Friday 18 November 2011 - Day 2 - Delhi and the overnight train journey

Reflecting...music played while updating. 

Postcard 2 - Journal notes

After a 9 hour flight from Heathrow T4, the India charity trekking team safely arrive on New Delhi tarmac. Passports approved, stamped and luggage collected, we walk into arrivals welcomed by Jane and Raul, our Charity Challenge guides.  We experience a few delays whilst  changing currency and waiting for our driver to take us to our first schedule meeting.  

We continue to get to know each other, in-between, being individually greeted by Jane, as she dressed all in garnets of fresh marigold flowers, all excited travelling by mini bus in a dramatic climate change, atmosphere and environment.  I love it! 

I am not sure if this is my third journey to India, but the mayhem journey by road wasn't such a shock to my system as it was to new India visitors.  Tuk tuk’s, cars, vans and wagons continually alert each other by horn, they are passing by.  The noise is musical.  We pass India’s Gate with a mix of local music from our vehicle, other road users and stalls along the way.  

 

We register into the Johti Mahal Hotel to freshen up, sit together sharing the local cuisine and hear the trek schedule planned by Jane.  The food was fresh, colourful and flavoursome.  After our meal we had a few hours to cram in the local sights and absorb the atmosphere. 

We visit the Masjid-i Jahan-Numa, commonly known as the Jama Masjid, the principal mosque of Old Delhi.  To adhere to, and respect Muslim etiquette, female tourists are required to hire a full length gown.  The gowns cover from neck to ankle with a similar design to a floral, one fits all, light weight dressing gown.  A few of us shy to take photographs, were amazed how locals and other visitors welcomed being snap shot .  Individuals and families rushed over asking us to capture them on photographic memory.  In contrast to the UK, parents and children rushed over asking us to take a child/family photograph.  Smiles on faces when we photographed, and when we shared what our digital camera screen moment had captured.

Time fled by, and before we knew it we were called to experience more of Delhi.  In a rush, we returned gowns, tied on shoes and in pairs all took seats in rik shaws, for the equivalent of a mad roller coaster ride through tight, swerving, busy market roads and lanes.  I would be very surprised if one team member walked away from that fun, fast, mayhem journey without at least one bruise.



We return to Johti Mahal Hotel, collect our rucksacks, board our bus and set off for another meal stop.  I am already starting to feel sick of food.  Good food, but too much in one day.  After this meal we head to, and join in the un-organised rush of, finding and boarding our train for an overnight 12 hour journey.  

PHEW! All safely on board and co-ordinated by Jane, we find our sleeping bunk.  I remember thinking, this is mental but funny.  Bunks lower and upper, run along one side of the train.  I have a lower bunk with a window.  Hazel my co trekker, above.  From here there’s a very narrow walkway, corridor, breaking the gap from chambers of 2 lower and upper bunks.  If you have the slight luxury of a full window you have the privacy by means of a curtain.  For those opposite, they share with four, or more, and a curtain to close them off walkway/corridor activity to the loo or exits.  

At this stage I think, we are all still quite shy, so most try to snuggle down and rest ready for the trek ahead.  We have no idea what is going through the others mind.  Maybe all having our own anxieties, excitements, regrets, wonder…the list could go on.  One thing  we shared eventually, not many had slept well that overnight train journey.  I felt dread if I needed the loo.  My first experience, viewing the facilities along with the stench, I automatically wretched.  BUT! I have to confess, it was all part of the experience and I smiled.  When you've got to go, you just have to go! Although the train was warm and rocked most gently to sleep I was too alert.  My mind travelled ahead into the trek, and my eyes captured images from my bunk train window.  Gentle noise of snoring, the train smoothly moving on the tracks, dim lights, curtains swaying in coordination with train motion, warm and sticky air, I drifted in and out of sleep with a smile on my face and some anxiety.