The Journey!

Well, finally we have arrived safe and sound in Coonoor! It was a long journey and we're still sleeping it off but it's really great to be here. We left a misty and cold England behind on Sunday afternoon and landed in an even colder, even mistier Delhi the following morning. I should probably mention that one of the first things we said to each other upon landing was, “ Crikey isn't it cold” not exactly what you expect when landing in India!

The flight from London was fairly uneventful, aside from uncomfortable seats and some dodgy Bollywood music videos. We arrived in Delhi to find it a very large, very slick state of the art airport which has clearly seen a lot of recent investment. We had three hours to make our transfer so we took our time...only to discover our plane was going to be two hours late! Apparently we were lucky it wasn't cancelled, Air India seems to have a nasty habit of cancelling flights that will be too inconvenient to prep for departure...suddenly the extra 2 hours wait doesn't seem so bad!

The flight to Chennai was a difficult one. The plane was really hot and stuffy and despite our best efforts Em and I were quite dehydrated. All this combined with how little sleep we'd had meant Emily unfortunately made good use of the sick bags on our descent into Chennai and I was afraid I might follow suit given any more bumps and jolts! The only thing for it was to get off the plane, grab our luggage and meet Sam ASAP so we could rest up and rehydrate. Sam was waiting as promised outside the terminal and I think we were both relieved to see him and to be done with our flights.

As a local chap led us off to his taxi we got our first proper look at Chennai and at India. I say look but the first thing that really hits you is the noise. Most people will tell you, when describing Indian roads, two main facts. Number one, everyone drives like a maniac. Number two, everyone uses their horn all the time, no exaggeration! (more on this in a future post I feel) As we got into the taxi the first thing I noticed was that it had no left wing mirror. No worries, I thought, at least he's got the right one...I was sitting in the front seat and as I glanced back to check on Emily, sitting in the right-hand passenger seat our driver pulled out, and behind Emily I saw a small van heading straight for the side of our car that has just pulled out in front of it. The van honks his horn repeatedly, swerves to miss us and our driver, totally undaunted, drives off regardless. Apparently his missing left wing mirror would not be a problem after all, he clearly wasn't planning on using the one he did have...

We arrived at the hotel about an hour later and had a quick wash before going down to the hotel restaurant for lunch. Emily was a right trooper and came down to try some curry despite being exhausted and queasy. Sam ordered us some biryanis which I scoffed and Emily did her best with before we went back up to our rooms and crashed out for a few hours.

The final stage of our journey was a sleeper train at 9pm from Chennai to Mettupalayam. The station was rammed full of people from all walks of life, with all manner of luggage with them. Vendors were selling food and drink for the journey (Sam bought me a fried chicken burger which tasted divine even as I tried not to think about the standard of hygiene that went into it's production) The station itself was a cacophony of smells. Some of them tantalising, interesting and pleasant, most of them none of the above. One tried not to imagine the origins.

The carriage itself was a a three tier bunk bed system with six beds to a cabin. Emily and I took the bottom two while Sam took the top of our set of three. I didn't have high hopes of sleeping and I turned out to be quite right. Between the relentless motion of the carriage and the choir of snoring gentlemen that surrounded us, Emily and I were in for a second night without sleep in a row.

But what happened next? Did we get to Coonoor? (I'll give you a clue, yes we did) but I fear the details of that adventure will have to wait for a future post. Until then, Goodnight!