So the time has come again where i depart Perth and grace the pages of this self indulgent interweb journal.
I got a call a week or so ago from Seb (Valyside) asking if i wanted to go to india to oversee the production of the range he is producing over there. Why not. Free international trips usually bring with them a whole lot of entertainment, well, at least more than Perth is serving up these days.
So off i bail to India, i have never really considered travelling there before, but, these opportunities come up and you take them i suppose.
Im sitting in singapore airport at the moment waiting to board the flight to chanai.
NOT ANYMORE. I never finished the last post so fuck it. read on.
So we arrived in Chanai (India) pretty late on. Place is an absolute shithole. I have never been to a dirtier place in my life. Shit is humid as hell and there are mosquitos that could eat your head.
We rock up to the Mount Manor to crash before heading to Combatore the next day. This hotel was amazing. There was blood on my sheets, the bathroom was pretty mich black. I actually wrapped a shirt around my pillow because i was scared of what i might catch from the bed. Mental. This is quite the contrast to my last trip with Valyside. Ah well, carpe diem, such is life, or whatever saying you can think of that is tattoo'd on a douchebags guts.
We bounced from Chanai to hop a flight to combatore early the next morning. Managed to hook up flights with Spice Air, was real cool, we were the only crackers on the plane and everyone was sort of tripping out, The air hostess was nice enough to kick some dudes out of the emergency exit seats to let us sit, mainly because i am huge and a general seat on a plane just doesnt work.
We get to our new accom in Combatore and are met by Vijay, our contact out here that we met in Vegas. Dude looks legit like an indian Denzel Washington. We went and checked out the factory.
Now i was paranoid, like actually having trouble sleeping that I was going to rock up here and be slave driving child workers to create shirts i had designed. It didnt sit well with me, you design shit on the other side of the world, it gets printed, it passes through a lot of hands; you never really feel like you are part of the problem. When you are hanging in india, overseeing production of said designs, you pretty much are the hand that beats the poor to the ground. You are the man. Not in the "man, you the man!" sort of way, moreso in a "damn the man" sort of way. In where you are the man. Negative. Get it?
Anyway, i couldnt be happier with how it is run here. Everyone working is over 18 years old, and they are incredibly happy. Working in a cotton mill and cutting plant is actually considered a good job out here. They get reasonable work hours and almost all of the 30 or so people working here ride motorbikes to work everyday. Since being here i have met a bunch of really happy and curious indian people who totally trip out to see 2 australians with tattoos.
So I still have a bit of an issue about being a self involved prick for keeping a blog, but if you have read this far you must be somewhat interested.
But for those of you having trouble following, here are some visuals.
I have never been to a poor country. Never. I have done parts of Europe, UK, America, HK etc. It is fucking crazy here. 100%.
Mainly for the following reasons.
a) There are no road rules here. Not like, drive as fast as you want and do burnouts, more like; no correct side of the road, no lanes, no speed limit, no right of way. At all. You just gun it, weave through oncoming traffic at 100km an hour + and hope you don't die. It is undescribable. I was rolling with Vijay yesterday and noticed that everyone is pretty on it as far as driving is concerned. I had seen no accidents etc. The roads are packed with bulls carrying trailers, motorbikes carrying 6 people, huge colorful trucks and new model suzuki cars. Vijay filled me in on somethign that made a lot of sense but was contradictory to what i had witnessed thus far. The road toll for India in a calender year sits at around 200,000.
b) Bulls. There are bulls, with painted horns. Chilled the fuck out, everywhere. Just hanging on the side of the road. Im from australia, i dont know much about bulls but generally i would think that if you were walking down the street and there was a giant bull with red horns in your path you would pretty much bail. Wrong. I was told in great detail how these bulls have their balls removed at a young age with 2 pieces of wood. This way they just become big chilled out cows with horns that are good at carrying shit from point a to point b.
c) This place is dirty as shit. Like the whole place looks like a slum, there is rubbish like a tip on the side of all the roads, yet there are Vodafone and Sony stores pretty much everywhere, in huts and shit.
d) It is just mental. So many contradictions. Really strange though, there are not really any homeless people. I have been told that the standard of living has lifted here in the last decade and almost everyone now carries a mobile phone and can afford to drive a 2 wheeler.
more snaps
These were the screenprint dudes kids, really funny, the were trading WWE cards and fighting over coke..
so that is the end of my dot points.
Pretty tired but i will sum up a few things that have outlined why this week has been mental..
We are pretty much the only white people here. Anywhere, are there are a lot of people. They are incredibly friendly but there is a lot of stopping and staring.
Qantas air staff must have got a memo telling them that it is new company policy to be incredibly rude to people and totally talk down to them at all times. Seb stood up to go to the toiled mid flight and a woman literally yelled from halfway down the plane "SIt down now, the light is onnnn". Fuck you manwoman. You are far to masculine to be an air hostess.
Oh also, there seem to be more dudes serving food on planes than women now. Siked if you swing that way.
There is a rain forest with koi fish in a pond at singapore airport and cigarettes are like $1 a packet. Purchased.
Food here is fucked. I had a few beers and ate a bunch of variations of chicken with Vijay and seb on the second night. I woke up in the morning and spewed about 4 times. I was so angry about the situation that you could hear me ranting about how off it i was while i was spewing in the sink. Being sick sucks. I took some anti sick pills and got better. Thanks science.
I drank coconut juice out of a coconut. From the tree out the front of the factory. Delish.
Im going to be home on thursday now instead of sat cos we got shit done.
Vijay is probably the kindest human i have ever come across. Ever. He drove me an hour just so i could eat dominos pizza and not have to spew from shit chicken again.
Apparently there was a terrorist attack today in india and people died. Lets hope that death toll can stay where it is till i get home and get to hear about it on CNN.
Nivea for men is like $1 here. Im goign to buy a lifetime supply of facewash.
Im done.
Peace.
