They whisper, I shout

There is a game called Chinese whispers, where you tell one person something, then he tells another person and so on. Eventually, you hear the story back again, but it has taken a different form. In India, there is something that I call Indian whispers. In this, you tell them (or someone sees) one thing, then they tell EVERYONE else in town, with the result being that random strangers come up to you and tell you "ah, you're the man on the motorcycle" or "you bought this from that shop". There is no such thing as privacy and no such thing as a secret in India. As a visitor, your business is always public knowledge.
Kerala delivered on its promises. The beaches were heavenly, the weather pretty good and a good balance of opportunities to relax and to meet people and unwind. After almost a week, it was time to press on with a fairly major part of the trip - arranging transport to Malaysia. After some searching around at the local Kerala airport, we found a shipper who gave us a quote for sending the bike to Kuala Lumpur. As one may expect, all of the questions were asked as to what was included and we were finally given a confirmation as to what the upper price might be. The best location to leave from was defined as Chennai (also known of as Madras), so we decided to make our way there. After the horrendous roads in the south and the driving standards that were becoming beyond a joke, it was decided that a train would be the quickest way to complete the 700 mile journey and move on to the next country before visas might need to be renewed. The train ride proved to be simple enough so we headed straight to the shipping company to start on the paperwork. With a 5am arrival and Indian business hours starting at 10am, some hours later we finally got to it. Paperwork started well with customs forms dealt with almost entirely on our behalf. The other areas that required our attention was a confirmation from the Police Commissioner that we had not been involved in any accidents (I kept quiet about the cow!) and declaring that the bikes were technically dangerous goods for the purposes of air transport. We even managed to package up the bikes before being told that they would definitely be on the next day's flight to KL. A couple of hours before the flight, we were to find that prices had gone up and that they had not been correctly identified as dangerous goods. Despite frantic attempts, we could not manage to get all of the necessary declarations in place in time, with the result being that we also had to delay our personal flights.
Unfortunately, we have been disappointed too many times in India by empty promises. The locals just don't like to give you the answer 'no', so you are always kept hanging around with the confirmation that there would be 'no problem'. This was probably the most frustrating part of India travel and eventually, the knowledge that even the simplest task will be made a mess of becomes exhausting. Having spent almost three months in such an environment, the desire to move on to the next stage of the journey became overwhelming. When the final departure arrived, even the trip to the airport disappointed. The rickshaw broke down, so, in order not to miss our flight, we flagged down a taxi. He turned out to be a student who was a maniac driver who wanted to impress us with his stupidity. In this he was quite successful and even had the audacity to request a tip! Upon arrival at the airport, the flight was delayed by an hour. Yet again, we had not failed to be disappointed.
The visit to India had been fascinating with the full spectrum of people and places having been presented, however there had been a sensory and stress overload that finally wore me down to a level of absolute exhaustion. I had not outstayed my visa, but I had outstayed my sanity tolerance! It was time to move on and I was shouting out to do so. Some how, I am sure that I will be beckoned back, but for now, back to the trip to Australia and it was time to begin exploration in the next country.
N.b. For those of you interested in the technical details of flying the bikes, go to the 'Planning' section of the website and then to 'Bike Transport'.