As you can tell by the title, this post is going to be both
exciting and disgusting and for those pure-of-heart, a little sad.
The second day in India we traveled from Chennai to Salem,
the “town” where Hubs is from.
Traditionally one would take a train, but because new highways are being
built and expanded we took a taxi-van.
The trip takes about 6 hours with no stops and moderate traffic. Because you have to pay for the driver’s
transportation in both directions, we got my mother-in-law to organize the taxi
and she procured a Toyota Enova(?) minivan for us.
Traveling with five and a half passengers plus a driver in
a small minivan can seem crowded, but for this trip we also had 6 large
suitcases and 6 carry-on bags. The driver
tied four of the suitcases to the top of the minivan and crammed the other
suitcases in the back of the van leaving room for one person to sit in the very
back with the suitcases. Sally eagerly
snapped up this spot and took full advantage of the suitcases as pillows. That left both my parents, myself and
Poohpers to occupy the back seat (middle bench) and Hubs sat in the front seat
as our interpreter. Hubs originally
offered the front seat to my dad as the “heaviest, er healthiest” traveler,
but the A/C aggravated his sinuses making his eyes water uncontrollably.
As soon as we got out of the city I asked the driver to stop
and get us some bananas because our diets mostly consisted of grains for the
last two days. My Mom to avoid any
spice, my Dad to avoid anything too strange, Sally wasn’t eating much other
than the 40 granola bars my mom brought her, and Poohper just wasn’t eating
right. The driver pulled over to a
sketchy looking road side shack and I thanked the lord for making built in
wrapping for the bananas. Sally of
course refused her banana with an eww, but the rest of us mowed down. Poohpers coming out of starvation mode sucked
down her banana, half of mine, and against my will half of Grandmas. We continued the journey in better spirits,
passing the time by listening to my mother alternate between complaining about
missing pictures of cows on the road, to complaining she misses so much of the
trip because she’s the only one taking pictures.
Half way we stopped at a modern fancy looking hotel with a
restaurant that would have food that my parents and Sally could eat. We just settled down at the table and were
going through the menu trying to figure out which western looking food items
would not have added spices when they brought us out some complementary
poppadum like chips. Poohpers with her
banana induced vigor started eating them right away, but then also started
choking on them, and then like usual when chocking, started to puke a little
from the coughing fit. Not a big deal
unless your belly is overfilled with bananas and your little puke becomes a
large puke that scares the crap out of you enough that you start freaking out
and puking more which triggers more puke.
It was a never ending cycle. My
poor Dad was on one side and Hubs on the other.
Hubs frantically pulled cloth napkins off the table as my Dad held them
under her chin and Poohper’s little skirt acted as the safety net catching any
errand splashed. I crawled over my Mom to
get to the poor baby as Sally sat frozen staring at the scene unfolding.
We managed to stop the flow and I cradled poor little
Poohpers as we took her outside to find her some fresh clothes and calm her down. Our driver was great and got out Poohper’s
suitcase (which luckily didn’t end up on the roof-rack) and rocked her in his
arms as we found some fresh clothes and a bag for the soiled ones.
Upon returning to the table at the restaurant, like a true
11 year old Sally didn’t ask about Poohpers but instead disgustedly proclaimed
“Auntie, I can never UNSEE that again!”
Yesterday my Parents and Sally left so they could catch
their plane to Delhi for their North India tourist package. To avoid another puke incident Hubs and I
decided Poohpers and I would stay behind while he traveled back with them to
Chennai. Apparently this did not help
as Sally decided to upstage Poohpers and revisit her chicken fried rice. I think it was slightly less dramatic.
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