Before I went to India, I described myself as feeling like a contestant on a gameshow. And things just got more unreal after I arrived there. It was part gameshow, part videogame, part role play, Candid Camera, Trigger Happy TV, Beadle's About, and the Truman Show all rolled into one.
Anyway, I felt so often that there were little guys hiding in the kitchens, and the hotel receptions, and airports marking my every move, that I decided to award myself marks for my performance while I was there.
In the spirit of a videogame, I've split the game into levels. Apart from Level One which took me days to complete, each of the other levels took me about 24 hours to get through, give or take.
Level One. Spending 7 hours filling the online visa form in, going to Birmingham to hand it in, borrowing a bike bag, having some jabs, packing and getting to the airport. I lost marks for pratting about for days being indecisive about which bike to take. Other than that I did pretty well. 6 out of 10
Level Two. Catching the plane to Delhi. This was pretty easy. Apart from getting on the plane, this level consisted mostly of necking as much complementary British Airways food and drink as possible, and the only difficulty was not having a pen to fill in the immigration form, but I managed to borrow one off an Indian. 9 out of 10. .
Level Three - Found my guide Guruvinder at the airport, found my bike in the mysteriouus OG2 section of the airport. Changed some currency, got a taxi to the hotel, filled about 4 forms in to check in, went for a walk, and managed to fend off the attentions of an overzealous tuktuk driver who wanted me to believe I wasn't in a safe area. Found Dean and Elsa. Had beer on the roof, got a really good meal at the Legend of Connaught and had some cocktails. 9 out of 10.
Level Four - Fended off a Bangladeshi woman trying to get money for orphans who followed me calling me a bastard. Stood around for an hour while Dean bought an Indian Sim Card. Managed to hire a very pleasant tuktuk driver who let us take photos with him. Cried at the Gandhi Museum. Almost chilled out on the steps of the Jami Masjid mosque but then lost my bottle after we got refused entry by a small boy for refusing to pay an entrance fee. I got totally freaked out at the prospect of having to kneel in a urinal, and then got taken for a ride (in more ways than one) by an Oscar winning rickshaw driver. The saving grace of the last part was that despite his mantra of 'You happy, I'm happy' we managed in the spirit of the word compromise to leave everyone disappointed and to leave him looking totally deflated after we refused to stump up what he was asking for. On the whole, I did pretty well on this level, but had a devastating loss of form after the toilet kneeling down and rickshaw incidents. Took some quiet time in the hotel for me to bounce back. 6 out of 10.
Level Five - Managed to fend off two students allegedly trying to practise their English but who were selling weed amongst God knows what else. Also, managed to ignore a small girl begging for food and holding my hand. This was all good practice for a day spent bouncing tuktuk drivers off us as if it was Gladiators. Thankfully the really persistent guy eventually got moved on by the army. Had some tea at a roadside stall, caused an Indian family from Calcutta to descend into utter confusion by offering to take their picture. Took back a modicum of control toward the end of the day by hiring a Sikh tuktuk driver who was having a nap and looking the other way, much to the dismay of two of his rivals. Needed a lie down and a cup of coffee made by Dean back in the hotel to help me come round after feeling battered from all the people I'd had to say no to. 6 out of 10.
Level Six - Passed bike building task. Managed to check out of hotel although I had to do it in instalments. Managed to negotiate storage of bike bag for 10 days. Passed cycling in Delhi challenge. Rode to Pahar Ganj, met Dean, and cycled to Meerut after a few hair raising lane changing incidents on the main highway. Only downside was failing to notice that the initially inviting Big Bite Food Resort at Meerut was actually a massive pile of shite, expensive and with waiter service that makes Fawlty Towers look like the height of sophistication. Retained some dignity by giving the less rude of the two waiters a tip, and getting a smile out of the sucker. Ate something which may or may not have been chicken. Spoke to Ruth and Stephen back at home, and hopefully managed to convince them that I was capable of leaving the hotel. 8 out of 10.
