Wednesday

Woke up tired and was embarassed to find Flo and Alicia sitting in the common room waiting for me to emerge into the light of morning. Which I did. We got a rickshaw on downtown - the long way thank you very much - and got into work, where I did yet more events.

I noted from an email that Sheila booked me in for Delhi until the 21st and not the 18th as I had believed, so I ran down to the IndiGo office to change my flight to Mumbai. Which was quite painless, although they couldn't accept my credit card over the phone due to rampant international credit card fraud in India. This meant I got to see the nice lady at the IndiGo office again (the one with family in Denver and New York City.) The change fee was about 20 bucks...no big deal.

Indians say "bucks" just like we do, although it is always jarring to hear someone casually say, "Oh yeah, that costs 1000 bucks" then realize they are discussing rupees and not cold hard American moolah.

We met Chris for lunch at Konark - delicious tandoori gobi (cauliflower) and babycorn. I don't know why tandoor ovens work such miracles on humble garden vegetables but there you go. We were also subjected to the always amusing roti up-sell, wherein if you fail to order a carb (and I, miss Voluntary Atkins Diet Woman, never do), the waiter will give you a look - a complex mixture of pity and disdain - and explain that this IS a gravy dish and you will NEVER be able to fully enjoy it without bread and good god almighty what is WRONG with you. It usually takes at least a few minutes to convince them the world will keep turning without roti, that the sun will come up again tomorrow.

I went back and had a nice nap, then we convened the troops for Bollywood Night at Hint, a swank nightclub in the Bangalore Central Mall.

We had our names on the list due to James knowing someone, and the door bitch ushered us in. The Door Bitch is the fashionably dressed woman (usually white or Asian here) who looks over possible entrants and judges them for suitability for the fabulousness of the club awaiting inside. I think I would make an excellent Door Bitch and I may investigate this possibility for future overseas careers. (The Door Bitch is also required to occasionally stand on a table and do Technicolor shots, but I believe I would be up to the challenge.)

The club was lovely, all dark and moody inside with an excellent 5th floor view of the Bangalore metro area. The walls outside were heated which I deeply enjoyed, and I Stressed Chris by leaning over the guardrails to enjoy the night air. (I deduced using complicated calculations that I could angle a large glob of spit to land right on the head of the loathsome rickshaw drivers hanging out below me, and that would definitely make my week. But I did not do it.)

More and more people filtered in and the music started - awesome dance-beat accented Bollywood music. There was a bit of highschool-ish apprehension as everyone waited for someone to be either drunk enough or uninhibited enough to start dancing, but eventually everyone got over themselves and the party was on. I of course jumped in with gusto despite my utter inability to dance, finding an attractive Indian guy to entertain me for the remainder of the evening.

I also accumulated another prospective Indian Sugar Daddy in a suit with one of those irritating speaker phone things blinking in a blue way in his ear throughout the evening - he'd follow me around the club like a puppy, and I experimented by dodging into alcoves a bit to see if he'd find me - he did. I did manage to extract a whiskey and red bull from him (an evil combination.)He gave me a long, poetic description of his red sports car and how he'd like to let me drive it, while I politely reminded him that that could turn into a potential insurance nightmare. (I have visions of a gory, tragic collision with a bullock cart.) He seemed curiously unmoved.

In any case, it was a fun evening, with the events coordinator shoving blue-colored Bacardi down everyone's throats while cajoling us to GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GET YOUR HANDS UP AND SING....OM SHANTHI OMMMM. (Love that song. Love it.) Apparantly Nimi got her pictures in the Mid-Day Bangalore paper...our drunken antics will now be preserved in the media annals of this beautiful garden city for all eternity. i don't know how to feel about that.

Alisa and I contemplated going to an after-party with aforementioned Hot Guys (or at least a greasy, excellent midnight dosa) but we erred on the side of caution and rickshawed home. Despite the copious amounts of Red Bull mixed with lord knows what, I slept like a rock.