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The morning was fresh, and a little cold. Margao train station was still busy even at 5.30 in the morning. The ticket office already had a queue and some people were camped out there. I guess getting a ticket is serious business. Ann and I work well in crowds, as she is small and agile enough to find gaps and move past people and I’m big enough to block people and to stop them from pushing – good attitudes for Indian culture to make sure you get served! The goal – get Ann served without people coming in from the sides and pushing her from behind. The pushing from behind is easy to sort. I just didn’t step forward as much when the queue moved forward to Ann had space to breath. If people push me, I start to shift my weight back onto them. Stopping people coming frm the side is something I learnt whilst trying to get drinks at busy bars – lean slightly and stick your arm on the counter and lock your elbow. No one can get past. With general tickets purchased we went off back to the station. General class is 3rd class and not great but we could buy a seat reservation on a better class now we had a ticket for the train. Unfortunately the ticket officer wasn’t there and as the train station was a bit cold we went into the lounge (for a small fee) which had sofas and a [semi] clean toilet.
10 minutes before the train arrived, the ticket officer returned and we got seats reserved in second class non a/c compartment. Ann then gave me a briefing about making sure we got on as these trains don’t hang around and it was important to identify our compartment and get on as the train is made and moving is difficult. The train came and in good fashion we jumped aboard as soon as we could. We found two seats together, which weren’t ours but hey, in India people adjust and our seats weren’t together.
The train soon filled up with people and we managed to keep our seats, which was great as they were next to a window. The seats weren’t exactly comfortable and was basically a bench as it was a sleeper train.
The journey was fabulous, especially as the sun came up. Food and drink often came around which was good and cheap. We had breakfast and lunch as well as drinks. I dont think we spent more than £3 together. Of course we had brought supplies as it was a 6 and half hour journey, and the usual thing is share food so I was handing out biscuits etc, which seemed to generate some smiles, especially from the young kids.
I managed to get some amazing photographs whilst we were travelling as the countryside was just sublime. At 1.30pm we arrived in Mangalore. By then it was very hot and it seemed like half the world was on the platform. we made a quick escape and headed for a taxi!
Ann has been very interested in working abroad for a long time. Before we met I had been interested in working in Canada (specifically Toronto) and had tried to get a placement in CNIB but unfortunately it didn’t work out at the time. Working abroad gives you the time to really experience a country and gain new experiences whilst still doing the work you love! However Ann has other ideas about working abroad that I hadn’t really thought of. She would like to go to places in the world to help those that are less fortunate than her and having already been to Peru on a water project she is keen to do more. In contrast, I hadn’t really thought about this sort of work since I feel that my day to day work is about enabling people to do things which they couldn’t do before. So when Ann suggested a weekend away to get a taste of her kind of overseas work I said yes without the faintest idea what I was getting into. The weekend was an awareness course entitled “So you want to be a refugee?” organised by RedR which is a charity that specialises in sending engineers to emergency situations to help the people of that region. I had never heard of the charity but decided to go to support Ann and because it sounded like a bit of fun for not a lot of expense.
The start of something challenging…..
Like Ann, I hadn’t really read the material that was being sent in the knowledge that Ann is usually really good at this sort of thing and that I would be briefed in the car. I had looked at the list of things needed and got those so at least we were prepared.
Friday night was spent in on a farm a few miles outside Tiverton. Some of the other participants were staying in tents but we opted for the barn. It was cold, but we were in sleeping bags and on an air bed so it wasn’t so tough and at least it was dry! Saturday morning was cold and wet but hot sweet tea soon kicked things into gear. More people arrived whilst we got ourselves ready. In total we had 21 people from mainly Black and Veatch; and a few students from Exeter University; however most except me and couple of others were engineers.
Saturday…a day of extremes
We all went into the barn and were given an introduction by Robert Hodgson from RedR, and Anne-Marie from Black and Veatch who helped co-ordinated the event. They gave us a run down of activities for Saturday and Sunday and only then did we start to realise what we were in for. After the introduction we were given the first task: You are all refugees, in groups go out into the fields and pick a spot to build a shelter. Please leave all useful equipment, mobile phones, knives here. People and supplies may appear after midday but don’t count on it.
