Four days of hell

The last 4 days have been a nightmare. We left Ahmedabad on Sunday to get a flight over to Pune via Mumbai. Prior to the flight I had looked at the timings and wondered how on earth we were going to catch the 2nd flight in Mumbai with only a 50 minute gap in between. I questioned this with the travel company who assured me that it was all one ticket and would be fine.

I was stupid to listen to them. Clearly it wasn't and when I saw that our initial flight was 20 minutes late it became obvious we were going to be stuck in Mumbai.

So there we were in Mumbai with a Monsoon coming down outside with nowhere to go. Luckily the hotel arranged to send a car to pick us up and drive us the 3.5 hours to Pune. I have never driven in rain like it. Rivers were running down the roads of Mumbai and it was flooded everywhere. In those rivers was the usual rubbish so i'm glad we never broke down as I would never have stepped in it!

It was a decent drive over to Pune. We only aquaplaned once and nearly came off the road in the mountains.

We are now at our hotel in Pune which is nice. Up until Monday I was still eating mountains of curry and was happy. I was also eating medium cooked steaks and burgers. I forgot where I was!

I woke up on Tuesday morning and the Delhi Belly had hit me like a sledgehammer. I am rattling i'm taking that many tablets and am still not right. Last night I felt like all life had been drained from me. It was a horrible feeling. I have developed a great relationship with the toilet in my room.

Thankfully I think i'm getting better. I farted some air for the first time in 3 days earlier. I did play it safe by testing it out whilst sat on the toilet! Hopefully tomorrow i'll be back to normal.

It's a public holiday tomorrow and i'm taking the day off. I was going to go into the city but just read of a terror threat tomorrow and 10,000 police being deployed so i'm now a bit scared to move from the hotel. I'll make a decision tomorrow. I have been told I can see an Elephant down there if I go which i'm keen to do but don't really want to get maimed just for that.

Sorry for all the toilet talk in this post but it's been the main subject here for me the last few days. Enjoy!

Day of the Monkey

Time is flying and i'll be home in no time at all. Only a week and a half of this left.

I saw a monkey today and am well happy. I didn't think I was going to see one but there he was, as big as me sitting in a driveway of a house. It's amazing what seeing a monkey can do to your mood first thing in the morning.

It also seemed to be a day for cows. They were everywhere and made the drive to work take longer than yesterday. There were a couple of them sat on a roundabout, not actually on the roundabout but in the lanes that the cars use to go around the bloody thing. There they were content as anything whilst cars are going past them doing the usual beeping of horns.

We had our usual man at work who brings us any drink we like to our desk all day but on top of that they ordered us some lunch. They got us a Subway in. I thought i'd keep it cultural so had a Chicken Tandoori sub. Well nice. No salad or cheese though. I couldn't go as far as to have it normal today.

On the way home to other people from the UK who are working in the same office took us to a supermarket to grab some snacks. I was pleasantly surprised that the supermarket was normal looking and seemed a bit like a Tesco. The illusion was shattered as I walked to the door down the slippiest steps (we've had a Monsoon today) and when I got there had to go through a full body scanner, then take my laptop bag to be inspected and sealed and then get my camera checked and sealed. Once we'd done the shopping the bags of stuff we had bought were sealed and in order to leave the shop we had to show our receipts. Madness. I bet nobody steels anything over here though. Maybe we could do that back in the UK.

So that's about it really. I have eaten curry all night again which is nice. I'm not ill and I still look out my window onto pure poverty.

I wonder if the people across the road look over at the hotel and their kids go "What's that over there"? and the parents say "That's poverty, nothing there for you. It's much better here. Look we have goats and they don't"

That's all I have to say about today really. Let's see what wonders i'll see tomorrow. I'd be happy to see a donkey!

Pics

A few shots

Arrival in India

What a day!! I'm too tired to go on about it all so will blog tomorrow. In a nutshell i've been harrassed by customs and paid out money for something I have no idea about and i'm annoyed about it.

It's now 5am and i'm tired. Rant will be coming tomorrow.

The day before travelling

Right then, i've decided that as I now do a lot of travelling with work it might be worth documenting some of the strange things I see and experience whilst i'm in different countries. (A bit like Karl Pilkington only less funny)

Tomorrow I shall be travelling to India to work for 2 weeks. I've never been anywhere before where i've had to have vaccinations before I go. Earlier this week I had 5 in both of my arms causing me to basically have what I can only describe as lead stumps on my upper body for two days.

I'm also taking Malaria tablets as apparantly I can get killed in India by something as small as a Mosquito. The side effects of Malaria tablets are "Strange Dreams"!! I already have enough strange dreams and I definitely don't need them any stranger. Imagine if i'm on the plane tomorrow and I fall asleep and have a "Strange Dream" that causes me to scream out loud! No thankyou!

So i'm looking forward to the trip tomorrow and will blog about my first experiences in what will become my home for the next fortnight.