Delhi Belly!

…and I thought I was going to make it to China without getting it! I arrived in Goa late Friday evening, by Saturday I didn’t feel 100% and went to bed early... the last 48 hours have been both delirious and inconvenient but I’m back on my feet again today. I’m very lucky my Dad has some contacts here and has put me up in a luxury holiday resort - so I’ve at least been able to suffer the ill effects in style!

After my last post I travelled by overnight train to Delhi - a unique experience sleeping on the top bunk of three, my nose inches away from the ceiling of the train. I awoke in the middle of the night to feel something not quite right with my big toe - a quick flash of the torch revealed it to be in the grasp of a particularly well-fed cockroach. I did feel a little guilty afterwards that my reflex flicking action sent it careering onto the bunk of a fellow passenger…

I arrived the next morning (Monday 30th) with the intention of staying a couple of days to arrange my Visa for China. I wasn’t to know then that I would be holed up there for a week: the first day I missed the Consulate’s 3-hour morning window; the day after I apparently had an unofficial letter and so couldn’t get a Visa and would need to ask my hosts to reissue through their local foreign office (you can imagine the fun). I finally submitted my passport on Thursday for Friday morning collection - naturally when I came to collect it on Friday and gave them a bankers’ draft, it couldn’t be accepted as it had a slight tear on the edge where it had been separated - so another trip to and from a State Bank of India. A clerk there tried to suggest I go to another branch but thought the better of it when she saw my resulting expression!

To add to the boredom there was a merchants’ strike across Delhi so all the shops were closed. This turned violent towards the end of the week in some parts of the City, luckily not much happened in the area I was staying apart from a few noisy marches. Delhi is also the most polluted place I’ve seen - the Sun barely cuts through the thick grey-yellow haze and buildings vanish into a fog only a few hundred metres away. By the end of the week it really felt like an effort to breathe.

On the Thursday I took a daytrip by train to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. Due to a delay with the hotel’s laundry delivery I had run out of respectable clothes and left wearing a nerdy combination of a Coldplay T-shirt and some navy tracksuit bottoms (groovy!), intending to acquire some local garments en route. When I arrived in Agra I soon found a fabric merchant and bought a hand-stitched shirt and a pair of (extremely baggy) white trousers with a string at the waist. Because the material was so fine it quickly dawned on me I would have to acquire some underpants - there was a distinct possibility otherwise, if lit from a certain angle, that I might defile the holiness of the Taj Mahal. I must surely be the only foreigner to have arrived in Agra to go shopping for pants, something my taxi driver found especially amusing…

Walking through the archway and seeing the Taj Mahal for the first time is a truly humbling experience. With its ethereal design and setting against the backdrop of an unbroken pale-blue sky, it is like seeing something come to life from a fantasy film, all the more so when you realise the birds circling its main dome are not pigeons but eagles.

I paid a guide an extra 100rs to skip a long queue with the intention of ditching him afterwards - easier said than done. He accompanied me for the rest of the afternoon which in hindsight was no bad thing - he knew a lot of places where postcard-perfect shots could be taken (from inside archways etc), also it meant I had some pictures of the monument with me in the foreground. What was really embarrassing was how keen he was to make an impression as a good photographer - I had to refuse his requests to stand pointing at the dome in the distance, catalogue style, or sitting on a bench with knees up or head resting on hands a la David Brent, all the while in front of gathering crowds!

On my last day in Delhi I was determined to follow in the footsteps of my great-aunt Lucinda (“Cinnie” to those of us who know her!) who lived out here many years ago in the days of the British Raj. She was married to a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Indian Army and had told me to visit the Officer’s Mess in “Delhi Cantonement”. When I took a rickshaw there, I soon realised it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack - the Cantonement is a military area which has grown considerably in size and there are now fifty or more messes allocated to different army units. After speaking with several sentries and their commanding officers I was eventually escorted to an official building and shown into the office of Lieutenant-Colonel Tamul. At this point I wasn’t quite sure what I was actually trying to achieve other than to find the mess in which my great-aunt’s husband had been based; I also felt like a schoolboy visiting the headmasters’ office. In fact he was an extremely warm, eloquent man who took an interest in my story. Unfortunately he couldn’t help at such short notice, and also explained despite appreciating my innocent rationale, that I could not take photographs as “the Indian Army is more British than the British Army”. Maybe one day I’ll come back better researched, but I thanked him for his time, at least I could take away that I’d sat and talked to a current day Lieutenant-Colonel.

After Delhi I wimped out on the 30-hour train and took a domestic flight to Goa - it was a relief to be surrounded by the relative sophistication of an airport once again. When it came to the Stewardess’s safety briefing I’d almost switched off until she came to the bit about emergency landings on water. I was astounded to see her demonstrate how to float outside the aircraft, not with a lifejacket, but with the seat cushion you sit on - it seems cost-cutting over here is somewhat more ruthless!

On Thursday I fly to Beijing, once I get there I have to plan a route to the martial arts academy - either by 11-hour train or domestic flight. I think it’s going to be really cold up there, I’m also a bit worried that I haven’t exactly been strenuously excercising since I’ve been here - I’m preparing myself for some pain!

Hope you’re all well and I’ll be back in touch once I get to the Academy! All the best, James

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