So in our newly formed group of four, we started out into the fields, with groups to the left and right of us we quickly headed down to the bottom of the field and across a stream to the left to find a nice flat piece of land that seemed quite sheltered from the wind. So we set up camp. Stupidly had we gone round the corner of a huge bramble bush we would have seen a much nicer place but you live and learn. With that it started to rain. As we were so close to the next group we formed an alliance with them..
With people starting to gather what resources were available (wood and logs) we started collecting them as well so we could build a shelter. Two of our four went off to explore the region. Probably in hindsight it might not have been the greatest idea as we were short on numbers to collect and build. We soon realised that actually are location wasn’t as great as we thought but we ploughed on and started building a wooden frame shelter from the available resources. It was coming on quite nicely and had just obtained a plastic cover from the UN (up at the farm) when we got a visit from Il Presidente; and his two henchmen. Unfortunately we made a mistake of letting their man get to close and he kicked in our shelter. They weren’t very happy to see us their and we were less than impressed. It then started to rain – a theme was setting in here. In comparison Ann’s team was doing much better. They had found a really secure area for their site, had erected their shelter really quickly and had received fire assistance really quickly which meant they got to eat most of their food parcel from the UN.
We took the knock and bounced back. We changed our shelter design so we could keep dry and with a little help from our neighbouring refugees and some dry wood and matches from Il Presidente as a gift. Seems he wasn’t all bad  With the fire came food, our spirits soared. Our neighbours joined us for food, as did the Oxfam representative, the Merlin representative and finally Il Presidente. It seemed our luck had changed. One of the bandits tried to sabotage our shelter but this time it was secure. Soon after we finished eating we completed the exercise and all returned to the barn for a de-brief and a bbq. Thankfully Robert made a huge fire as well so it provided us with an opportunity to get dry and warm through!
Sunday….a day of new horizons and reflections
Sunday started cold, even though I was thoroughly buried in my sleeping bag. Once up and about we had a skype call with one of the teams out in Bangladesh that are heavily involved in house building projects. The call was really interesting as we learnt more about the situation out in Bangladesh and the house building process. In short, houses are built out of “organic” materials, such as bamboo. These houses generally last about 8-10 years although they can last longer if the bamboo is treated. As bamboo takes around 7 years to grow to a point of maturity it means that there is generally a shortage of bamboo. In this particular situation the team had a good supply of materials, adding their construction process. The Bangladeshi team were interested to hear about our construction methods. The biggest difference being the UK uses specialised house building teams whilst in Bangladesh, the whole village gets involved in house building.
After the call, we split up into teams again to do some more tasks, this time less demanding and being guided by the experts. Ann and I both chose the shelter building session followed by the aerial supply transport session. There was a water treatment session but we chose to do the others because Ann had done water treatment work during the course of her degree and work. The aerial support was the most challenging because we had to make a system to transport supplies across an imaginary river. As the tallest person, I had to “swim” across a pretend river and tie the main rope down. Simple, yes, except I don’t do knots. I should know how, but I just fail at knots. Anyway my knots held as we got the supplies across after plenty of assistance from the experts.
The whole weekend certainly showed us that we lack key survival skills which if Ann and I continue to travel they way we do or take up a role with RedR will be needed. The weekend was an awareness and taster session and it certainly made us aware of our lack of skills and also whet our appetite for relief work.
The weekend continues….
After packing up the materials and heading back for a final session in the barn, it was time to leave Low Beer as our time had come to an end. It had been a fantastic weekend but both of us were shattered. Fortunately we had taken the Monday off work thinking that we’d like to stay in the area to do some exploring. We headed down to Exeter, not down the obvious M5 but down one track roads (thanks to our satellite navigation) but we got to see a lot of countryside. We found a lovely little place using lastminute.com just south of Exeter run by Chinese people. We were right next to Powderham Castle which we explored the next day. Afterwards we went into Exeter to wander around a few shops before I dropped Ann off at the train station. Coincidentally I was needed in Exeter by work so I was staying but Ann needed to get back so we parted at the station where the 5pm train for London Paddington took Ann away and ended our fantastic weekend.
I’d always had an image of Goa in my mind inspired by the movie,Sea Wolves, which my Dad had bought many years ago. The film is about a group of ex servicemen from the Calcutta Light Horse heading from Calcutta in the north east down to Goa on the west coast to blow up German boats harboured in the neutral port of Marmagoa as it was transmitting details of allied supply ships working in the Indian Ocean. It’s a fantastic film with an all star cast including Roger Moore, Gregory Peck and David Niven, hopefully it will be released on DVD . That film depicts an almost European city fully of cafes and trendy little places. The film was made in 1980.
