India - part one

The Lonely Planet India guide book was one of my retirement presents from work and it saved my bacon more than once, as shall be seen.

I guess the beginning of a long tale is a good place to start...so here goes. There are no direct flights from Brazil to India so I ended up having to fly from São Paulo to London and London to Delhi, a long trek. Things did not get off to a good start. While waiting to board our flight my fellow passengers and I were informed that it had been cancelled as the aircraft had struck a bird upon arrival. We  were put up in a hotel overnight and left the following day. There was a strong smell of roast feathers in the cabin when we took off next day as the bird had been sucked into the turbine!

Luckily both my flights were with the same airline so I did not have to worry about rebooking. Also I managed to email the person due to meet me at the airport in Delhi.

The organization through which I had "adopted" my Tibetan refugee had arranged for a local representative in Delhi to meet me, arrange a B&B and get me a train ticket for my journey north to where she lived, in Dehradun. I arrived pretty exhausted after two long flights, and my escort finally turned up over an hour late saying he´d been at a party. I´d had an anxious wait since it was late at night and I was alone in a totally strange environment. He was a Tibetan and luckily spoke some English.

Anyway, he dropped me off safely at my B&B and the following day brought me my train tickets and was reimbursed for all his expenses. Luckily some other guests were also catching a train the next day and I managed to share a cab with them to the station as I had not relished trying to make my own way there.

The train station was a real eye opener. It was absolutely heaving with densely packed crowds rushing here and there, very noisy and very confusing. Platform signs were few and far between but I eventually found the right train, my carriage and numbered seat. What a relief it was to be able to sit down and relax for a few hours feeling secure.

To be continued...