Lair

I checked into a room in Chennai that was advised to me by the Lonely Planet. The place was a bit run down, but it was clean enough and it had a nice view of a little lake by a temple, out back. I said ‘what the hell, I can always get a new room tomorrow’. I noticed that there was no mosquito net and that there were some pretty big gaps in the windows. I asked the boy that was showing me around if there were any mosquitoes.

‘No,’ the boy said, ‘there are no mosquitoes.’

It is now four o’clock in the morning and I am not exaggerating when I say that I’ve killed more than twenty so far. And the little fuckers are still flying around!

In order to kill them I just turned on the light and sat on my bed, waiting for them to sit down on me. Then smack! Dead mosquito. The first time I did that I must have killed about 15 in the space of ten minutes. I didn’t have enough hands to kill them all.

I tried going back to sleep after that, but they just kept biting me. Add to that that the bed is too short for me and not very comfortable, plus I haven’t had a smoke (which had apparently, without me realising it, become a big sleeping aid, as I’d been smoking before I went to sleep for the last few weeks) and I don’t think it’s very likely at all that I’m going to be able to get any sleep tonight.

I can’t believe that that boy just lied to me like that. He must have known there were mosquitoes. If he had told me, I would have gone out and got some spray (which admittedly I should have done anyway, but never mind that).

It’s the second confirmed time since I walked out of the airport that somebody lied straight to my face, without a pang of guilt. The first time it was a tuk tuk driver who told me straight out that a taxi was 475 rupees and his tuk tuk was only 300 to get into the city. I didn’t believe him, walked up to the taxi stand and was only charged 280 rupees to get where I wanted to go.

Will this happen everywhere I go? Do many Indians just lie to get what they want? I’m going to have serious trouble with that, if they do. I can’t stand liars.

My hand is covered with blood splatters from all the mossies I’ve killed. I can’t wash it off, because the water has been turned off. This is turning out to be one hell of a first night in India.

Well, at least things can’t get much worse, right?

Famous last words.