The first thing to go wrong with Friday Nov the 16th was that I found myself to be unwell with the shits and the dreaded rotten egg burps – giardia! These things always seem to attack me when I am about to embark on a journey, today we are going back to Delhi. Val had discovered when we arrived that there is an early morning train leaving at about 6.30, so we set the alarm for some impossible hour, + were out of the hotel while it was still dark. There was a 3-wheeler taxi waiting outside the gate, + because of my weakened state, we climbed in. The driver managed to annoy us by 2 or 3 times taking the turning towards the bus stn, even tho’ we kept repeating, “Train station, railway station!” like some absurd litany.
We arrived in good time, but met another set-back when we were informed that there was no train to Delhi until 10 am. That was far too late – we wanted to be back in time to check our mail, + arrange for our accommodation at the Arts Centre hostel. It was especially upsetting that, having gone to the trouble of finding out the information, checking it independently + making plans on that basis, it should turn out to be entirely wrong. There was no real option but to go to the bus stn – perhaps our driver had known what he was doing after all.
Val knew where it was luckily, + as it wasn’t too far, we decided to walk. But naturally, emerging from the stn with packs on our backs, we attracted lots of attention from the rickshaw drivers + their ilk. By marching purposefully thro’ + on we shook most of them off, but one was made of stubborner stuff. He rode by our side as we walked, repeating over + over the same song, “I am poor man, I take you cheap hotel, one rupee no more.” It was pathetic, + made doubly so by the fact that we were trying out our newest tactic, one which had proved successful in the last day or 2, of giving a curt refusal to the 1st enquiry, + then steadfastly ignoring the man. It is a cruel weapon – nothing hurts quite so much as the feeling of total rejection, that being ignored gives one – + not one that we find any satisfaction in in so using, but we have felt justified in the past, in that any communication at all is seen as an encouragement. But in this case it was particularly vicious, for he simply would not accept defeat + give up. I finally broke silence with a particularly vicious twist of the knife, to tell him we were catching a bus – this when we were at the very gates of the bus stn itself. I shall not use such a method again.
The bus stn was chaotic. I was drained of energy by the walk so sat down to rest while Val ran around buying our tickets. And then we were assigned to a bus that was just about to leave, so we rushed all over the stn in a great panic, looking for it, + being directed hither + thither. It really was just beginning to move when we tracked it down. We just had time to pull the stuff we needed for the journey from our bags before they were taken from us + stowed beneath – for which we were charged a rupee a bag – + clambered aboard.
It was definitely a luxury bus – just one person to each seat, + those seats soft + high-backed, about as good as your average English long-distance coach. It was relatively expensive, far more than the train, but worth it to me, for providing 5 hours or so of peace + comfort. Perversely, Val finds such buses oppressive + rather nauseating, while she is able to cope only too well with the run-of-the–mill battered transport – broken springs, broken windows, 5 to a bench.
We arrived back in Delhi at about noon, were dropped right at Connaught Circus, + went direct to the Amex office to see about our mail. Conn. Circus seems remarkably normal + unravaged, + there were plenty of Sikhs about, so that the events of a fortnight ago seemed illusory. They weren’t, of course, but when a Sikh taxi-driver pestered us to go with him, the malicious thought came into my head that I wished he had been one of the 600 or so. Not a joke in the best of taste… but then the best jokes aren’t. Our mail tally was quite respectable, as indeed we had more or less expected, with mail from our mums, from Pete, + from Bob – enjoyable all.
Returned to the Arts Centre guest house to book in once again, but it wasn’t quite the formality it had been last time. The admin secretary, alarmed I suspect by our request for 6 days, asked me to have it authorised by Richard Bartholomew, the General Sec, the same crop-haired fool who had shown us his Tibetan art collection the first time. He had, of course, completely forgotten that he had authorised the Chairman’s cottage for us then, so was surprised that I should ask for it now. It was only when I reminded him that he had put us up there last time that he shrugged + agreed to what was obviously such an unorthodox step. It serves him right for showing off his great magnanimity last time.
We had a quiet evening in. I was still not well, + anyway, where does one go?
Rather a depressing and repetitive litany – ill (again), rude to a rickshaw driver (again), transport troubles (again), issues with bureaucracy (again). But that was what our life was like at the time. And had been, with some breaks, for quite a long time. I was chatting with our friend Sue (of Joe and Sue, Borneo fame) yesterday, who is a regular reader of this, and had gone through much of the same experiences in various parts of Asia. Except that their experience had been so much different, spending their money far more quickly, and living a more luxurious life as a result, and then coming home. While we eked out our existence on a miniscule budget, and so were able simply to keep going. In retrospect, were we stupid? Probably, but then we would not have had the trip we had if we had done it any other way. Besides, you only get one go at life, so it is pointless wasting time wishing you had done it differently.
