Welcome to rum 038; reggae country

But first, the landing, 10 hours later, the aircraft wobbling from one side to the other, the Kingston runway leaping up from the middle of the ocean.

8220;West Indies will win,8221; is the surly welcome at immigration, the burly lady officer then abruptly disappearing with my passport, unable to decipher the special all-Caribbean visa specially issued for the tournament. She hadn8217;t heard about it.

Oh well, they had said this World Cup was going to be a backroom nightmare.

Be prepared, they had warned. And I braced up for the worst. Till I ran into Victor Taylor outside, and his dazzling smile. It8217;s a smile that I was to see on hundreds faces in the next two days. The kind of smile that soothes you, makes you feel good, convinces you that you are with good people, in a happy world. The kind of smile that forces you to pay that extra dollar, everywhere, knowing that you are being fleeced through your guts. 8220;It8217;s World Cup time, you know,8221; he says.

Shifting the gears of his beat-up Nissan like a maniac, Taylor turned to look behind, hardly worried about the 16-wheel trailer truck that was looming in the windscreen. 8220;We Jamaicans, we will do a good job, maan. We will give you the best. But watch out in Trinidad, they are going to fleece you.8221;

One sweaty night later, the body clock scrambled beyond repair, I open the hotel room door. There8217;s Taylor, and the smile. 8220;Ready for Montego Bay, brother?8221; I am, barely.

What follows is a fascinating ride past the Assam countryside, through winding roads cutting through thick forests of Kerala, and gurgling streams snaking down from the mountain walls just a handshake away from the car window. Is this Jamaica, or a slice of India? But a small painted sign on the roadside 8216;dhaba8217; shakes me awake. Miss Hottie8217;s, it says, the best rum in the world.

Peeping out from a hole cut out of an asbestos sheet is Miss Hottie herself, over 60 years old at least, as big as the mountain rock that juts out near her 8220;joint8221;, squinting through cataract-scarred eyes. 8220;You are on the right path,8221; she says. Hopefully, I am.

An hour later, the dark grey and green on the windscreen explodes into a spectacular kaleidoscope of bright blue, and gold. We have just turned a corner, into Ochos Rios, a tourist hotspot on the north coast of Jamaica, the sun skimming in the blue sea, a mammoth cruise ship filling the frame.

There are a few Germans jogging, down the wrong way, a bunch of animated Japanese at the souvenir shop, ogling at a real-life naked wooden figure, with a giant you-know-what thrusting out towards the road. 8220;The tourists, they love that stuff, maan,8221; offers Taylor. I am too stunned to reply.

Another hour through the coast, and the traffic grinds to a crawl. 8220;All the construction in Montego Bay, for the warm-up matches, no room for traffic,8221; says a construction worker. Another hour, I am sweating buckets, down to my second bottle water, the sea view begins to get boring. And then, finally, I am in Montego Bay, the home of Team India.

Rahul Dravid8217;s team is here till March 12, a day after the opening ceremony, when they leave on a chartered flight to Trinidad for the real action, the group matches. Hopefully, me too. If I survive till then.