Kelby
Trip Start
Nov 15, 2007
1
9
16
Trip End
Jan 22, 2008
Goa,
India
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
So Stephan and I were sitting in the departure lounge at Mumbai airport speculating on the nationality of a group of women sitting near us (we were both wrong: it seems that Sweden also has chavs).
Anyway, an American woman in her late thirties with a slightly hippyish look came over and told us that she's going to a yoga retreat in Arambol in Goa but she'd lost the one copy of the address that she's going to. She appeared to be a bit concerned about this.
As well as losing the one copy of the address, her phone (with all contact details to find it out) had a flat battery and she'd forgotten the charger. For some reason she'd brought a laptop but had no idea that computers need Internet connections to browse the web and was thus wondering why she'd been getting error messages since leaving home.
Not quite believing that anybody would seriously travel to a strange country half way around the world by themselves with so little preparation, I wondered if this was some sort of scam that I hadn't previously been subjected to in India. So I told her that she would be able to check the address once we'd landed in Goa and left it at that.
About 10 seconds later I decided that she was genuinely that dopey and that we would help her out once we got to the other end. I reckoned she's the sort who bimbles through life, always relying on a friendly stranger to fish her out of any mire her innocence lands her in. That's not a good attitude to have in a third-world country where the men have a sinister manner with unaccompanied women and where everybody wants to exploit wealthy westerners. So I let her stew on the flight even though she looked the whole time like she was going to throw up.
In the taxi to Arambol she introduced herself as Kelby (contraction of Kelly By-something-or-other) it turned out that she really knew nothing about India. She had wondered why all the men in Mumbai stared at her, had no idea about the left hand rule when eating and when I asked Stephan about the customs of dealing with cows (can you physically push one out of the way if it's blocking your path or is that considered irreverent?) she thought I was making a joke (holy cow!). It really reinforced the stereotype of the Septics (or Seppos as the Aussies call them) having no clue about anything outside of their own continent.
While we drove, Stephan managed to wheedle the address out of Uncle Google and we took her there. I then gave her a cultural primer on India so she would be a bit more prepared for the journey home (teasing her mercilessly in the process - well, I couldn't resist!).
It took quite a while to find our place in town, get a local to give us directions to hers out in the sticks and then get her there. When we got there though, I don't think I've ever seen anybody look so relieved and the hug she gave me said thanks more than any words could have.
Our good deed for the day done, we went to our own place for a well-earned beer...
