Day 1 - India

Submitted by Rupert on November 6, 2005 - 21:10.

We arrived at the airport to be greeted by a long, slow moving queue with too few passport control officers. Bob observes that he has already found several jobs for India’s considerable numbers of unemployed. I am pleasantly surprised however when I reach the airport control officer: instead of the usual surly bad tempered tyrant I have come to expect, I am greeted by a smiling, joking gentleman who upon looking at my passport photo comments on the changing nature of life and hair growth!

Once outside the airport and having had to wait for Zulfiqar with his Pakistani passport, we are met by smiling faces who direct us aboard a stylish 1960’s ‘medium’ bus. Myna birds and house crows add to the rumble of traffic and the beep of horns, the smell of petro-chemicals pervades the air, dogs are slumped in shady corners, trees and bushes line the roads; leaves coated in a layer of dust, little shacks selling heaven knows what, children and youth playing cricket, mopeds with father and mother, sitting side-saddle in saris, and children jammed in around them, little green and yellow rickshaws like beetles sliding in and out between the buses, cars, bikes and mopeds.

We arrive at the India International Centre – a haven of peace and tranquillity. I sit, enjoying a cup of tea, watching a black kite perched in a tree. Below a ring-necked parakeet feeds on pink flower blossom and below that I have my first view of a white-breasted kingfisher dipping into the lilly pond to catch a fish. I like this place! read more | add new comment