Heading Off

Our journey actually began in Germany meeting up with Andrea's friends and family. It was at this point that I realised that have to learn German at some point, if not else than to prevent myself going into an information deprived coma. There is only so many conversations that you can listen to without understanding anything and contrinbuting nothing before your brain starts to ooze out of your ears.

I was feeling a bit nervous about going to India. Added to that was the ... erm .. incident in America on the 11th September which threatened to make air travel all that more interesting. The fact that the plane had come directly from the States and that one of the passengers was feeling a bit ill necessitating the need to unpack the plane and get their luggage didn't help to steady my nerves. I waited in constant fear that I would hear a loud bang, constantly checking that the wings we still there and that no odd looking chaps were making there way to the front of the plain armed with sharp looking packets of peanuts.

We arrived in Delhi at 3 am in the morning after taking a slight detour that didn't include flying over Afghanistan. Fortunately we had managed to arrange our first 2 nights accomodation and a taxi to pick us up. We eventually got to our hotel which was down a dark, smelly, pot-holed street lit only by the occasional neon sign. The porters sleeping in reception we ecstatic with excitement to see us. In our room we struggled for minutes to tie up our mosquito net (by heck we bought it so we're fipping well going to use it!) to the fan above the bed (potentially disasterous when fiddling in the night for the light switch). We gave up and decided to go to sleep to the melodious rythm of the air conditioning that not only lulled us to sleep, but did indeed shake us to sleep.