Level Seven - Ordered a coffee which took ages, met Sunny the racing cyclist from Meerut, but managed to avoid going back to his house. We'd a long way to go. 71 miles in the day. Found a pretty good hotel for half the price of the day before. Seemed to really please the locals by appreciating the Paneer Butter Massala. I liked the goofy waiter and his boss who spoke English, and also the guy who was hammering the doorframe while we were ordering. Gave them a sizeable tip, and started to relax into the bonkersness. 9 out of 10.
Level Eight - After 40 miles of single carriageway craziness, including going through the elephant corridor, found our way to Rishikesh. Managed to be quite rude to someone who wanted to clean our ears out on the riverbank. After an hour of going round in circles we found English Lorna, and 20 minutes of talking to her helped the stress melt away. After two days of just booking into the first place we could find, our decision to persevere in finding Bhandari Swiss Cottages really paid off. Cheap rooms, relaxing views, birdsong and monkeys stealing your garbage. Had a good laugh at India Guy over his Chicken Sizzler meltdown. 9 out of 10.
Level Nine - More fending off tuktuk drivers. Found an ATM and then went for a late breakfast. The jedi waiter was at pains to convince us that the breakfasts we were trying to order were not the breakfasts we were looking for. No porridge. Buttered toast yes. Laughing was definitely the right response. Gave the man a tip. Tried to go to yoga but were turned back by a Tibetan boy with some Lego. Ordered the sizzler to see what India Guy was moaning about. It was good. 8 out of 10.
Level Ten - Instead of following the tourist trail and booking a bungee jump or a day's white water rafting we took our bikes up into the Shivalek mountains and made our own amusement by having bikes and talking about movies. In the evening met the Greek Stereotype Spiros, Irish Ashley, Australian Audrey, Phoebe Ponsington-Smythe from somewhere posh in England and Mr India, the most nervous, ill at ease Indian I've ever met, sat around the not very warm fire, and generally felt like the two most interesting people there. After a couple of hours we realised nothing interesting was about to happen, so we went back to our room and laughed a lot. Well done us. 9 out of 10.
Level Eleven - Once again, didn't plump for one of the ready made tourist experiences, but went and found a waterfalll that was off the beaten track, and managed to find some of the peace that people spend so much time looking for round here, Spent some time in the afternoon listening to 'Ready, Steady, Goa' and other Half Man Half Biscuit favourites whilst feeling incongruous and laughing to myself as I watched the miserable purple couple down below drinking orange tea, wearing clothes cut from curtains and never smiling. Had a slightly better time round the bonfire this night, thanks mostly to Tim from Australia and Teddy from Chicago, who were at least interesting, unlike Spiros the Greek whose idea of a party was to try and charge people for sharing his drink with him. By the time we went to bed, the infantile looking dreadlocked German, the Tibetan looking dudes and the giant Portuguese Chewbacca lookalike were passing round joints and the ones who'd joined in on Spiros whip-round party were getting merrily hammered on beer and whisky, totally missing the point that it's supposed to be an alcohol free zone. Nothing screams foreigner quite so much as the blatant disregard of local rules and customs. Didn't miss much I think. 8 out of 10.
Level Twelve. Found the bus station, which wasn't easy. Got our bikes on board the bus, which wasn't easy either. Barely survived 7 hours of Bollywood Blockbusters, mobile waiters flogging 'Wally wally Wallay', managed to fend off the Fantasy Island waiters in maroon waistcoats at the service station that had nothing but signs, and was supposed to be a respite from the bus. It was almost worse. On the approach to Delhi I totally failed to get my point across to the bus driver about where we wanted to be dropped, and ended up 10 miles from the hotel. Got our own back on him though, by leaving him a bag of sick hanging on the back of the chair in front. Thanks to Dean's sense of direction, and owing nothing whatsoever to me, who had no clue where we were, we rode through back alleys, under washing lines, nearly ran some children over, nearly got spiked on some metal rods, got wedged in an alley as wide as my head against a man dragging bricks on a trailer coming the other way, but ended with a grand welcome at the Ajanta, as if we were conquering heroes, and finished my cycling in India by soaking up the joyous feeling of being back on Arakashan Road again, which felt like coming home, only 11 days after first arriving there when it felt anything but. 8 out of 10.
