The First Week

Hi,

We woke up at three in the morning (!) to get to the plane up in Hobart at six...

On the flight from Hobart to Melbourne Mum and Dad napped while Abbey and I watched the TV!

At the Melbourne Airport we had some iced tea and croissants and looked through the duty free shops. 

Once on the flight from Melbourne to Singapore, the sweet air hostesses gave us some warm flannels to 'wipe away the dirt of the day'. I  watched a drama bollywood film to get my self  'in the mood' for INDIA. That flight I didn't get any sleep so I was quite tired. In the middle of the big plastic airport was the cutest little garden with HUGE gold fish, 

it was a really nice break from the strict 'in line' kind of stuff that happens at most ALL airports...

On the flight from Singapore to Delhi I watched yet another bollywood film ( this time a love story), and fell into a restless sleep where I would just get to sleep and then the plane would hit disturbance and BANG I wake up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mum was looking forward to fresh air when we arived in Delhi but all we got was a mix of smoke, car fumes and brake fluid...

GROSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The taxi driver drove like a MAD man, 100 to 110 km/hr through the heavy traffic. HONK! HONK! Right up a trucks tail, almost flattening a man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CRAZY!!!

I flopped down in the hotel bed and...

ZZZZZZZZ

Write More Soon

Frances


So then we woke early the next morning. Vidhu our host, organised for a taxi to the train station and we whizzed off into the wild traffic of India. As we pulled into Nizamuddin train station two coolies (porters  wearing red shirts)

   

grabbed our bags out of the back of the car and guided us swiftly and expertly to our platform. They deftly dodged the sandy coloured stray high tailiing it with a pack of similarly mangy mutts hard on her tail as she skidded yelping around the corner, down the stairs of the bridge over the tracks. They waited with us for our train to come in and loaded us into the correct carriage and compartment before demanding an exorbitant fee, ten times what Vidhu had told us to expect. We paid... it was all so overwhelming. How we would have managed without them... The signs were in Hindi. The load speaker was Hindi. The people were staring. We were too conspicuous... too white, too awkward, too wealthy. We were glad to hide in our compartment and take stock.
The train is a great way to ease the beginner into the Life of India. As we travelled south to Goa for 38 hours, we passed through the variety of backyards of the poor, from the plastic/tarp tents to the woven huts,

from the animals tethered and eating rubbish piles to those more fortunate creatures living under delicately balanced palm leaf thatched structures. Through paddy fields and deserts we saw buffalo and goats, pigs and donkeys a couple of horses, a camel and lots of dogs, painted trucks, scooters, rickshaws and people carrying unbelievably heavy loads on their heads.
We got the hang of the calls of the chai server, the coffee man, the dinner man, the pani (water) man. We mastered the art of the squat toilets with out falling in!
We did our home school as we travelled. We slept, we ate and we gradually came to a point where when we off loaded at Thrivim (almost missing the stop) with our newly aquainted fellow travellers Kate and Peter(!), we were much better equipped to catch a prepaid taxi. We headed in the fading light toward Anjuna fleamarkets to where Neptune was waiting - we had to call him so he could tell the driver in Hindi where to take us (there were too many white chapels and paddy fields). In the red glow of Anjuna night life and honking of horns we gladly cheered him as he pulled up on his scooter. We scurried along the dusty paths following him. We said good night to Kate and Peter as they came to the place Neptune had found for them to stay and then a few moments later we arrived at our new home. We showered, ate and fell into bed.

Camille