Six of us left Vancouver on Thursday evening, flying through the night, over the arctic and crossing Greenland to Heathrow. We picked up the seventh member of the team, Janice at the airport in London and departed, four hours later for second flight through the night, over Europe, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, landing early in the morning on Saturday in Delhi. It is strange to travel that far over two nights. It’s like Friday never existed but was replaced by a mass of Saturday. I don’t sleep on planes. I spent much of the time on the first leg doing squats and lunges at the back of the plane or peering out into the darkness on the second leg. I might have dozed a bit on the London-Delhi stretch, but mostly when we were holding in the line-up to take-off and there was little chance we’d crash. By the time I got to sleep last night, I’d been up for about 48hrs but felt pretty good, all things considered.
That time between sleeps spanned the trip to school for last day of classes, writing my final exam of the program, getting to the airport, the flights, passing through Indian customs, taking a wild ride in a cab from the airport to the Tibetan Colony in Delhi where we are staying, taking an even wilder auto rickshaw ride to the Red Fort in Old Delhi, running around snapping pictures in the 40C heat, auto rickshaw adventure back to the hotel, nice dinner, a relaxing read, and then early to bed. A productive day.
The Tibean Refugee Colony in which we are staying is a very interesting warren of little shops and homes with a labyrinth of little alleys connecting the 5 or 6 story buildings. It is quiet and peaceful, compared to the madness of the roads that surround it. The auto rickshaw rides, especially, give you the experience of the roads of Old Delhi, a chaotic, fluid madness of trucks, mopeds, and buses that you’d normally expect on a 3 lane divided highway, plus the bicycles, oxen-pulled carts, auto rickshaws, peddle rickshaws, pedestrians, and occasional elephant. The moped stunts especially seem absurdly ridiculously dangerous but, thanks to the every present safety device, the horn, things actually seem to move along amazingly well.
A few of us had taken the auto rickshaw to the Old Fort as most of the group were flying up to Leh today so wanted to get some sight-seeing in. The fort was very cool (interesting, not actually ‘cool’ at 40C). It is massive, and the architecture is spectacular, though I understand the Brits razed large parts to build their barracks. Any pictures that are included in this post, I stole from the net as I haven’t been able to hook my camera up yet, but hopefully those give you a visual.
The plan for the rest of the day is to auto rickshaw back to the Fort area where there is a giant market. We’ve been tasked with finding toys that we can use on the paediatric ward in Leh and that seems like an interesting place to do the shopping, better than the massive malls of New Delhi. After that, a little world cup which is on in the evening here v. the early morning back home. I think it is Germany v. England tonight. Tomorrow, we fly up to Leh. We are hoping to get seats on the left side of the plane so we might see K2. If not, I am sure it will all be good. See you in Leh.
Ross
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