Luckily Ann had obtained enough air miles with Jet Airways for us both to fly to Goa from Mumbai for free. The air miles were due to expire in the near future so it was a good opportunity to travel for free! Jet airways is billed as a premium carrier and it certainly lived up to that. Best experience I have had. BA could learn alot from these guys if they ever took a moment to evaluate their service.
We landed in Goa, just after midday. After getting our bags Ann trotted off to get a cab, leaving with the bags. If avoidable we always left me no where near the equation when haggling for cabs as they instantly upped the prices to tourist price, even though Ann is Indian. I guess they see money and chase it . The vehicle of choice in Goa is the Omni van. A delightful little thing that all the road holding abilities of penguin sliding on ice. The journey from the airport to our hotel in Candolim Beach was idyllic. Lovely blue sea, exotic coastline, green foliage upon green foliage. Currently I only have two photos uploaded but many more exist. Both were taken on the move. I was very pleased with the outcome. We chose it based on the reviews given in Lonely Planet but more about that later. When we hit the outskirts of Candolim we started to think all was not well. This part of the journey was becoming less than picturesque. We did pass a large advertisement for Fab India, which has a shop in Candolim Beach so all cant be bad?
We then drive past the world in tacky tourists, shirts off and all that. My heart began to sink. Then came the tacky restaurants offering “English breakfast.” Ann and I both looked at each other, laughing at how bad this was going to be. Now I’ve been to Majorca, Ibiza, Corfu and Gran Canaria. I’ve done the tacky tourist thing and I know what it looks like, and here it was in beautiful India. Oh dear. Luckily our hotel was off the “main drag” and was in a quite area. The hotel was actually a little gem. Clean, quiet and very cheap!
After freshening up we headed out for a stroll to see what Candolim Beach really had to offer, hoping that we had seen a distorted view and of course to eat. Goan cuisine is noted for being very tasty and Ann was eager for me to try some of the local delicacies. Once we got to the main street, we realised that our initial views weren’t distorted. Candolim Beach actually was a magnet for chav and tacky tourists. We wandered around looking for anything resembling culture and a decent restaurant but no.
So why are these tacky tourists so bad? Well generally speaking, they are people who leave the country each year in search of one or two weeks of sun. They don’t want culture, they don’t want to experience new things. What they want is the hot sun, long alcoholic drinks and English food. Yes, that’s right they go abroad and want fish and chips, Chicken Tikka Masala (which is an Indian dish created for the English palate, it doesn’t exist in India) and English breakfasts. They walk around in bad taste shorts with their tops off thinking they are gods creation. Honestly these people shouldn’t be given passports, hell they should probably have their breeding privileges removed for good measure too. So when these sorts of tourists start to infect an area, the locals nicely cater for what is requested. Hell, they can see an easy buck and why not. Give the mob what it wants and the mob will thank you for it! I’ve been part of this crowd, and luckily I was given salvation and a thirst for travel to seek new experiences (thanks Pete )
Give me the bustling streets of Mumbai, take me to Laxmi Road in Pune, heck, put me in a car and ask me to drive Mumbai, none of these things would phase me. But seeing the infected waste of Candolim Beach just went straight to my bones. I freaked….
Ann had always said if I freaked she would sort it. She had expected me to freak in Mumbai or Pune but not here. We had planned to be here for a couple of days, but that wasn’t going to happen. There was no way I would stay here. We spent the next few hours creating an exit strategy. Luckily internet cafes were abundant and so were small independent tourist/travel agents. The first plan was a bus the next evening. Ann doesn’t do buses well as she gets travel sick, we’d done one bus ride from Pune to Mumbai a few days ago and that wasn’t too bad but for me she’d endure the 10 hour bus journey to Mangalore. As the bus left in the evening we started to plan the next day which would be leave the next morning and head to Panjim and Old Goa. There is a church there which has the remains of a saint. Ann has been before but it’s worth seeing.
