Nearly mauled to death in India / sexual Predators
Okay a few years ago, me and the then Mrs-Lizard had taken a few months off work to visit India on a bit of a backpacking mission.

Lots of things went wrong (but most are for another QOW), but I have to mention the bit were I came off my scooter and nearly broke my hip.
I braved it and was left with a deep gash in my hip/stomach area, skinned knees and elbows, battered ankles and bruised bones, the worst being my hip bone. AGONY!
But I roughed it and refused to visit a hospital (stupidly/bravely?)

So anyhow, a few weeks later I was still limping along quite badly, but was capable of carrying my rucksack and could get about... so we found ourselves in a town called Gokarna, which is quite an amazing place, but was filled with the usual cows, scruffy cats and dogs, mosquito's and hornets.

At first they weren't the problem, it was a certain bookstore owner who invited us into going back to his house and eat with him and his family. So we go back (we'd known him for two days and he seemed friendly enough).
We ate with him, his brother and cousin, and all was good, until I realised I was the only one who was talking.
They had all taken a big interest in my girlfriend after getting us VERY stoned with an after-meal joint.

I mean very stoned off ONE joint (it was something called afghan charas!), and then I got the fear (as if being thousands of miles from any semblance of your own culture, not knowing if these guys were just being friendly or trying to take advantage...) and I was in no position to fight any of them, what with my injuries.
Anyway, the brother and the cousin left the room and locked me, her and the bookstore guy alone.

So to cut a long story short, he started telling me he had a gun... we were locked in his house!
He was a nutter.
But somehow after we insisted that we had to leave (for maybe the twentieth time of asking) and he embraced my girlfriend in a Loooong hug, he unlocked the door and let us go....

Very stoned, injured and paranoid and now lost.

Because he originally walked us to the house, we were walking back alone, in a strange Indian town at 2AM in the dark.

The bookstore guy even went one step further to fuck things up for us by giving us fake drections back to the guesthouse, but i trusted my instincts and ignored his directions and luckily limped back to the main road.
So all was good, we breathed a HUGE sigh of relief and shuffled on home...

along the dark and empty streets....

Except for the distant sounds of barking, and strange black shaped crawling from the shadows in everey direction, from gutters and alleyways...

Wild street dogs.

During the day, thes poor bastards are baking in the heat, living on scraps of food and generally being beaten and pushed away by the busy Indians.

But at night... these fuckers ruled the streets.

And there we were, already freaked out, stoned and injured and we were being followed and circled by a dozen of these fuckers.

My first instinct was to find a rock or a branch or anything, but we just so happened to be in the only place in India that contained no stones...

That was it... I'd go down fighting, cos just one bite would have given me rabies... So as they got within a few feet, growling, teeth-baring distance...

We were suddenly engulfed in white light and a large crash and a yelp and chaos.
We looked around and the dogs had scattered, and there were big bits of wood and a stunned dog next to us... we turned to the light.

Nope it wasn't an angel, it was hotel porter who had come out to see what all the barking was about, to find us two about two seconds away from a good mauling. So being the legend that he was, he whacked on all the lights and threw a wooden chair into their midst.

Our hero.

We were th-is far from death.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Tue 29 Apr 2008, 22:06, Reply)