Lunch and Heading to the Airport

When we returned, we walked a few blocks to the Marco Polo restaurant. It was Italian food in India. I was a bit skeptical, but hungry. There were a lot of meat options, but after my market experience, I stuck with the Penne Pesto Pasta. Who knew it could take 45 minutes to make pasta?

After lunch, we said our goodbyes, piled in the two jeeps and headed to the airport. We had a 5:20 flight to Bangalore and needed to leave at 3:00 to give our drivers plenty of time to weave through the nastiest traffic you’ve ever seen. I sat in the front, which means I was almost the first to die numerous times. I joke. Although there were some close calls, which it seemed there always were when we drove, the IJM drivers were unbelievably skilled. It’s incredible how alert they have to be behind the wheel. They don’t need to make cell phone laws in India. If you are talking on your phone while driving here, 100% guarantee you’ll be filing insurance claims within 10 minutes.

Security at the Kolkata airport was interesting to say the least. We made it pretty deep into the airport before I had to trash my water. I had liquids in my bag that no one cared about. I didn’t have to take my shoes off and didn’t have to take my belt off. There was police everywhere, but there were people everywhere too. It seemed like anything could happen. I was sorta hoping for tighter restrictions, especially after I learned from Tim that, “Iraq is #1 in the world for terrorism. India is #2.” Tim’s comforting words never ended.

As I write this, I’m on Jet Lite Airways, flying the friendly skies of India. While Kolkata was all about human sex trafficking, Bangolore and Chennai focus on bonded slave labor, where families are forced against their will to work for a slave owner in brick kilns, rock quarries and other treacherous places.

That’s all for now. But butt hurts, my eyes are blurry and I can’t stop coughing from what I swear is cigarette smoke in the rear of the plane. Good times, good times.