Before we could finalise our new travel arrangements, Plan B strolled round the corner whistling the tune of sweet success at it’s own perfection. Our original plan had been to take a train out of Goa to Mangalore as the Konkan Railway has some of the most beautiful scenery (and is an engineering marvel!). However that [booked] train was days away. The bus would shatter that opportunity. However plan B came to the rescue and it came from Ann’s long time friend and also maid of honour for our wedding, Zarina. She had just called to say she was in Mangalore until tomorrow evening and if possible she’d really like to meet up. Ann told her of our woe’s and how we couldn’t get out quickly enough and then she told us about the 06.50 from Margao. We had looked at the train availability online but it wasn’t there. However she assured us it did exist as her husband had taken it many times. That would tick my box for getting the hell out of dodge as soon as humanly possible, would tick my box for experiencing an Indian train journey, it would tick Ann’s box for me experiencing the delights of the Konkan railway and finally it would tick our box for seeing Ann’s friend. However it would mean that the saint wouldn’t get a visit – oh well maybe next time.
With a taxi soon booked for early doors, food was now our priority. We asked the travel agent for a restaurant recommendation and he told us that there wasn’t a good restaurant in Candolim Beach (testament to the level of infection ) and the nearest good restaurant was a good car journey away. Rather than do that we found a half decent restaurant just to get some food down us. Actually it wasn’t a bad meal but certainly not the best!
After our meal we headed to a shop to buy supplies for our train journey. In there was a big Russian man (with no top on) stealing sweets from the shop whilst the cashiers back was turned. Talk about disgusting behaviour. We purchased our supplies and left. On the opposite side of the road was a little church. Forgotten and dilapidated. We wandered back to our hotel via the shops and restaurants. The only thing of note was a spice shop which proved a good place to take some photos. When we got back to our place I dived into the Lonely Planet to re-read what it had put. On reflection, had we read between the lines we could have guessed what we were in store for but failed. Our fault I guess but it was a quiet, clean hotel and it proved a free stop off for us.
Strangely enough we never got to the beach area as we spent all our time trying to extract ourselves from the area. In total we spent approximately 16 hours in Goa.
The taxi arrived in the early hours of the morning and took us to Margao train station, leaving the infected behind to wake up to their English breakfast……
As we had been busy every day we had been in Pune, we decided that on new years day we would head out of Pune for a pure touristy day. I decided this would be the day I asked her. My original plan was to propose when we were on the coast, alone but that would mean Ann’s immediate family wouldn’t be present and as our schedule was so tight it would mean they wouldn’t get to celebrate it with us. So I decided to do it whilst we were in Pune.
Ann, ever the organiser, had arranged a private car to take us around. The first stop was a set of Buddhist caves about 45 mins outside Pune. When we were getting close we past some fantastic scenary, which provided some excellent photo oppportunities. When we arrived at the stopping point there were some kids playing cricket on a make-shift pitch. All having lots of fun. We immediately made our way to the steps up to the caves. The climb was quite a way and there were people selling chai (tea) or kulfi (type of ice cream) along the way.
Once we got to the top and we had paid to get in, we wandered around, exploring the Bhaja caves and taking in the views. I started to ask questions about what else we were going to see that day as I wanted to guage when was the best opportunity to propose. I’d sneaked the ring into my camera bag so Ann wouldn’t suspect. We’d bought the rings together so she knew what she was getting but I was going to make damn sure she wouldn’t even suspect when until the ring was in front of her. Ann explained that the next set of caves were higher but not as nice and we were going to see a small town with a view of a canyon.
After a bit of wandering around, we sat down to get some water and rest. I decided this would be a good spot as there weren’t very many people around at the time. I asked Ann if her feet hurt, which she replied perfectly to my plan. So I sneaked the ring box out of my camera case and into my back pocket, and then got down on one knee and started to rub my baby’s feet. Once both feet were done, I asked if that was better and she said yes thank you. I then put my hand in my back pocket, produced the ring and said “baby girl, I love you, will you marry me” the reply was screamed “Yeeeeeeeesssssss!!!!!” with arms waving. Excellent, totally surprised her!
We then wandered around the caves some more taking more photos of us and just beaming from ear to ear. We descended back to the car and went off to the town of Lonavla and on to the viewpoint. The town was at a standstill because it was a public holiday. We decided not to stop but head straight to the viewpoint, where we wandered around for a bit, with lots of monkeys being mischeavous before making our way back to the car via a tender cocunut seller. The views were lovely but with the heat there was a slight haze which took the edge off the scenary.
