Land of the Cow

According to a recent informal survey, 90% of Americans we know say my wife and I are brave. The same percentage acknowledge that when they say "brave" to our faces, they are really thinking "stupid" in their heads.
"Brave" was by far the #1 answer/reaction when we told anyone we were taking our three kids and going to India for a couple of weeks to visit my sister and her family.
It ended up being a great trip, and I wanted to share a few of the more entertaining moments.

You know how it's funny to watch pharmaceutical commercials where the list of potential side effects is far longer and more terrifying than the symptoms the drug is intended to treat? It's not quite as funny when it happens to you.
I've always had a problem with motion sickness, particularly on long flights. I've never thrown up on a plane but I've been close a couple of times, so before this trip Missy wanted me to see a doctor about getting a prescription for it.
The doc ended up giving me some patches called Scopolamine, and I put one on a few hours before our 16-hour flight from Dallas to Dubai. (From there we had a 3-hour flight to Delhi and a 2-hour flight to Northeast India).
A few hours into the flight I started feeling quite weird. It wasn't motion sickness, but just a general uneasiness in my head and stomach. I got up to stretch my legs and quickly felt very dizzy and lightheaded. I stumbled in the general direction of my seat, evidently knocking over a flight attendant before collapsing into my seat. I lost feeling in my hands and feet and wasn't breathing well.
For some reason, the flight attendants thought I was having blood sugar issues (which I have never had) so they made me drink some sugar milk and eat a candy bar. I went along with that because it meant I got to drink sugar milk and eat a candy bar. They also hooked me up to an oxygen tank.
After a few minutes on the oxygen, the woman sitting next to me said, "Excuse me, but I notice that you have a patch under your ear. Is that a motion sickness patch?"
I said yes and told her the name but explained that I wasn't having my usual motion sickness issues. Then she asked if I had ever used this patch before. I said no.
She said she was a doctor and that she tells her patients never to take the Scopolamine patch for the first time on an airplane. She said the side effects I was experiencing were common and strong, so I should have taken the patch at home to test it first. Plus, the side effects are often diminished after multiple uses. Slightly too late for that at this point. Then she told me to go to sleep.
Lesson learned. I went to sleep for awhile before another, far less serious but nonetheless quite irritating side effect kicked in -- dry mouth. I couldn't get enough water. This lasted for a couple days after I took the patch off. I probably drank two gallons during the rest of our travels and peed about 57 times, but 45 minutes after one drink I'd feel like my mouth was a desert.

We made it to Delhi, where we were staying the night and began to get the full India experience. We had booked a Western-style hotel that advertised itself as being 15 minutes from the airport. Then we found out it was really 50 minutes from the airport. Then we got into a cab and it took almost two hours to get there.
I use the term "cab" loosely. This thing was more like a go-kart. My mom, wife and three kids were crammed in the small back seat, while I rode shotgun, literally sitting on top of the engine.
It didn't take long to realize that the cab driver had no idea where he was going, and he didn't speak English. It was hard to blame him for being lost, since there's no real addresses and most streets have no names. The "address" of the hotel (which ended up being really nice) was just a general area, "Precinct 21" or something like that. Once you got to Precinct 21, you just drove around until you found it.
Also, I was pretty sure we were all going to die that night in one of two ways. Way #1 was that Indian drivers are crazy!!! Each road is roughly the size of one-and-a-half U.S. lanes, but they drive at least three-wide. You have pedestrians, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, vans, and semis going both ways in these tiny roads with no lane markings or procedure. People just honk all the time. That meant they are coming and you'd better get out of the way. There are a few traffic lights, which are entirely ignored by everyone.
After driving around for 15 minutes or so, our driver pulled over and asked me to get out. He then lifted up my seat and poured water on the engine, which my buns could have told him was running quite hot. Then he continued driving, seemingly in circles, until we were out of Delhi and into the countryside. This is Way #2 I figured we'd die. Since I knew the airport was in Delhi and our hotel was in Delhi and Delhi is one of the most populated cities in the world, it didn't make sense for us to be in the middle of nowhere at any point of this cab ride. Six Americans and all their luggage at 1 a.m. in Delhi seemed like a pretty easy target. I figured we'd pull off and get ambushed. Indeed, the cabbie pulled off again. This time, he walked around to my side but just stood there for a minute. Then he poured some water on his face. Then he poured a little on his index finger and brushed his teeth with it. Then he got back in and started driving.
Finally, after wandering around for another 30 or 45 minutes, he pulled over and asked someone for help. We were at the hotel in less than five minutes. (The drive back to the airport the next day took 50 minutes).

