Many years ago in a city quite possibly near you…

Sus and I met on an organised London walk – with pubs spaced suspiciously conveniently – back in May 2008. It was FA cup day. In that same September we became a couple.

In 2013 we gave up our jobs, divorced ourselves from London lives and used a flat deposit to fund a year long backpacking adventure.

Sus cleverly kept a journal of these travels, a habit we’ve only recently rediscovered. From these scribbles I wrote and self-published an online book describing these adventures. The following blog posts are a mildly modified serialisation and of that same book.

Many thanks for reading

Tony

INDIA

Arrival, madness, cultural shock

We finally arrived in the sub-continent sometime shortly after midnight Indian time on the 19^th January 2013, dazed and confused. I actually remember queuing for Customs, wondering if we would be allowed in. Sometimes I worry too much.

A taxi should have been waiting to take us to a pre-booked hotel as part of the organised trip. They were long gone. We phoned a number we had been given for such an event. And waited.

After a lot of confusion, and I mean a lot of confusion, a taxi took us to our hotel in North Delhi. Or so we thought. On arrival we were informed this wasn’t actually our hotel. So at around two in the morning we had to walk to a second hotel through a very small slice of North Delhi (the distinction between North and South Delhi is important). This ten minute walk took us past piles of rubbish and people sleeping on the street, some presumably out of choice, others not. We arrived at the remarkably similar second hotel and fell asleep.

We surfaced about midday, tired, disorientated and wondering why we had left our comfortable lives in London. The hotel room was basic, the noise from the street outside alien and we were surrounded by a people and country we didn’t understand. We were a bemused, middle aged couple, dressed in travellers’ clothes and with a skin colour akin to A4 copy paper.

We were at the mercy of anyone and everyone, including the voracious local insects.

At least the language was familiar. English is widely spoken.

We decided to head off to Connaught Place because it was relatively close and the guide book told us to. We hailed a tuk-tuk and agreed on a price after the obligatory haggling – an absolute necessity in any dealings with the entrepreneurial tuk-tuk drivers.

My youngest brother had a tricycle when he was a kid. Add a cabin, though not side windows, a small, polluting, two-stroke Vespa engine/gearbox, random personalisations, and you too can have a tuk-tuk. Like all whom we encountered in the course of the next 3 months, the driver was a man, friendly with some spoken English and trying to make as much money from us as humanly possible.

A typical entrepreneurial approach to any tuk-tuk journey takes unsuspecting travellers to a variety of establishments flogging souvenirs probably cheaper in Camden. The driver will extoll the virtues of this particular shop, while getting a kickback (it might be cash or even petrol) from any sale made. Some might even throw in a sob story concerning assorted family members. With photos.

The saving grace of the tuk-tuk is its total lack of pace. The Indians are said to be a fatalistic lot, which seemed to fit with the way they drive. Tuk-tuk drivers embrace the ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ philosophy of driving. However, tuk-tuks are plentiful, cheap and used by all. I’ve probably spent more city miles bouncing along in a tuk-tuk than I have in a car. And without the tuk-tuk, India would grind to a complete halt. I miss them.

Our driver lived up to type. He took us to three esteemed establishments selling ubiquitous souvenirs (we politely declined) and drove as if this were his last day. There appears to be a complete lack of road rules, with horns set to loud, swarming buses and families of four or five exploiting a small motorbike as we would a family hatchback. Chuck in exotic smells, dirt, teeming multitudes and you begin to wonder if this is the same planet you left only a day before. Genuine, genuine culture shock.

Connaught Place, with its rather faded colonial glory and familiar architecture, helped to orientate us. As did the shops that inhabited most of the ground floors. We could have been in Lewisham Shopping Centre.

Sus bought a travel bag from, appropriately enough, American Luggage, which survived the rest of the trip. I already had something similar which had been a freebie from a magazine subscription. We spent a pleasant half hour wandering around a small park opposite Connaught Place and met back up with our tuk-tuk driver as arranged. The driver had yet to take any payment and trusted that we would use him for our return journey. And pay.

This was a very gentle introduction to India. The shops were familiar, the tourists many and the hassle yet to reach the biblical proportions it soon would. We wised up very quickly.