Flight to India

Market scene in Delhi

As we flew over Thailand and Burma the mountains were shrouded in smoke. I could just make out their tips. The dust cloud that covers India isn't as imprenetrable as the smoke covering Burma and Thailand. I could see through to a patchwork of fields and dry riverbeds winding across the country. We travelled along parallell to the Himalayas that rose out of the dust cloud in a long line along the horizon, white, with patches of grey, where the snow is melting. I was sure I could see Everest rising majestically above the rest, but also losing its snow.

The tension in Delhi started before we boarded the flight. After going through all the routine security checks we arrived at the boarding gate, where the airline was carrying out extra security checks, looking inside everyone's hand luggage and passing a metal detector over each passenger. It took a long time to board.

A brand new metro whisked us from the airport to the central station, where an atmosphere of total chaos and tension reigned. Maybe it was always like this and I only just noticed because I was coming from Thailand, where everyone is so easygoing, friendly, helpful and kind. I was suddenly struck by how aggressive everyone was.

I arrived at the back of the station and by the time I had found my way up and over to the front of this gigantic station, I was disorientated and couldn't find the staircase to the international ticket office (which I had been to lots of times before). People kept giving me conflicting directions. One bright spark tried telling me the ticket office had moved to Connaught Square (probably his  brother's tourist agency) but I wasn't falling for that one. Eventually a railway official sent me in the right direction and even told me about the lift.

The international ticket office has a wonderful system for dealing with the hordes of travellers that pass through it's portals. First passengers pick up a form to fill in, then if they have any queries they take the form to the old Indian lady who knows all the train numbers, times and stations they leave from. With the help of this information they fill in the form and join the queue in the middle of the room. The queue spirals outwards towards the edges of the room, which are lined with chairs and sofas, so passengers are obliged to play a game of musical chairs (without the music), jumping up from their seats to move along, making friends with the person next to them and exchanging information about trains and destinations as they move round. Eventually the queue ends up on the sofas waiting to be seen by a row of ticket salesmen behind a long desk. It takes about an hour to get round the room. Of course you might have to wait anything up to a week for a free seat to come available to the destination of your choice, but I was lucky and booked a berth in the night train for that very day.

View from Faith's balcony

Back in the street, in the heat and dust, I went to see Bunty, who phoned Faith for me. Faith has moved into a lovely room, overlooking the market and the graveyard, which is full of trees. In the evening thousands of birds come to roost in the trees, chirruping and chirping. I spent an hour with Faith, hearing about all the stresses and strains she has been through over the past few months.

I caught the night train from Old Delhi station to Pathankot, together with a French post graduate student who is going to Dehra Dun for an internship in an organic farm. We walked to the bus station and caught a rattley old bus to McCloud Ganj, where I checked in to the last single room in Om Hotel and she walked down the hill to try her luck in the Monastery.