The best laid plans of mice and men...

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Well now, this is a big one, so please bear with me. This is my first entry I've written since we've been out “in country” so to speak, and not in the gently embrace of British Airways. I am writing to you from Bunk 21 of the Delhi to Gaya “Special” at 0.42, but we'll get back to that later, and the location will also change. In the meantime, here is an update of what we've been up to.

17/4 - We spent the day at The Leprosy Mission Media Centre. Situated in a fairly swanky business district outside Delhi, the building was finished in 1998 and dedicated to Princess Diana. Daily Express readers, please remain in your seats. We've been lumped in with a very Christian newlywed Swiss couple called Samuelle and Mirja. After indulging in the customary initial chit chat, we found eachother to be pleasant enough. Charming and lovely as they were however, when conversation drew around to the topic of faith, I could barely contain myself as Sam voices his very traditional (please read outdated) view on homosexuals and women. However if I skilfully avoided such controversial topics, we got on famously and were grateful for the company in this new and (to me anyway) slightly scary country.

We had the customary tour and everyone in each office stated their name, rank and serial number in a slightly awkward fashion. Lunch was served in the form of a delicious home-made curry (our first proper Indian indian) and I noted that a rather pregnant pause had gathered and our companions analysed if we would say grace or not. I diffused the situation with characteristic diplomacy declaring “Dig in!”, before anything else could be said.

Post lunch, we learnt about the CALL project. This one is very much Amelia's field, so I shall let her explain, as it falls under the category of “Law Stuff”. However, it was very interesting and very worthwhile.

18/4 – Today, due to the strenuous nature of all the talking yesterday, TLM decided we needed a day off to do some sightseeing in Delhi. We began with the Red Fort, a deeply impressive affair of read sandstone in the centre of the city. The walls of the fort are over 2km in circumference. Even more impressive, 18/4 is apparently world heritage day and all the major world heritage sites have free admission. We entered there Lahore Gate to the Chatta Chowk, an amazing covered market, the like of which I have only ever seen in films and picture books. The rest was a selection of exquisute Moghul pavilions and gardens,

Next stop was Humayun's Tomb, a complex if 3 or 4 tombs of various relations (and his barber). The first of the Moghul garden tombs, its' style directly influenced the later and slightly famous Taj Mahal. However my main memories are a bit tragic. Firstly there was the heat, and secondly the lack of health and safety considerations. As I stood on a huge marble block of over 80 feet in height above the surrounding gardens, I was amazed at the total lack of safety railing to stop the heat dazed tourists and idiotic children running off the edge. It seems that if you do, it's your own lookout/stupidity/karma.

Next, we headed to the Lotus Temple of the Baha'i faith. A frankly stunning building in the shape of a lotus flower. Here, people of all faiths, creeds and religions are invited to meditate, pray or simply escape the sun for as long as you wish, It is a breath taking place, but built amongst some of the most grinding poverty we have encountered so far here. It raises some questions of the ethical nature. Some of the scenes we have come across are heartbreaking, but like most western visitors here, this is soon forgotten as we move on to the next temple, fort or palace. I wonder, do they forget us too?

19/4 - Having woken in much more modest surroundings than the Janakpuri Hilton, the YWCA (jokes and musical tributes later please), today was our first where we would see the front line of the work that TLM do here at the Nand Nagri Hospital. After an introduction to the administrative superintendant, Steven Levi, we were rapidly passed on to one of the doctors, who showed us a physiotherapy session. There were around 12 in a session in a variety of states of disrepair. Most were doing the preparation work for an operation that corrects the characteristic clawing of the hands and feet as a result of the disease. A few were post op, and looked physically normal apart from a few scars, which could be easily explained as any sort of cut, and would heal in time. The first emotional hit of the day came. The evident poverty of everyone present wasn't the worst we'd seen, but one of the girls, not much more than 15, pre-operation was pregnant, thus jeopardising her chance of being able to undergo surgery, leaving her with a further 6 months of a virtually unusable, painful, and the shame and social stigma of a claw for a hand to endure. We left the room fighting back tears.

