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We landed at 2:05 am, local time, and I successfully finagled my way through Indian customs by trying not to look like a terrorist or colonial trouble-maker. Once again frequenting an airport bathroom – this one in stark contrast to the spotless Singapore version – I mistook the bathroom attendant for a fellow traveller. In my defence, I hadn’t encountered one before, he wasn’t in any sort of uniform and, quite frankly, the bathroom looked like it hadn’t been attended to in several weeks. I just thought he was being helpful, pointing out the full soap dispenser to the western idiot banging away unsuccessfully at the empty one. I should’ve clicked when he handed me a paper towel, but it wasn’t until he pointed out the overflowing bin in the corner and guided me to it by the elbow that the penny dropped. I hope he wasn’t expecting a tip.
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Bags collected and rupees in hand, I wandered out to the arrival area and sat down to organise myself. I became aware of a figure sidling up to me. He paused, just out of range, and asked, sotto voce, “taxi, sir?”
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I hadn’t caught what he said and he was being so coy about it I immediately thought he was trying to sell me something incredibly illicit, like heroin or a small child. He was still in my periphery so I did the safe thing and ignored him. He took a step closer and whispered his offer again. Mentally, I was preparing my indignant response of What? Hey! No! when I twigged to what he was actually saying.
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“Aw, um, nah, I’m sweet, thanks. Cheers though, mate”.
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It was his turn to look confused.
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He was, of course, a private taxi operator, who are not permitted to ply their trade inside the airport. At the end of the day, though, he was just trying to make a buck, so I had a chat to him and eventually took him up on the offer. After all, I was endeavouring to travel to Nepal the way a local would do it, and I was curious.
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Before you all start tut-tutting, I’m not that dumb. I knew where I wanted to go and I made sure we agreed on a price before we left. And I didn’t let him put my bags in the boot. (Hey, mate, my door’s still locked. Hey, mate, you’re driving off without me. Hey! Mate!) I wouldn’t fall for that old chestnut. Of course, I didn’t know my way around Delhi any more than he knew his way around Blockhouse Bay, and if he’d pulled into an alley and ten of his mates had emerged from the shadows with cricket bats I was stuffed, but you can’t go around worrying about every little thing. In fact, I’m probably a bit paranoid, security-wise. When we stopped at the hotel to enquire about a room I made him enter ahead of me. I was feeling too tired for a foot-chase back to the car and he looked a bit nippy.
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I’m actually doing my driver a real disservice here – he was a nice bloke and we chatted about his family, how he had come from Rajasthan to Delhi and worked nights as a private taxi driver. His driving…
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Whoa! Excuse me interrupting myself, but I just had my first encounter with a Nepali cockroach. I’m sitting at a desk in my Kathmandu hotel room – my second night here – when I noticed a small movement from the corner of my eye. The thing was so quick I had to wait for it to stop before I could see what it was. Oh, only a cockroach. I don’t like cockroaches, but I had envisioned some weird bug with stingers and mandibles going for my hand. And it wasn’t even that big, certainly smaller than the monsters we’d get in the pool-shed at Marlborough Ave. I was about to try to flick it away and made a mental note to add a derisive comment about the wussy Nepali cockroaches when it was joined by the Mother Ship. This one made me leap up and yell like a girl. It was big, sure, but man was it fast. Too fast to catch, as it turned out. It disappeared behind the desk and I didn’t fancy pulling it out and discovering what else was back there.
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(Next day) Worse yet, when I went to turn in I found one scurrying across my pillow. And another on the desk next to the bed. It was like a horror movie; suddenly they were everywhere, converging on me. Cue the sinister background music. Why the hell hadn’t I noticed these things last night? Maybe it was because I had been travelling for 3 days, arrived about 9pm and then had met a few kiwis in the bar across the way, sharing a couple of Everest Lagers with them until about 3 that morning. That could be it. Good God, they had probably been all over me! At least I did recall pulling back the sheets before I climbed in, to check for creepy crawlies. (It had only been a couple of lagers). The scuttling sound I had heard in the walls, and attributed to my neighbours, has taken on a whole new significance._
Anyway, where was I? Delhi. Driving. Right, well you’ll all have heard about, or witnesed for yourself, the legend that is the Indian traffic system. I wouldn’t fully appreciate it until a rickshaw ride the next day, but even at 2am the chaos was impressive. They have traffic lights, but I’m not entirely sure what they are for. The trucks – and there are trucks everywhere; garishly hand-painted, belching black smoke or sitting with rocks behind the tyres and the driver working beneath them – have things like “please horn” or “dip your lights” written on the tail gates. (The best one I saw was something like, “Don’t caer my sped baby caer your sped”). This is because everybody drives in the middle of the road. If you want to safely overtake (‘safely’ being a relative term), you need to honk your horn and flash your lights, apparently not so much for the other driver to give way but to prevent a fiery death if the truck driver happens to decide to swerve randomly.
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The next day I took an autorickshaw trip into Old Delhi. An autorickshaw is like a 3-wheeled golf cart with canopied room for two people and luggage. Now that was an eye-opener. Traffic in Delhi was a bit like filling a jar with stones, then pebbles, then sand. Everyone sorted out where they fit in according to size. While it is definitely chaotic, everybody seemed to sift in to where they could, without too much drama. I never actually witnessed any accidents, though I expected one any minute. The road is crammed with trucks, cars, rickshaws (both auto and cycle), cyclists, hand-pushed carts, oxen, pedestrians – God help them- and the ubiquitous motorbike. Every man and his dog seems to have a motorbike. Three people on a bike was not an uncommon sight, with a wee kiddie perched up front and Mum and Dad on the back, Mum riding side-saddle.
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Anyway, more of this later. I’m off to the orphanage today, so I’m not sure when I’ll get to connect to the ‘net again but hopefully it will be soon. Hope everybody is well, sorry if I don’t get to sending individual emails, but I’m thinking of everyone back home. Cheers!
V