Level Thirteen - The Taj Mahal. Survived 10 hours in a car, fired our tour guide, fended off an overzealous toilet attendant, resisted the pleadings of a guy with the most miserable looking monkey in the universe, avoided buying snowglobes off some street urchins, got my polos confiscated by the army, got to have a look at the Taj Mahal in between being whistled at by some frustrated PE teacher types, and did very well on the whole not to go absolutely berzerk. It's probably why they don't let you take anything dangerous in, just being in Agra could sent you into the kind of mental spiral that results in going postal. We did well to survive. 7 out of 10.
Level Fourteen - A totally confusing breakfast experience, the inverse buffet. Were brought loads of things we didn't want, and nothing we did. Dean started operating the coffee machine himself, to the dismay of the waiters, who seemed to want to take 20 minutes over each cup, whereas Dean could get his own in 10 seconds. Despite being full up, we were both brought curry, and nan bread. After the breakfast challenge, we had to negotiate with three separate Indians not to be thrown out of our room that we'd booked 10 days previously. I think in the end we did the requisite amount of pleading, and they let us stay. If being in the hotel was testing, going out wasn't much easier. Went to Connaught place, and doing some basic tasks like buying stamps and postcards, and topping up on talktime turned into the work of an entire day. Dean managed to confuse an ear cleaning man, by telling him he was from India. Even using the toilet in the coffee bar was a challenge. The first time I went they let me have the light on, the second time I had to make to with a tiny amount of natural light coming from a vent. Needless to say when I found the toilet I adopted a sitting position to wee, otherwise it could have gone everywhere. Went to Rajghat, which was a different side of India. Full of well dressed schoolchildren, and teenagers in Western type clothing. Seemed a long way from the rags and poverty on show in other part of Delhi. For once we wanted to hire a tuktuk, but we had trouble hiring one. At one point we got refused outright. But I started to feel like I belonged. I had a vacant stare and I had dusty clothes. Even Bangladeshi woman didn't try too hard. 7 out of 10.
Level Fifteen - After yesterday's circus we had breakfast in the room. Got my bike bag back, dismantled the bike, checked out, paid the minibar. Went for another walk to Connaught Place. Got refused entry to an ATM, which made me laugh. Spent most of the afternoon and evening sitting on the roof terrace drinking beer, using the internet and eating curry. An easy day to finish, or maybe I was just getting the hang of it. 8 out of 10.
Level Sixteen - As on the way in, the same on the way out. A pointless customs form to fill in, confirming I'm not carrying ornamental fish or ICBMs, or millions in bullion. Same as the way in, I had to borrow a pen off an Indian. I then had to queue up for hours in a funnel with some Germans and Chinese to eventually face a staring man who could make time stand still. The Germans were freaking out. They couldn't handle the seeming getting nowhereness of it all. I'd been there two weeks. It wasn't a big deal. Eventually after having my boarding pass stamped to pieces I managed to get on board the British Airways flight. The flight crew weren't as attentive this time, so I didn't get as many drinks as on the way over, and the breakfast wasn't as good, and then we bloody ended up in Glasgow, and not London. I had some trouble persuading the Spanish guy next to me on the plane, who was dressed in orange robes and seemed to be having an ecstatic religious experience, that he was in fact in Scotland. Emboldened by the ease of getting through passport control at the Scottish end, and having had a bath in my Holiday Inn room that I decided I didn't need, I took advantage of knowing how things work in the UK, dragged my bike around Glasgow for a bit, and then got the train home. I took control. It was a good way to finish. It reminded me I can do stuff, and having had a brush with India, it made Glasgow seem like a long lost friend. 10 out of 10.
So that was it for me. Game Over. Dean carried on. My credit was all used up. I only completed the first 16 levels of India the Game. I'm led to believe that there are infinite number of levels, so I didn't even reach the End of the Beginning. Anyway, my score. 126 out of a possible 160. That's 78%. That's a pass in anyone's language. In most exams that's enough to get an A. I'd settle for a B though, and I probably should since I marked my own paper. Also, that way it leaves room for improvement for when I go back.......
