Jinx!

So once I finally mastered how to say the B word (I didn't say I knew how to spell it), I thought it'd be pretty cool if I could say it a lot. On the plane I was like, so Steven, we need to actually do something in B-word because then we can be like, 'Hey, remember that time in Bhubaneswar when...' Yeah, never wish for that.

Get out of the plane, only 20 degrees, head out of the tiny airport and begin looking for an auto rickshaw, followed by at least three cab drivers asking if we wanted a taxi--clearly we have blinking lights on our foreheads saying please take advantage of me, I'm a tourist. Rickshaw said no I am not driving 1 and a half hours, so then we turn to the taxi drivers and ask how much, as we start to bargain they tell us to go to the pre-paid window, which we've been told is always the best bet anyway. Well, we get to the window and the same drivers that have been following us around start talking in Hindi to the man behind the window--that didn't help. After agreeing upon a price we follow the sketchiest driver of all back out to the lot, he tells us to stand and wait while he finds a driver friend in an Ambassador car to take us. We get in and believe we are on our way.....

Fast forward about three minutes later. 'So which hotel?' Toshali Sands I say, 'Toshali Sands?! NO, NO, I need to go back' WHAT?! he starts arguing that we said Puri and that hotel is 10Km outside the city. Literally he turns the car around and is about to head back to the airport--with some yelling he just pulls over to the side of the road and calls his boss. They talk in grunts (usually Hindi sounds nice, this was grunts)...we keep yelling, saying we've paid, we aren't going back, we want to go to the hotel. Zack said I should yell, so believe me, I was yelling. He then just hands me the phone (apparently I was yelling loudest)...I then yell at the boss. Nothing.

Finally Steven takes the phone, tells him we want to go, we've been stopped for five minutes and every minute of our time he takes the driver owes us 10 ruppee and so really they owe us money...That got some giggles. Finally we agreed to be dropped in Puri for the price we paid originally, hoping to find a rickshaw after dinner that would be cheaper than the extra 150 rupees they wanted to pay us for 10km. and away we go.