The Indian culture is fascinating. Everyone knows the cows are sacred, but there are all kinds of animals all over the place over there, just wandering around amid millions of people. We saw goats, pigs, chickens and donkeys just roaming around. They belong to nobody.
India is largely Hindu, so there are thousands of gods everywhere that people worship. The crazy thing is that in a third-world country with extreme poverty, the gods live in luxury. Near my sister's house there's a massive marble temple with two gods inside. It was probably three stories tall. Outside the door was a big bell you were supposed to ring to wake the gods up before you went in to worship them. Within yards of this idol mansion, hundreds of migrant workers lived in small huts with dirt floors and no electricity or air conditioning, eating almost nothing besides rice and vegetables.
Aside from spending great quality time with my sister and her husband and watching her three kids play with our three kids, this was the best part of the trip, just being immersed in the culture and getting an appreciation for their daily lives.

There is a fairly new Western-style shopping mall close to their house, and that provided quite a bit of entertainment.
The people there haven't quite gotten the hang of elevators and escalators yet. When we walked to the escalators for the first time, my brother-in-law Matt said "Watch, I guarantee we'll see some people who have never seen an escalator before."
Sure enough, we didn't even have to wait. The people right in front of us stood, staring at the escalator and then back at each other, trying to figure it out. Finally, one of them took the leap of faith and screamed in excitement when they started moving down.
A different time, we were going down in the elevator, and it stopped one floor above where we were headed. When it stopped, there was a man on the other side whose nose was basically pressed against the door. He couldn't have been any closer to the elevator without being in it. The doors opened, and he just kept standing there. We motioned for him to come on, but he just stared at us. Finally, the doors closed, almost trapping his nose in them, before it continued downward. I almost died laughing.
We went to the Subway at the mall, which was slightly different than an American Subway. Of course, there were no beef products (the meatball marinara is my favorite), so we had to try something different. I ordered a pepperoni melt, then was told it would cost extra to toast it, which would seem to be the only way to put the "melt" in pepperoni melt. Then when I asked for lettuce, tomatoes and veggies, I was told no. All I got was pepperoni and cheese. I asked if I could pay extra for veggies. The answer was no.

The first full day we were in India, I went to play basketball with Matt and some of his friends. I was extremely jet-lagged but figured it would help get me over that. So we start playing, and as usual I'm jacking up 3-pointers without really warming up at all.
My first three shots were airballs. Like, not even close. I know I'm no Ray Allen, but I usually don't embarrass myself on the basketball court. It's the only sport I consider myself halfway good at.
The next couple shots barely grazed the front of the rim. I was a little surprised but figured it was just the exhaustion. My head was still a little dizzy from the Scopolamine and jetlag. One of my teammates said, "You're going to have to shoot it harder." I said thank you, I realize that.
After the first game, which we lost thanks to my horrible shooting, the same guy says to me, "You know this is an NBA 3-point line right?" I did not know that, nor did it ever cross my mind while I continued bombing treys. I think I was able to get my overall 3-point percentage into double digits before the end of the day.

 There were a lot more great memories, but I've written enough for now. If Allison or Missy remember something else that should be added I can just tack it onto the end. Like I said, we had a really great time and it was an experience to remember. I'm glad we were "brave"!