we had to split up into two, separate autorickshaws. Jenni and I got into one. Brittany and the pastor's sister got into the other one. The pastor's wife was the only one who knew where we were going, and she gave strict instructions to our driver to keep up with the autorickshaw in which she would be riding. After riding about 2 blocks through the congested streets of Mumbai, however, we got separated. Jenni and I realized that Brittany and the pastor's sister were no longer ahead of us. This is when the panic set in. We didn't know where we were. We didn't know where we were going. We didn't know how to get back to where we started. We could tell that our driver was lost and didn't know what to do. After driving for a couple of more minutes, he decided to pull over and motion for us to get out, hoping that we had not noticed that our guide was nowhere to be seen. Jenni and I started emphatically telling him that we would not get out of the rickshaw (difficult given the language barrier, but the panicked pitch of our voices probably gave him an indication of our message). He started driving again, and after just a couple of more minutes, we saw Brittany standing on the side of the road looking for us. Thankfully, she was easy to spot because she was wearing pink. Oh, and she was caucasian, too. The pastor's sister was, understandably, shaken. She was afraid that she would have to call her brother and tell him that she had lost 2/3 of the girls who she was asked to take shopping. It was then that she taught us an important lesson: take a business card from your hotel. If you get lost, show someone the business card and, even with the language barrier, they can help you get back to the hotel. Or, at the very least, remember the name of your hotel.
*Another note on "Sanitary Napkins" - when I was departing from Delhi, India for England at the end of our trip, I was pulled aside by airport security. Apparently, I had a suspicious item in my bag. The security man searched my bag and pulled out the offending item, a tampon. He asked me what it was. I told him. He didn't understand. So then he raised his voice at me and asked me, again, what it was. Once again, I said it was a tampon. This only angered him more. He raised his voice a little more. Finally I told him it was a sanitary napkin. He looked embarrassed, put the tampon back in my bag, and told me I could go.
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