We briefly stopped off at a Dosa restaurant for lunch, which was lovely as usual. After lunch we decided to head to the second set of caves to see those, however when we got their we decided against climbing them. It was already getting on in the day and both of us were quite relaxed from doing a big climb in the morning so we decided not to stop but head home instead.
When we got home, we broke the news to Ann’s mum and sister and they were thrilled. We had a celebratary meal and then relaxed. It had been a good day and I’d totally shocked Ann, which was good!
Our original plan was to stay in Mumbai for a few days to see the various sites and sounds of mumbai however as we were in Mumbai just 4 weeks after the bombings we decided that maybe staying in Mumbai was not the best idea so we decided to leave the morning after we arrived. We were heading to Pune, which is where Ann’s Mum and sister live. It took us over one hour to leave Mumbai and Navi (new) Mumbai and a couple more to get to Pune. The drive was relaxing and we were surrounded by countryside. When we got closer to Pune we passed a huge Hindu temple being built on top of the hill. I only mention it as it was a temple of the heffalump god.
Pune is the cultural capital of Maharashtra and its a huge city. Traffic comes from everywhere, much like Mumbai. We arrived at home to be greeted by Ann’s mum and sister. I was made very welcome and Rabbity received hugs etc from Amma (malyalam word for mum) and sister.
Ann’s apartment is massive having 3 bedrooms and 3 toilets. Its a lovely place although I know Rabbity would like to redecorate etc . The rest of the day was spent catching up. I have to say our time in Pune was very hectic and its probably gloss over most save for a few interesting points.
Food is one of those interesting things. Everyday Amma would prepare something different. Breakfasts were exceptional and one morning I had mutton curry – I was happy that morning! Amma didnt reduce the spice heat for me as Rabbity had told her I could handle spice so waking up and eating spicy food became the norm. I have to say though, I could easily eat that kind of food every breakfast but its very demanding.
The next day we got up and headed into Pune city centre for some shopping. Our destination was Fab India, which is a place that sells excellent ethic style clothes and good prices. Our journey was again very interesting. In Pune they have some huge roundabouts with traffic from all sides but if you want to go right (say 3rd/4th exit), the quickest way is to cut over the roundabaout rather than going round it. Of course the horn was used for this task! The one other incident of note was our clash with the traffic police. About 100 yards of Fab India, Amma had to stop to avoid an accident. Whilst the cars were all sorting themselves out I noted a short fat traffic cop, with his back to the traffic buying something or other at a roadside stall. Amma was just past the lights at a major intersection. The lights went to red but the other cars went, Amma stayed put. At that point the cop turned round and pulled Amma over for failing to stop at the lights. I went from calm to fuming in milliseconds at this and Rabbity and Amma were busy trying to communicate to this guy whos grasp on language wasnt exactly tight but Amma dutifully handed over her licence for checking. Anyway Rabbity gets out of the car to sort this mess out and I go to assist her. The dumb traffic officer is writing out a ticket but looks up when I get out. His first instinct, which was written all over his face was “oh shite.” He was a short fat man and there I was towering over him shouting and waving arms at him. Luckily Rabbity takes hold of the situation and starts telling the officer that he missed the whole thing has he had his back turned, which he then denied. He then demands 200 rupees for the ticket. In India, the cops are just looking for easy money. you can pay the ticket or you pay them. Simple yet corrupt. They don’t really worry about right or wrong, they are just interested in lining there pockets. Anyway We hadn’t done anything wrong, why should we pay! at that point Amma, who is very well connected (but not as in “Mafia” connected) rings the traffic cops boss. Before the pudding of a cop can issue the ticket the boss is on the scene. The cop tries to pull the ticket from the book and the boss man puts his hand on it, saying “NO!” He then snatches the licence back off the blimp, who is still trying to hold onto the situation but failing miserrably, and gives it back to her, apologies and tells us to go on our way and he will “deal” with the ball. My first (and not the last) encounter with the police!