Anyway, I felt so often that there were little guys hiding in the kitchens, and the hotel receptions, and airports marking my every move, that I decided to award myself marks for my performance while I was there.
In the spirit of a videogame, I've split the game into levels. Apart from Level One which took me days to complete, each of the other levels took me about 24 hours to get through, give or take.
Level One. Spending 7 hours filling the online visa form in, going to Birmingham to hand it in, borrowing a bike bag, having some jabs, packing and getting to the airport. I lost marks for pratting about for days being indecisive about which bike to take. Other than that I did pretty well. 6 out of 10
Level Two. Catching the plane to Delhi. This was pretty easy. Apart from getting on the plane, this level consisted mostly of necking as much complementary British Airways food and drink as possible, and the only difficulty was not having a pen to fill in the immigration form, but I managed to borrow one off an Indian. 9 out of 10. .
Level Three - Found my guide Guruvinder at the airport, found my bike in the mysteriouus OG2 section of the airport. Changed some currency, got a taxi to the hotel, filled about 4 forms in to check in, went for a walk, and managed to fend off the attentions of an overzealous tuktuk driver who wanted me to believe I wasn't in a safe area. Found Dean and Elsa. Had beer on the roof, got a really good meal at the Legend of Connaught and had some cocktails. 9 out of 10.
Level Four - Fended off a Bangladeshi woman trying to get money for orphans who followed me calling me a bastard. Stood around for an hour while Dean bought an Indian Sim Card. Managed to hire a very pleasant tuktuk driver who let us take photos with him. Cried at the Gandhi Museum. Almost chilled out on the steps of the Jami Masjid mosque but then lost my bottle after we got refused entry by a small boy for refusing to pay an entrance fee. I got totally freaked out at the prospect of having to kneel in a urinal, and then got taken for a ride (in more ways than one) by an Oscar winning rickshaw driver. The saving grace of the last part was that despite his mantra of 'You happy, I'm happy' we managed in the spirit of the word compromise to leave everyone disappointed and to leave him looking totally deflated after we refused to stump up what he was asking for. On the whole, I did pretty well on this level, but had a devastating loss of form after the toilet kneeling down and rickshaw incidents. Took some quiet time in the hotel for me to bounce back. 6 out of 10.
Level Five - Managed to fend off two students allegedly trying to practise their English but who were selling weed amongst God knows what else. Also, managed to ignore a small girl begging for food and holding my hand. This was all good practice for a day spent bouncing tuktuk drivers off us as if it was Gladiators. Thankfully the really persistent guy eventually got moved on by the army. Had some tea at a roadside stall, caused an Indian family from Calcutta to descend into utter confusion by offering to take their picture. Took back a modicum of control toward the end of the day by hiring a Sikh tuktuk driver who was having a nap and looking the other way, much to the dismay of two of his rivals. Needed a lie down and a cup of coffee made by Dean back in the hotel to help me come round after feeling battered from all the people I'd had to say no to. 6 out of 10.
Level Six - Passed bike building task. Managed to check out of hotel although I had to do it in instalments. Managed to negotiate storage of bike bag for 10 days. Passed cycling in Delhi challenge. Rode to Pahar Ganj, met Dean, and cycled to Meerut after a few hair raising lane changing incidents on the main highway. Only downside was failing to notice that the initially inviting Big Bite Food Resort at Meerut was actually a massive pile of shite, expensive and with waiter service that makes Fawlty Towers look like the height of sophistication. Retained some dignity by giving the less rude of the two waiters a tip, and getting a smile out of the sucker. Ate something which may or may not have been chicken. Spoke to Ruth and Stephen back at home, and hopefully managed to convince them that I was capable of leaving the hotel. 8 out of 10.
Level Seven - Ordered a coffee which took ages, met Sunny the racing cyclist from Meerut, but managed to avoid going back to his house. We'd a long way to go. 71 miles in the day. Found a pretty good hotel for half the price of the day before. Seemed to really please the locals by appreciating the Paneer Butter Massala. I liked the goofy waiter and his boss who spoke English, and also the guy who was hammering the doorframe while we were ordering. Gave them a sizeable tip, and started to relax into the bonkersness. 9 out of 10.
