Better Late Than Never

And so, in true Palin style, the blog finally gets up and running two....well, nearly three......weeks into the trip. What can I say, it's been (nearly) three weeks of extremeties of all kinds, pretty jam-packed with all manner of different experiences, meetings, emotions. And every time I have consciously decided to set aside some time to get onto the darn computer, something or other has gotten in the way and it simply hasn't happened. But today on my bus ride down from the high up in the hills of Tamil I was thinking about Ganesha, the remover of obstacles, and perhaps that's why Ihave now finally found my way onto a computer and onto the blog. Hoorah.

So, where to begin? I arrived in India on the 15th December at 4.30am and the Indian experience began IMMEDIATELY. The flight had been really pretty painless. Despite my intentions to watch the entire journey out of the plane window, that didn't quite go according to plan as I got sat above the wing so had a view of sweet nothing. Not to worry though, it's been so long since I have been on a long haul flight, I had forgotten the good bits, and I proceeded to get very excited about having my own personal entertainment system (yes, even in economy class). So I managed to entertain myself all the way to Doha with a combination of movies and reading and every now and then and exploding with whoops and wails of hysteria (to the bewliderment of my fellow passangers) as I contemplated the four months ahead of me. Far from wanting the journey to end, I do believe I need every bit of that time to actually go through all the emotions of excitement and fear and panic and impatience and relief and WAHOOOOOOO! that bubbled up inside me, all the more extreme for the fact that I had had a total of 3 hours sleep the night before the journey began. So after changing planes at Doha, we landed at Trivandrum at about 3am in temperatures hotter than anything I've felt in London all summer long. And then we waited. And we waited. And we waited. And after about an hour our luggage very slowly started to appear on the luggage belt. And so began my first witnessing of a completely baffling Indian organisational (or lack of....) system. Keep some area around the luggage rack clear so that people can get in and out? Why on earth would you want to do that? No, in India what everyone must do is get the biggest trolley he can find and ram it as close up to the luggage rack as he can and refuse to move until he has loaded up all of his endless bags and boxes glued together with unbelievable quantities of brown tape. The entire baggage hall must become a gridlock of trolleys so that noone can move either closer to the luggage belt, or away from it. I tried to find a spot around the far side, but it was very badly chosen. This is where the airport luggage patrol decide to pull off any items that are not claimed in their first round, and simply pile them up, filling up any space that might have been left in the world's most congested hall. No matter how much I tried to inch away from them, they seemed determined (through my exhausted travel goggles) to swing each load into me, and needless to say I emerged with more than a few scrapes and bruises. What the purpose of this was, I really don't know, as in a hall that gridlocked, noone could get to the ever growing mountain of luggage anyway. Baffling.

Anyway finally my bag appeared and I managed to claim it before the luggage patrol had their way, and made my way out to meet the welcome party. I had heard that the airports in the bigger cities tend to be pretty crazy and overcrowded, but somehow I wasn't quite expecting it at Trivandrum at 5am. In my dazed state I was truly stunned by the hoards of people hanging over the railings - how can that many people just fancy turning out to the airport in the early hours of the morning? Of course, what I have since come to realise, is that in India, anything is basically an excuse for a party. Collecting from the airport? Heck, let's all go, let's have a party while we're at it! Bring the entire extended family, wear your best frocks, might as well bring all your really noisy toys while you're at it so we can make a really good din! Unfortunately, however, the pick-up that I had arranged didn't appear to be anywhere amongst the Where's Wally sea of faces I was confronted with, so I had no choice but to leap into an airport taxi and get totally conned in my tiredness and naivety. Well I wouldn't want to let the tourist side down. And then when I finally got to my hotel they had clearly forgotten all about me and it was all of my remaining energy to wake up the reception guy and convince him that I had indeed made a booking. Anyway, success at last, and I hit the pillow as the sun came up.