Another Day, Another Adventure!

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My day started at 3:15am as I needed to be ready for a 4:00am airport pick-up for a 5:50am flight. I was ready, but 4:00am came with no taxi. Then it was 4:05am, 4:10am, 4:15am and still nothing. My CRA Ashish called to see where I was since I was going to pick him up on the way to the airpor. He had booked the taxi last night, but when he called the company at 4:15am, they claimed they had no booking and they had no taxis. Ashish tried two other cab companies with no luck. It was 4:30am at this point and we were trying to decide what to do (you have to be at the airport at least an hour early to make it through security and board the plane) when he said "I'm on my way" and hung up. I got a bad feeling about this and, lo and behold, he pulled up about 10 minutes later on his motorcycle, handed me a helmet, and told me to hop on!

I was on a motorcycle for about five minutes back in high school and that was on a side road. This would be a 30-60 minute ride on highways in crazy Delhi traffic with wandering cows! There was really no option so I did as instructed. I refused to ride "side saddle" and I was very glad I had my backpack and not my computer bag. Ashish said I could hang onto him which was nice and there were foot rests. I figured that since I was riding astride with a helmet and not holding a baby or a big bag of groceries, I was ahead of 98% of the other women I've seen here on motorcycles.

Ashish was a very good driver and since it was 4:30am, there's wasn't much traffic. He asked me once to not hold on quite so tight, but other than that I think I did OK. I kept thinking about all of the cool things I had done in my life without any fear so why should I be afraid now? I was worried about my cell phone and keys which were in my pockets, but I wasn't going to let go to check on them. It was tempting to close my eye since it was pretty breezy, but that was scarier than keeping them open. I couldn't see much over Ashish's helmet anyway, but I did get a look at the speedometer once and it read 65 km/h. Luckily, I couldn't remember how to convert this to miles per hour so I couldn't figure out how fast we were actually going. I was having flashbacks to the motorcycle scene near the end of The History Boys" and kept trying to think of anything else (which is hard to do when you try really hard). Then, I realized that I was wearing a helmet on my wet hair with my bangs flopping in the wind so I would probably look like hell for my site visit and that occupied my mind for the rest of the trip. It took only 35 minutes to get to the airport so we made good time. People stare at me all the time here, but they really stared when I hopped off the back of the motorcycle in front of the airport!

I found out another interesting things this morning: my building is locked up tight at 4:00am! The two side doors off the lobby were locked - even the one marked "Fire Exit: Keep Clear"! The main gate was locked with a big chain and a padlock. There's usally two guards in the lobby, but they were nowhere to be seen. So, if the bulding ever catches fire (knock wood) in the middle of the night, there will be no escape and 17 floors worth of people will be crushed to death in the lobby. Another thought to ocupy my mind on sleepless nights! Anyway, I stood staring at the front gate for about two minutes, wondering what to do, when a guard came around and let me out. I walked up to the main gate where the bar was down on the entry side, but wide open on the exit side. There was a guard sitting there in a chair and two more off to the side and all three were sound asleep! After a few minutes, the phone started to ring in the gard house. It took six very lound rings to wake up even one of them. People talk about how great the security is here, but I'm starting to wonder... they lock the residents in so that it doesn't matter who enters the grounds in the middle of the night while the guards sleep? I can think of a better plan or two!

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