Bloody Baksheesh

So what a crazy day / night yesterday was...

Halloween... you know the drill. Get dressed up, go somewhere with a bunch of fun folk, get smashed, good times right? Wrong! Well, partially wrong. It was fun but wow what an epic.

Let me paint you a picture...

Crocodile Dundee (Me), The Incredible Hulk, Princess Leia, Darth Maul, 2 Wood Nymphs, William Wallace AKA Braveheart, Alex DeLarge (Clockwork Orange), Evil Indian Baba and a six foot tall Smurf all walked down the main street of Hampi getting stared at in disbelief by the locals then piled into a truck/taxi thing, drove through some small Indian villages to more disbelieving stares then arrived at our party destination some miles away.

We settled into the party with many other stangley dressed characters including Laurence Of Arabia, a Gypsy and a Playboy Bunny. Everything was set to be great fun... but it was not to be... Before dinner was even started the Police turned up. Now Indian Police can do whatever they like and make people pay 'baksheesh' or bribes. The took the lot. All the beer. The soft drinks. The food. The stereo. And 4 of the owners and staff. We were all stunned.

Long story short it cost the owners 86,000 Rupees (about 2000 CAD...) to bail out SOME of the staff and it still has to go to court. But wait. Why did this happen I hear you say? Well we got a friend to pick us up in a truck to drive us there and the Rickshaw Walla's (drivers) found out and were pissed about us not getting 2 rickshaws to take us so they called the cops on us, and if they call the cops in on a juicy 'baksheesh' they get a 20% cut on the action... pretty sh*t huh? So baksheesh was paid, party resumed... with a slight cautious edge to begin with the music started, dancing was had, bonfire was enjoyed... brilliant.

We slept in the resteraunt for a few hours at dawn and woke to find that lo a behond our 2 friends that organised the party had had their camera's, cash and phones stolen... YAY! I mean what the? Insult to injury huh? Luck was on their side though and later in the day our Indian friends found the kid that stole the stuff, returned it and are putting the thief on the first bus to his family in Calcutta.

Epic. Not really. This Is India.