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My heart pounded and my eyes smarted with tears as the woman at check-in said "the remainder of your one world ticket has been cancelled madam"..... I leaned against the desk, held my head in my hands and said "this can't be happening to me...."
Several minutes later after balling, pleading, begging and getting shirty I finally submitted and scalked away. Because I had changed my plans and not made my Bangkok to HK flight, they had decided that I was wiped off the face of the earth and cancelled the rest of my bookings, which were HK to Delhi and Delhi to London. I was put on priority one standby for the flight to Delhi that night, otherwise I faced a night on the bench in the airport and a full day the airport before i could leave to meet Na.
5 hours later! i went back to check in and stood for an hour, snivelling quietly in front of the check-in woman. My pale complexion and swollen eyes, I was unable to mask, my tears at this point were partly of sadness, exhaustion and panic and partly crocodile as I needed to try my every tactic on this woman.
After much deliberation, I was granted a seat on the flight with just 5 minutes to spare before the gate closed. Running a 5 minute mile in a skirt, flip flops, carrying 2 bags i made it to the gate and onto the plane where I sunk into my seat and sipped vodka for the next 5 hours.....
Once in a Delhi I briefly checked out the duty free (as you do) and met my tour guide. His name was Ramesh Kumar. Ramesh and I chattered easily for the next 4 hours whilst we waited for Na. He bought me Chai tea, chewed his Paan (getting up every now and again to spit the red ghoo into the bin - nice) and we covered a multitude of subjects. He was 30, married to a 25 year old, no kids and earns 30 pounds per month (what a catch)! We laughed (well he laughed at my jokes anyway)...then he said "Can I have your watch?", "eerrr, let me think about that for a second - No!", "OK then, how about your phone?" "No!" and so it went on, he wanted everything I had! Cheeky rascal. I gave him a pen which he was going to pretty much steel anyway......
My meeting with Naomi was, well, emotional to say the least. Once at the hotel we celebrated as only we can, with breakfast over a bottle of champagne! followed by way too much vodka! We eventually gave it up at being awake for 33 hours, we stopped drinking at 3pm. Well we did have a lot to catch up on AND I was able to listen my way through the new music bought on her i-pod as mine is now a little well.....a bit tired.....
"Room service, can I have 4 diet cokes please?".....knock at the door and the staff member stood there holding plates...... "No, not 4 dinner plates, 4 diet cokes!" a sign of things to come I felt.....
The first day in Delhi was Diwali, in Hinduism, the happiest of festivals, celebrated with fireworks and firecrackers, the noise was deafening. And this was clearly the reason for my difficulty to get on a flight because all the locals were headed to Delhi. The following day was the 'Ide' festival, being the mark of the end of Ramadam so there were further celebrations in the streets.
During a visit to a Sikh Temple I got my arse pinched! Sadly I didn't see who did it otherwise I would have chased the rascal down and ........ask him to do it again.... ha ha
The streets here are manic. Mopeds, cars, pigs and piglets rumaging through the leftovers of everyone's rubbish in the street, Elephants taking a stroll, a distint lack of females, many random cows strutting around and every man in every direction having a wee where he stood (or so it seems). There is little wonder that India has a health and hygiene issue. Conversely however, some of the smells are incredible (of foods and insence, not wee), the colours are so amazing and bright on the eyes and in the distance you can hear temple bells and the singing/preaching of various religous ceremonies. Sensory overload is quite possible here as is cutlure shock. In every direction there is a sight to be seen, either with fondness or repulsion.
We have managed our way through India with little hassle, absolutly because of the tour with others and in relative safety. The stares have become normal run of the mill stuff for me now, I have had my photo taken with several random teenage Indian boys (!, probably be on internet as we speak...doing unspeakable things.....nothing new there then...), I was practically knocked over by an Indian guy as I walked (he walked into me and smashed his shoulder hard against my chest and then laughed out loud at me). At this point i had to exercise some restraint over my verbal abilities through fear of something much worse happening to me. Last night I got touched up by some young Indians and pretty much flipped my lid. They got the message put it that way. There are a barrage of t&ts perverts everywhere. Other than those things it's been a scream.
Camel riding with Na - well nothing less than hysterical. We giggled uncontrolably when the camel in front of us had his tail tied up so we got a full view of his dangly bits and then he farted and poo'd. Nothing like poo jokes to get the children giggling hey!