Level Eight - After 40 miles of single carriageway craziness, including going through the elephant corridor, found our way to Rishikesh. Managed to be quite rude to someone who wanted to clean our ears out on the riverbank. After an hour of going round in circles we found English Lorna, and 20 minutes of talking to her helped the stress melt away. After two days of just booking into the first place we could find, our decision to persevere in finding Bhandari Swiss Cottages really paid off. Cheap rooms, relaxing views, birdsong and monkeys stealing your garbage. Had a good laugh at India Guy over his Chicken Sizzler meltdown. 9 out of 10.
Level Nine - More fending off tuktuk drivers. Found an ATM and then went for a late breakfast. The jedi waiter was at pains to convince us that the breakfasts we were trying to order were not the breakfasts we were looking for. No porridge. Buttered toast yes. Laughing was definitely the right response. Gave the man a tip. Tried to go to yoga but were turned back by a Tibetan boy with some Lego. Ordered the sizzler to see what India Guy was moaning about. It was good. 8 out of 10.
Level Ten - Instead of following the tourist trail and booking a bungee jump or a day's white water rafting we took our bikes up into the Shivalek mountains and made our own amusement by having bikes and talking about movies. In the evening met the Greek Stereotype Spiros, Irish Ashley, Australian Audrey, Phoebe Ponsington-Smythe from somewhere posh in England and Mr India, the most nervous, ill at ease Indian I've ever met, sat around the not very warm fire, and generally felt like the two most interesting people there. After a couple of hours we realised nothing interesting was about to happen, so we went back to our room and laughed a lot. Well done us. 9 out of 10.
Level Eleven - Once again, didn't plump for one of the ready made tourist experiences, but went and found a waterfalll that was off the beaten track, and managed to find some of the peace that people spend so much time looking for round here, Spent some time in the afternoon listening to 'Ready, Steady, Goa' and other Half Man Half Biscuit favourites whilst feeling incongruous and laughing to myself as I watched the miserable purple couple down below drinking orange tea, wearing clothes cut from curtains and never smiling. Had a slightly better time round the bonfire this night, thanks mostly to Tim from Australia and Teddy from Chicago, who were at least interesting, unlike Spiros the Greek whose idea of a party was to try and charge people for sharing his drink with him. By the time we went to bed, the infantile looking dreadlocked German, the Tibetan looking dudes and the giant Portuguese Chewbacca lookalike were passing round joints and the ones who'd joined in on Spiros whip-round party were getting merrily hammered on beer and whisky, totally missing the point that it's supposed to be an alcohol free zone. Nothing screams foreigner quite so much as the blatant disregard of local rules and customs. Didn't miss much I think. 8 out of 10.
Level Twelve. Found the bus station, which wasn't easy. Got our bikes on board the bus, which wasn't easy either. Barely survived 7 hours of Bollywood Blockbusters, mobile waiters flogging 'Wally wally Wallay', managed to fend off the Fantasy Island waiters in maroon waistcoats at the service station that had nothing but signs, and was supposed to be a respite from the bus. It was almost worse. On the approach to Delhi I totally failed to get my point across to the bus driver about where we wanted to be dropped, and ended up 10 miles from the hotel. Got our own back on him though, by leaving him a bag of sick hanging on the back of the chair in front. Thanks to Dean's sense of direction, and owing nothing whatsoever to me, who had no clue where we were, we rode through back alleys, under washing lines, nearly ran some children over, nearly got spiked on some metal rods, got wedged in an alley as wide as my head against a man dragging bricks on a trailer coming the other way, but ended with a grand welcome at the Ajanta, as if we were conquering heroes, and finished my cycling in India by soaking up the joyous feeling of being back on Arakashan Road again, which felt like coming home, only 11 days after first arriving there when it felt anything but. 8 out of 10.
