Part 1 of the messy travelers
Groover
and Beth - From Delhi Helli to Goa Heaven
Not quite sure where to start, an extraordinary week complete with proper traveler thrills and spills!!...
4 am start for flight from Italy to Delhi via Vienna (Monday morning fear of the strangest kind), flight took 6 and half hours but got in 11:30pm their time as it's 5 and half hours ahead out here, had been warned in the guide book of taxi touts at the airport but headed as advised to the `Delhi Traffic Police Prepaid Taxi Booth` which turned out to be a bloke in a small hut scribbling on bits of paper, getting severally hassled by touts but managed to get in the taxi OK but with little confidence...about 20 mins in to the journey the shifty looking driver mumbled something about "not knowing where our hotel was" and stopped at a `tourist office` (another 5 shifty looking blokes), we were then told that first driver had to go back to airport and that two blokes would take us, crapping ourselves we realised we didn't have any option and got in...the car stank of shit (which managed to get on the back of my trousers and Beth's trainers). 45 mins later thanks to a lot of luck, some judgment using the guidebook map and a lot of insistence that "we want to go to our pre-booked hotel" despite the blokes "offer" of cheap accommodation elsewhere, we reached our destination.
Our elation and relief at finding our hotel was very short-lived though when we were shown to our room/prison cell (numbered room 101 - I kid you not!!) by a porter who didn't speak English and had never heard of us. Our `Deluxe Air conditioned room` had rusty taps, a toilet that didn't work and a large hard box for a bed with grey rug and filthy pillows!! Welcome to Delhi!!!!!
It was at this point we decided to 1) change accommodation in the morning and 2) leg it from Delhi on Thursday, we both eventually passed out around 4am. The next day we saw Delhi up close and personal when we ventured out to find a new hotel, deafening noise, absolute chaos everywhere, blokes pissing in the street, the saving grace was that it was raining which kept a lot of the touts away. We managed (again through luck rather than judgment) to find a decent hotel, we must have looked terrible stumbling and panting through the front door asking if there was room at the inn just as everyone else was sat down for lunch!!
We
managed to change our flight, wash, eat well and sleep before a tour around Delhi
the next day organised by the hotel. The tour was excellent, in a very comfy 4X4
shame the driver didn't speak English though. The truth is there are places of
beauty and quirkiness (elephants on the roads, a bloke cycling with half a melon
on his head to keep the rain off, kids walking round with pythons round their
necks) in such a vast city but you have to look very hard to find them, there
is poverty nearly everywhere to the point where a young girl tried to get in the
car, it was a real eye-opener though.
Women are very much second class
citizens out here, all questions regarding Beth were directed at me and if she
engaged eye contact or talked to any men it was seen as a come on, we found it
far more laid back in Goa. Trying to get to grips with the not eating with left
hand rule (left hand out here is only used for wiping your arse!!!!!) was tricky
too, especially disconcerting when a fruit seller was cutting our pineapple up
on the beach today with his left hand...!!!
Kind of glad to see the back of Delhi and the two Laurel and Hardy characters on reception (catchphrase "yes sir thankyou sir") who were falling over themselves to help us whilst eyeing up our wallets. Delhi did it's best to keep us grounded as thick fog (!!) delayed our flight but eventually we got to Goa on thursday night and it was well worth wait!! Absolute paradise!! Hot, picturesque and...cheap!! A full meal with starter and bottle of wine comes to a fiver, we saw dolphins swimming in the sea from our beachfront accommodation and our fully deserved tans were coming along nicely after the hell of Delhi.
My
travelers beard has now gone due to a full shave at a Goan hairdressers!! an amazing
experience, more like a head massage he must have used 4 or 5 different lotions
on my face, only noticed half way through that the hand holding the very large
razor only had three fingers!!
We
are going to get messy tommorrow night on what I'm told is India's finest produced
wine called...yep you've guessed it...`Groover`!!! (a popular Indian name apparently!!).
I gather it's a cheeky little vintage which is `full bodied` to say the least!!
it will not be the first time Beth has received a mouthful of `Groover` I can
tell you!!!!! waheeey!!
The only nuisance is the child hawkers trying
to flog stuff on the beach but they're nice enough and you can talk to them as
they're English is spot on (one calls himself `Del Boy` complete with "Lovely
jubbly" catchphrase!!) am trying to persuade local boys that there is more then
just one team in England - Man Utd - will have them all cheering for Reading by
the time we leave!! Hell of an e-mail but hell of a week!!
Will write again soon wish you were here and love to you all,
Groover
and Beth