Waiting in Mumbai.

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After waiting at Heathrow for 12 hours yesterday, (the plane was delayed from 10.05 and then re-delayed and eventually took off at 19:00) I was finally on my way to India.
The actual flight has been the easiest bit so far, really comfy plane, tasty food and the latest films to watch. I also had my first acquaintance with a very chatty Indian man who happened to be sitting next to me. He was the "director" of two schools in Mumbai which he had set up about 10 years ago and now had about 3000 pupils. He was thrilled to find that i lived in a school and asked me loads of questions about it. Without hesitation he decided I had to go and visit him and stay at the school. He was desperate to create links with any English schools. I have his business card so I may pay him a visit on my return journey.

The plane landed at about 2:30 U.K time and 8.00 local time. I had had a few hours sleep but there was still loads of confusing paperwork to fill in. I had already missed all my other connections and spent a long time arguing and persuading with people at the desk that it WAS their problem because their airline had delayed causing me to miss the flights. Eventually they agreed to take me and about 20 other people who had also missed flights (I was the only one going to Chennai though) to a hotel for the day whilst they find more flights.

Wow! the 20 minute journey from airpot to hotel was just as exhilarating as any roller coaster I've ever been on. There is a ridiculous amount of traffic and any Englishman would be mental to attempt driving through it. I barely saw an empty square foot of tarmac, no space was spared. Massive Oil tankers, long buses, vans, the occaissional flash BMW, hundreds of motorbikes but absolutley million of auto-rickshaws. Yet the funny thing was with all this traffic everything was still moving, and I don't mean just crawling but whizzing at break neck speeds. In England half as much traffic would cause gridlock!
How I did not get see a serious collision escapes me. At one point a long single decker bus went for a racing overtake round our mini bus on the outside of a bend. They were so close to touching and I was sitting at the open window wincing and getting ready to brace for the contact when i hear a "toot toot" and look down to see a man on a motorbike squidging through between the two buses. I could have literally tapped him on the head through the open window, without getting off my seat. The other amazing thing was the people running across the road, carrying all sorts. They don't bother waiting for both ways to be clear they just sprint to wherever they can get then stop in the middle of a lane. I say lane but there were actually no markings visible at all, even the middle of the road was hard to distinguish as there were vehicles on both sides of it going the same way. What it really reminded me of is when you see a disaster movie and theres been an explosion or flood and everyone is just trying to get out of the city by any means as fast as possible. But it's like that going both ways and everyday!

Hopefully I will catch my two flights tonight/tomorrow morning without a hitch and arrive in Madurai as soon as possible to start my placement.

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Comments

[Buff]

Hey Joe - thrown in at the deep end or what!! I think your mother's genes came out when you argued your way onto replacement flights and into a free hotel! Hope you pick up your connections before too long and look forward to reading the next instalments.

[Julie]

Good to hear you are ok Joe. Keep going you'll get there eventually. Take care. Julie