First Impressions

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We arrived at Heathrow just before nine, in high spirits despite a lack of sleep. After a few awkward hugs with other people's parents, we said goodbye to our dissapointingly unteary-eyed families and the day kicked off as planned with a traditional English from Weatherspoons, washed down with the first pint of the trip (as he was last to arrive it was Eakins' round). Our plane took off on time at quarter to twelve and we enjoyed our last view of London with a complimentary G & T. Eight fairly uneventful hours followed (the highlight of the flight being Joe and Eakins' triumph on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire), before we arrived in Delhi, four hours of Pokemon and several mini Heinikens deep.

We strolled through Delhi airport, probably the smogiest place in the world, towards Exit Gate 5, where our hotel's driver was allegedly waiting to collect us. Naturally, he wasn't there, and we found ourselves lost in the Indian capital, with just a rucksack and a few Rupees to our names.

We hopped into a couple of cabs (the driver of Toby and Michael's was smoking a joint) and experienced for the first time the utter ridiculousness of Indian roads. Driving in India is beyond mental - there is literally no system except to beep and hope that the other bloke gets out of the way (I say bloke because women don't drive here, fact). On our tour of Delhi the following day, our driver hardly inspired confidence, reversing into a moped as he pulled out of the tourist information centre (the moped's driver accepted this with a shrug). It seemed though to be a kind of organised chaos, though that might have been the free drink talking, and we remained fairly chilled untill we reached central Delhi. With our hotel nowhere to be seen and our driver becoming increasingly pissed, we hopped out and began to walk the stray dog infested, vagrant filled streets before, in a complete stroke of luck, stumbling across our hotel.

With Michael and Tobi yet to arrive, we were shown to our room which contained only a double bed. When we mentioned that we had reserved a room for two people, the lad went out only to return with a third pillow, which he placed in the in between the current two, declaring that this was now a 'triple deluxe' room. As it happened, our hotel had overbooked and we ended up in a single room. Things got a bit cosy as four of us shared a double bed, whilst Michael enjoyed the relative luxury of a blanket on a marble floor.

Welcome to India!

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Comments

[Joe Mac]

Wicked! Sounds like the hotel lad with the whole pillow incident loves the banta!