"My bum took a good pounding yesterday" one of the fellows on our tour said to us over breakfast. Na and my eyes met over the table as a zillion one line retorts sped through our minds at a million miles per hour. Naomi shone through however with the most appropriate being "I'm not sure I want to hear about that really"..... I failed miserably. None of my responses were even slightly appropriate for a virtual stranger over the breakfast table.....
"I can taste you" Naomi said as we wondered around the Pink Fort in Jaipur. "What have you been doing with this bottle Amy, I know it's been a while but that's a bit extreme"..... Charming, and that's what i get for sharing my bottle of water after I've just applied mango lip balm.
"Can I have potatos with cumin please"... ha ha, the oldies are the goodies and that gag will never get old.
On the way bAck from the Tiger safari (where we saw deer, monkeys, crocs etc, no flipping tigers!) we were offered a baby in a carrier bag, as you do. Stunned..... I didn't go for it needless to say.
AMY: During our travelling of Northern India we experienced the great Indian road surfaces. Of which there are none, just boulders, pot holes and ditches which the bus hit at speed regularly. "Na, your head is bleeding".... I said quietly to her, not wanting to panic her to much. The bus had hit a ditch and due to the lack of seat belts or safety of any kind in fact we were all catapolted from our seats. Sadly poor Na got the brunt of it. She smashed the aircon system above her seat with her head! In doing so, she cut her scalp and her forehead as well as producing a super duper bruise and cut the length of her shin! Only in frigging Asia!
NAOMI: picture the scene....by now i'm used to the state of the roads in India and have gotten used to holding on to the seat in front of me for dear life in the event we hit another ditch/canyon/pot hole....... stupidly i allowed myself to relax for 30 seconds. The next thing i know i'm flying through the air - my butt actually rasing 2 metres off the seat and then a smashing sound. yes I had managed to impale the airconditioning unit in my skull whilst scraping the whole of my right shin against a sharp metal bar under the seat in front of me.
Amy's whispered "Na you're bleeding" was - to be honest - not what i wanted to hear. Thankfully we were able to stop for ice and i also rubbed some nice white antiseptic powder into my head - so as you can imagine i looked beautiful. i was then escorted to the pride of place - the front seat. I don't know what was worse to be honest.......risking life and limb again or being able to see how scary the roads actually are and how our driver likes to play chicken with huge flippin lorries!!!
i then sat (trying not to look out the window) rubbing an ice pack on to my leg for hours convinced that the knock to my head had given me concussion. I looked in my compact mirror trying to see if my pupils looked okay...the flaw in that plan is that I didn't know how they were supposed to look. I then convinced myself that I'd probably chipped the bone in my leg and as I was sat there a shard was making its way up to my heart...... talk about dramatic!!! I told myself to get a grip when i started to try and remember what my last words to my family were......
As I'm sure some of you will guess, the alcohol has been flowing in abundance, as has the cackling and generally bad behaviour! They love us though, what can we say! ha ha however, we're not the worst for boozing in our tour group. We've travelled with a couple from NZ who get through a bottle of whiskey per night! The over night train to Varanasi was an experience. All 14 hours of it, cramped in a tiny confind space with 7 other people and one disgusting lav for the whole carriage. Sadly, we have to do that train ride again tonight (Friday) back to Delhi but I'm pleased to say that one of the ladies has a stash of sleeping pills so..... bring it on.
"Pedal faster will you!" We shouted at the rickshaw driver last night while having a rickshaw race through the streets at midnight, hillerious, and the drive was well chuffed when he got a whole 40p tip....."Don't eat yellow snow" I also tipped but it was of course, wasted.
Well the sight of the Taj Mahal at sunrise was the single most amazing thing I have ever seen on my trip, just breathtaking, assuming you get past the hawkers who want to steel from you, the t&ts perverts who want to busy their head in your chest, the touts who want to sell you EVERYTHING and just about anyone else who wants to touch you up, the sight was awesome. The Ganges was an experience albeit a filthy one. I told Na to be careful getting on the boat to which she replied "don't you worry, I don't want to catch polio"!
Well this is it people, the very last update from TravellingJones before I officially end my tales, hit London Heathrow and become a Swindon bum once more. I can't wait!
Houston, I'm coming home.
xxx
"After all, our lives are but a sequence of accidents, a clanking chain of chance events. A string of choices, casual or deliberate, which add up to the one big calamity we call life". - A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry.
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