Backpackers doing it in style.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Back to the Future

Back to the future is what it felt like, landing in London.


Things working.... Electricity that is on for more than half the day.... No donkeys, cows, or other random animals.

We had a lot of great experiences in India, but I'm sad (I think) to say that one of the best of them was leaving the place... From my perspective at least.

Even leaving India is a difficult process. The main airport in Delhi doesn't have a massive volume of traffic, but none the less, it cant handle it, and has to run flights at all times of the day and night.
our flight was leaving at 6am.
not so bad I hear you say, but India being India you have to be at the airport 3 hours before your flight is leaving. And it takes an hour to get there from new Delhi.
2am. Not much point sleeping then.
we decided the best option was to just sit in a bar and drink the night away.

this resulted in two things, drunkenness (well... duhhh), and total honesty with the locals.

Now, I know I bitch lyrical about India on this blog, but understand, Indians are fiercely proud of their country and their culture, so we generally avoided telling the locals of our gripes, mostly anyway. The thing is that you get asked about your opinions on India a lot, the locals will stop you and ask you what you think of their country, with beaming expectant smiles on their faces. Its hard to let them down really.

so when a young Indian came and sat at our table (to chat up Traci), he coped it.
there was way to much conversation to go into, but here's a brief snippet.
"so how do you like my country"
"I don't, its a shit hole, well.... More of a shit pile really"
"so why did you come to India"
"no idea, I must have banged my head or something"
to Traci:
"so, what do you think of Indian men"
"I think Indian men show themselves for what they really are"
"yeah? What's that?"
"Arseholes.
I hate them, they're pigs"

the funny thing is that he still thought he had a chance with Traci.
his honest belief was that white women were slags, and they all love Indian men - of course, that must be the reason that they come here - to have sex with Indian men.


So anyway, getting on that plane was a real relief. Even if it was disrupted by the terrorism scare in England.
even if we had to wait in the plane for an hour after landing.
none of this could matter. We weren't in India any more.
one positive thing I can say is that I am now a much more patient man.


We spoke to my Mum (Hi Mum :) ), and asked her to bring a salad to the airport for us, sounds weird but we wanted, no needed, one. Indians don't eat fresh things, and in our three months there neither had we.

lettuce has never tasted so good.