Next stop was the ulcer ward. Three utterly miserable faces greeted our arrival. The two older men in the ward were suffering from leprosy induced ulcers in various places. Painful, oozing and treated only by powerful steroids which have reactions with the antileprosy drugs, they had good reason to be less than content. The other face in the room was slightly less unhappy, but with no reason at all. He was a young lad around 10-11 with a bandage around the ulcers on his foot. Due to the nerve damage caused by the disease, he had broken his foot and not realised, so he kept walking on it, playing football etc. until every single bone in the foot was broken. His foot now was just a sack of skin to keep the broken pieces in. Apparently the doctors have told him, and have been for the last year that the leg will have to be amputated below the knee to prevent the spread of the infection and gangrene. He has wept bitterly, but still holds some vain hope that he will be fixed by the operation date next month. The doctors have told him to say to his class mates that it's a result of a car accident to avoid the admission of having leprosy, which alongside only having one leg, would make him a total social pariah. As I looked at him with a fresh understanding of his predicament, and as we left, all I could do was give him a warm smile and a pat on the shoulder. I suspect this will stay with me for some time.

Perhaps sensing our weak western sensibilities were on breaking point, we were then taken to the Stanley Browne lab. Here they are doing research into the immunology, epidemiology and molecular mechanisms of the M. leprae. To anyone reading who didn't do CMM or similar, this won't necessarily mean much, but it is absolutely vital work to find the causes of the disease, reasons for treatment failures, and which groups are more prone to getting the disease. Every tissue sample from every leprosy case in India is sent to this small 10 person lab for DNA analysis to look for any emerging drug resistance genes or modification of virulence genes etc. I was very impressed with the whole set up, and for the first time, it gave me hope that modern medicine could have a chance of eradicating this age old disease.

Vsit over, now the real “fun” started. We had been under the impression that our train to Varanasi had been booked for 8.30pm. Instead we were now told that it was infact booked for 4.20, so after a mild panic and a swift lunch, we were taken to Delhi station and dropped off. As we approached the security scanner with e ticket in hand, a man wearing a “Security” shirt appeared from nowhere and told us that this would not do at all and we had to go to the government tourist office. So we were bundled into a tuk-tuk and whisked away through the melee of Dehli's terrifying traffic. Five minutes and 20Rupees lighter (about 28p) we were deposited at the office. Asking only for the boarding pass, a man said he would work on it, and in the meantime we were offered the full luxury tour of Rajistan by a combination of car, elephant, and tiger jeep. Naturally the price requested was exorbitant, but by the time we had established this, and demanded our boarding passes, the train had been well and truly missed with no space on the next one. Wild eyed and desperate we asked what we should do. Nothing could be done, they said, still smarting from the fact that we had turned down their kind offer to give them lots of our money. Amelia started to cry.

How many of us are ever utterly lost in a country as foreign as this, and no idea what to do on a budget as tight as ours? Few, I know, but should you be planning on it, the answer is to turn on the waterworks, and rely on the kindness of strangers. The men in the office instantly turned off “sell sell sell” mode and sprang magnificently into action. Within the hour, a “special” train was found that only runs on fridays, was booked, we negotiated for a car to take us round from Agra onwards, an elephant tour and prebooked tickets to the Taj Mahal in order to jump the hour long queues. All for nearly a quarter of the original asking price.

It is my belief that the “Security” person was actually a tout for the tourist board in order to extract more money from tourists. Yet another facet of corruption in a country where everything is done by cash and everyone will try to fleece you.

However, the help from the guys in the tourist office has gone some way to restoring my faith in Homo sapiens sapiens. Indeed so profound was their pity that we were given a driver for the evening free of charge to go and see the sound and light show at the Old Fort and to see us safely aboard our new special train to Varanasi. The place better be worth all this hassle and stress.

Love, Andrew

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