Level Thirteen - The Taj Mahal. Survived 10 hours in a car, fired our tour guide, fended off an overzealous toilet attendant, resisted the pleadings of a guy with the most miserable looking monkey in the universe, avoided buying snowglobes off some street urchins, got my polos confiscated by the army, got to have a look at the Taj Mahal in between being whistled at by some frustrated PE teacher types, and did very well on the whole not to go absolutely berzerk. It's probably why they don't let you take anything dangerous in, just being in Agra could sent you into the kind of mental spiral that results in going postal. We did well to survive. 7 out of 10.
Level Fourteen - A totally confusing breakfast experience, the inverse buffet. Were brought loads of things we didn't want, and nothing we did. Dean started operating the coffee machine himself, to the dismay of the waiters, who seemed to want to take 20 minutes over each cup, whereas Dean could get his own in 10 seconds. Despite being full up, we were both brought curry, and nan bread. After the breakfast challenge, we had to negotiate with three separate Indians not to be thrown out of our room that we'd booked 10 days previously. I think in the end we did the requisite amount of pleading, and they let us stay. If being in the hotel was testing, going out wasn't much easier. Went to Connaught place, and doing some basic tasks like buying stamps and postcards, and topping up on talktime turned into the work of an entire day. Dean managed to confuse an ear cleaning man, by telling him he was from India. Even using the toilet in the coffee bar was a challenge. The first time I went they let me have the light on, the second time I had to make to with a tiny amount of natural light coming from a vent. Needless to say when I found the toilet I adopted a sitting position to wee, otherwise it could have gone everywhere. Went to Rajghat, which was a different side of India. Full of well dressed schoolchildren, and teenagers in Western type clothing. Seemed a long way from the rags and poverty on show in other part of Delhi. For once we wanted to hire a tuktuk, but we had trouble hiring one. At one point we got refused outright. But I started to feel like I belonged. I had a vacant stare and I had dusty clothes. Even Bangladeshi woman didn't try too hard. 7 out of 10.
Level Fifteen - After yesterday's circus we had breakfast in the room. Got my bike bag back, dismantled the bike, checked out, paid the minibar. Went for another walk to Connaught Place. Got refused entry to an ATM, which made me laugh. Spent most of the afternoon and evening sitting on the roof terrace drinking beer, using the internet and eating curry. An easy day to finish, or maybe I was just getting the hang of it. 8 out of 10.
Level Sixteen - As on the way in, the same on the way out. A pointless customs form to fill in, confirming I'm not carrying ornamental fish or ICBMs, or millions in bullion. Same as the way in, I had to borrow a pen off an Indian. I then had to queue up for hours in a funnel with some Germans and Chinese to eventually face a staring man who could make time stand still. The Germans were freaking out. They couldn't handle the seeming getting nowhereness of it all. I'd been there two weeks. It wasn't a big deal. Eventually after having my boarding pass stamped to pieces I managed to get on board the British Airways flight. The flight crew weren't as attentive this time, so I didn't get as many drinks as on the way over, and the breakfast wasn't as good, and then we bloody ended up in Glasgow, and not London. I had some trouble persuading the Spanish guy next to me on the plane, who was dressed in orange robes and seemed to be having an ecstatic religious experience, that he was in fact in Scotland. Emboldened by the ease of getting through passport control at the Scottish end, and having had a bath in my Holiday Inn room that I decided I didn't need, I took advantage of knowing how things work in the UK, dragged my bike around Glasgow for a bit, and then got the train home. I took control. It was a good way to finish. It reminded me I can do stuff, and having had a brush with India, it made Glasgow seem like a long lost friend. 10 out of 10.
So that was it for me. Game Over. Dean carried on. My credit was all used up. I only completed the first 16 levels of India the Game. I'm led to believe that there are infinite number of levels, so I didn't even reach the End of the Beginning. Anyway, my score. 126 out of a possible 160. That's 78%. That's a pass in anyone's language. In most exams that's enough to get an A. I'd settle for a B though, and I probably should since I marked my own paper. Also, that way it leaves room for improvement for when I go back.......
India: The Game - would that be The Great Game?
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