Wednesday 8th September

I haven’t written about the past couple of days as they really were not very interesting. They involved meetings with out professor from the UK and working a lot. Today we were supposed to go to NIILM (the partner University) to give our final presentations. So we were up and outside Meadows by half seven. As we were waiting for the bus Cici told us her allergic reaction had come back. We then had to decided what to do, go give our presentations or go straight to the hospital. We ended up calling S and he said we should go straight to the hospital. So when the bus came it dropped us off at Apollo.

We waited for two hours to see a doctor and then the appointment was over in two minutes. So we called up the professors and asked what they wanted us to do. It was established that going to NIILM would be nigh-on impossible, seeing as the only other bus via Meadows would be the one going in the opposite direction at the end of the day. So we went to café coffee day in the hospital and had ourselves a little cake and coffee.

Upon our return from the hospital I realised it was the perfect opportunity to go and finish up at Jiva. It was great Ch came with me, met S, understood why I raved about him so much. We had a final interview, tea, nibbles and Ch came round the school with me taking pictures so I could put them into my dissertation.

After that we took the same car that had brought us to Jiva and went to the Akshardham (maybe spelt wrong) in East Delhi. It was the most beautiful temple I have seen this whole trip. It was white, carved marble and had gold guild at different sections, with shrines. The main and central home for a huge gold statue was also covered in semi-precious stones and had a glorious chandelier in the center. After looking around the temple we went to the courtyard, despite the rain, to see the night time light show. It too was spectacular, and I would highly recommend seeing this to anyone who visits Delhi. It really was the highlight of my time in Delhi. Topped off with dinner at P’Tit Bar, this was the best day I had spent in Delhi, and perhaps one of the best of the trip. It was productive and interesting, and really the best day in Delhi could hardly have occurred without a trip to our second home – Apollo.

Saturday 17th

--> -->

I tried not to think of the flight too much before but this morning I had the heebie-jeebies. I thought food might help to take my mind off things, but it was so hard to find food, which I could ‘trust’ there were so many unknown foods and so many flies. I settled for some marble cake and a muffin, both of which were covered in cellophane. I did indeed feel unprepared to leave V behind and start my Indian adventure without the guidance of a friend and local.

On the plane I started to freak out, as I had been unable to find a flight attendant to make them aware I was scared and when I found my seat I realised I was sitting in the emergency exit. This is both a no-no for myself and for the airlines normally but the stewardess I had told about my problem did not seem to worried to move me. As the doors closed and the plane started to move, with me still in the emergency exit seat I started to cry and panic, as I did not want to spend the whole flight in that position of jeopardy. A kind passenger told me to move a few seats back and I ended up sitting among a crowd of pilots and stewardesses on the way to Delhi for work. They spoke to me throughout the flight to keep me distracted and only my shaking legs gave away my fright. It was there that I learned it is possible to buy baby saris, this concept I found cute but also bewildered me as how it would not come undone on a child is a concept I cannot get my head around.

I got to Delhi after a slight delay and was worried I had missed my ride as I could not see the boys in arrivals. So I went to try find a phone, to call up the driver and check he was waiting for me, as once out of the airport we were not allowed back in. Unfortunately I managed to roll my baggage cart over my flip-flop causing it to break. So I had to find a phone with one bare foot. The driver said that he was waiting for me so I headed out. The journey was long and I fell asleep but woke up for the last leg of the drive. Delhi was not as I had imagined, I was later to find this was due to the fact we are at least an hours drive (in good traffic) away from Delhi in Faridabad. Faridabad should be synonymous with the middle-of-nowhere.

I dropped off my bags and went to say hi to the boys. I was starving and they said the only place to eat was McDonalds, so we all went and had a snack, as dinner was not until 9/10pm. I cannot believe I ate McDonalds at all, let alone in India, (let alone multiple times now!). However the vegetarian options are rather tasty and definitely help to fill a hole.