Warning: Entering stream of consciousness. Keep hands and arms inside the car and fast seat belts, or run away now.
Toilets are a never ending adventure. I feel doubly bad for people who get sick here. It's bad enough being sick. The facilities can only exacerbate the situation. Toilets are usually in small rooms with full length doors. Doors go floor to ceiling sealing in the space and stifling air flow. Inside the closet is anything from a seat to a trench in the floor. Everything is incessantly wet. It is customary to wash rather than wipe. There is typically a short water nozzle on the right and sometimes a roll of toilet paper on the left. Toilet paper always has a small hood to deflect water spray.
The perforation in toilet paper is more like printed ink dashes than true perforations so there's never an easy clean tear. The closets are always wet all over. I can't fathom how clothes stay dry in a stall that wet. In gentle discussions the suggested technique is to fill the hand with water and splash appropriately.
This just does not compute for me. To me water implies slippery floor and wet clothes. Further water is neither a disinfectant nor a barrier. In Boy Scout fashion I travel prepared with TP. It has come in handy on multiple occasions. I've also adopted liberal use of hand soap and hand sanitizer.
There are several water conservation mechanisms. I've seen very few bath tubs. Spray wands or splash buckets seem preferred to full on shower heads. Most toilets seem to two flush levers. I want to believe these are akin to the liquid/solid flush options on newer toilets in the states. In my testing the larger and smaller flush levers invoke the same volume of water. I suspect a disconnect between concept and implementation. In my estimation water saved in the non-shower is otherwise spent in visits to the toilet. Net:net, it's a wash.
The first two hotels also lacked wash cloths. I reveled in a good scrub upon finding a wash cloth at the 3rd hotel. Again I was thankful for Boy Scout preparedness with handkerchief and a multipurpose microfiber towel. The towel is one triathlon goody bag souvenir that's seen plenty of use. It washes, it wipes, it absorbs, and it dries fast. Hat tip to Hitchhiker's guide - always carry a towel.
Let's move out of the closet an on to other peculiarities. Drive on the left, most of the time. This doesn't translate to passing on the right. It doesn't translate to walking on the left. It doesn't even always mean driving on the left. It seems more recommendation than a hard and fast rule. Drivers sit on the right and shift left handed. That was interesting but not insurmountable (thanks Thomas!). My achilles heel manifests as a pedestrian navigating traffic.
I spent (a long time) looking left before entering a road. It's ingrained and elicits a conditioned process for road crossing. Looking right first just does not compute. When I can remember to look right first it does not trigger the imprinted real life game of frogger. Further, as difficult as frogger was, it still pales in comparison to crossing busy Indian roads.
English isn't necessarily English. I've heard sounds that registered no familiarity. I've spoken to blank stares. In some ways its great training for meetings. Apply effort at critical junctures and roll with the flow of everything else.
No means yes. There is a head bobble that actually means yes. It is most akin to shaking the head left and right which indicates no in american society. It's subtly different and the devil is in the subtle details. The head bobble most similar to no actually means yes.
Units require conversion and the metric system isn't as widely adopted as worldly travelers would like us Americans to believe. Many people ride motorcycles for efficiency.
Multidimensional units like MPG to KM/H invoke memories of "cross cancelation" (?) from high school chemistry and physics. In the end Indian offroad vehicles still get 38mpg on 4 cylinder Diesel engines. That bests my 4 door sedan Nissan maxima daily driver back home.
To close out for now I'll touch on clothing. People here dress really nicely. Everyone sports nice ensembles. I see very few basic t-shirts and even those can't really be described as basic. They are typically accessorized in a tasteful manner. There may be trash on the streets and in the gutters but people are well appointed and building interiors are fastidiously tended. Americans are most easily spotted by their dressed down style. I made a conscious decision to travel light and dress nice (thanks Paul!). My "nice" marginally suffices for daily coming and going here. It will be a change to go back to cargo shorts and tech shirts.
Oh, and food. Earlier this year I moved off the typical american meat/corn/wheat diet and on to vegetables. Eating here is difficult. Everything is rice based (s/corn|wheat/rice/g). Fresh vegetables are off the menu because of water concerns. Veg meals tend to be fried or cooked in rich sauces. Simple steamed vegetables are a rare find and viable pots of gold.
So far I've avoided getting sick. I'm going to credit this to ScottV and Lal. Scott gave to the tip to keep bottled water on bathroom vanity by toothbrush as reminder to brush with bottled water. Lal helped me learn to navigate safe foods. Thanks Guys! The precautions mean a limited diet but it's well worth the sacrifice. Along these lines I tend to indulge in safe foods at breakfast buffet. This is known safe, plentiful, and convenient. Then i'm free to go where the day leads supplementing with cliff bars or trail mix as necessary. I ventured into a grocery store yesterday and found a few old favorites including nature's own granola bars and kitkats. This and a transported case of cliff bars are emergency rations for eating on the go or gnawing on calories in the room before passing out from exhaustion after a day full of activity.
Speaking of activity it's time to move. There's a strange and beautiful world out there just waiting to be explored.
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