Sunday 14 November 2010

I "re"-wrote this one earlier. To Delhi...

I, to use the term, “blogged” a little about this when I got into the student apartment block in Delhi last night (Sunday), but my Nemesis “Web Apps” struck again and I lost it! So to recap in a shorter summary, as I really cannot face trying to re-write the whole lot;

Nice plane, a 777-300, tasty & interesting food on-board. 7.5 hour flight that left a little late at 10:20pm and actually took 8.5 hours as I work it out now, getting into Delhi about 12:20 – India is rather oddly 5 and a half hours ahead of the UK, which really makes it difficult to work out the time (so I left my MP4 player on UK time). Watched the A-Team until the plane’s server crashed and had to be rebooted. 2 hours max of pseudo sleep - although there was plenty of legroom I had a window seat and it wasn’t easy to get sleep comfy. Some great views of desert in what I guess was Iran or maybe Pakistan, since the real-time plane position map wasn’t working on my personal display I don’t know which. Neither were the front & down camera views working which really disappointed me, they would’ve been cool. However the main aisle displays were working and showing the front camera as we took off and landed. The take off was coolest, especially as when we left Heathrow it was a clear night and as the nose lifted off and the ground scooted down out of view we were soon heading for the stars. Oh to be a passenger on space flights in a couple of hundred years – it looked awesome!

Landed at Delhi’s couple of month old Terminal 3 that was “completed” in time for the Commonwealth Games last month, picked up my gear and met my minder with no problems. Walking out of the airport to the outside was interesting. Nothing earth shattering, I had already clocked some “slum” housing among the dusty, rubbly, wasteland that isn’t as we came in to land and it was just the smell and feel of the air that was different. Not unpleasant, but it was like a medium hot dry sauna smells & feels (“texture”-wise) but with a temperature closer to a good British summer day – nicely pleasant.

The drive out of the new multi-storey parking complex felt very, normal. This was a new and indeed modern development but that melded into a more normal Delhi situation over the course of the next mile or so until we were into full-on Delhi traffic mayhem! I loved it. Something like 6 to 8 “lanes” of traffic – cars (mostly small), minibuses, tuk-tuks, motorbikes, scooters, bicycles and small trucks (that have a name which I’ll find out) – all beeping every few seconds, all swerving their ways between “lanes”, absolutely nose to tail – really nose to tail – and wing to wing in the space of a 2-3 lane road. Running out of room on the edge there? Drive up on the banks then! At one point a couple of policemen were trying to control traffic at one junction as there was a VIP convoy of white cars with blue flashers making its way across the front of our lane. It was like they were trying to stop pigs escaping. Squealing and squeezing through until the VIP, probably some minor politician according to our driver – a more senior politician would have merited at least 5 policeman, a minister a roadblock, was nearly upon us at which point the pig flow stopped long enough for the free access of said minor, before the cops meandered their way back through the once more flowing torrent of cars to their own car which was on the edge of the road – which didn’t stop the raging waters of cars from flowing around it both sides like some large river boulder.

Through the red lights we flowed branching off down minor tributaries until we eventually reached the Koenig student apartments. A brief meal of junk food and I retired to my basic but acceptable room for an attempt at some sleep. I had a 4:45am start to get to the train station. Oh boy, I thought the drive from the airport was “interesting”!

1 comment:

  1. as far as I remember- You said , "I couldn't write the book" :) liar :))) looking forward to see the pictures, or maybe even the film uploads!! take care and good luck!!! xxx

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