We headed to Fab India and bought some excellent clothes and a couple of presents for people (we got my mum a lovely yellow table cloth!). Amma and Jane left us in Fab India as we were in shopping mode. After Fab India we headed to Tanishq, which is a jewellery shop – time to buy engagement rings. We had decided a whille back that we wanted to stay together and make a life (Hey i wouldnt be in India with Rabbity’s family if I didnt ) and I said I wanted to buy a ring from India. Rabbityness went through 400 rings in what seemed nano seconds and filtered out four or five. She then wittled it down to two. Now one looked exactly like a promise ring I had bought her in Poland consisting of white and gold amber in silver and whilst it was nice ring on its own, it looked silly and bland next to the gold and diamonds so I decided to upgrade her promise ring so we got two rings. One she got to wear immediately and one she would have to wait for!
The following day we headed out again to shop, but this time for wedding clothes. We got mine and the groomsmen easily (the first shop we went to!) but Rabbits dress was a bit harder. However we still got it on the first day. Bridesmaids et al would have to wait as we simply couldnt find anything. We then walked through the market area of Pune to get some wedding shoes. It was a lovely area and proved to be a great photographic opportunity. Link to gallery. It was hot, dusty and very busy – very busy meant possible danger so Rabbity was on high alert…..
That day we went for lunch at the German Bakery which is mentioned in the lonely planet guide as a good place to go eat. We werent that impressed to be honest and it was expensive. We were also a stones through away from Osho’s ashram which is a place of meditation and other things. The lonely planet made it sound really good including zen tennis, however Rabbity explained that it had a darker side. If your single and looking for some exploration you might want to go. Initially, from the lonely planet piece I had wanted to go explore but after that I just wanted to get out of there.
Finally, one evening we had Ann’s friend over, Sonu. It was an excellent evening with Rabbity and Sonu catching up. We left on the 2nd of January to go back to Mumbai to catch a flight to Goa…….
It started one evening when Ed and I were taking turns playing DJ on Ed’s laptop and I chose a Metallica number. It was one that we both loved – Nothing else matters. A couple of weeks later, we heard through the O2 priority club about advance bookings to see Metallica and we decided to go for it. Last Saturday, after having checked in (got a great deal on the Holiday Inn, Docklands) and a quick pit stop at Chennai Dosa ( lots of yummy food for £12 in total!) , we headed for the O2 Arena.
Getting to the O2 Arena could have been a mission as the Jubilee line was not in service but thankfully the free replacement buses were great. There were hundreds of fans at the station, mostly dressed in Metallica gear. I don’t believe in conforming with the masses – I wore white  . The O2 Arena is massive and an impressive piece of civil engineering. Our seats were fairly high up and I did a quick calculation which showed the the capacity of the arena to be around 20000. By the time we got to our seats, Sword had just wrapped up their show and Machine Head had come on. They were guest bands for the evening. I could not relate to Machine Head and neither could Ed. It mostly sounded like low pitch, high decibel noise. The Iron Maiden tribute was the only saving grace.
Finally, after an hour of waiting for Machine Head to shut up, Metallica came on. As always, they were brilliant. While the show was in some ways focused on their latest album- Death Magnetic, they did not disappoint. The crowd was in a frenzy as all the old favourites were performed- Master of Puppets, Justice for All, Harvester of Sorrow, One, Kill’em all. It was an awesme experience and from where we sat ,we got an interesting view of happenings downstage. Fans jumping on stage and being dragged away, push fights, dopey young ones, dead serious headbangers, it was all part of the entertainment. The sound and light guys were fantastic but I was not sure about the health & safety aspects of their working. I did not see any harnesses or ear protection but then we were a long way up and I could have been wrong. Rob, James, Lars they all got their attention, but for me Kirk ruled the day. His rendition of Nothing esle matters was fantastic and as Ed and I soaked it up, we also decided on our wedding song!
we have now successfully moved from edwardchandler.co.uk to our new home lumpyandrabbit.co.uk as its more personal! i guess we have arrived at somewhere near to where we want to be! figures crossed
After a lot of thought and long discussions between us, we decided to set off on a new expedition to organise a UK wedding. Not satisfied with having organised most of the Indian wedding we decided we would like to have a UK wedding too. We were looking something north of Peterborough, preferably between Peterborough and Grimsby so that family did not have to travel too far. Ann spent some time on the internet and found a lovely Roman Catholic Chapel on the Exton Estate near Oakham. We organised a visit to see the Chapel of St Thomas of Canterbury with Lady Campden on saturday and it was absolutely lovely. We instantly fell in love with the chapel and the grounds. Perfect for a small family wedding!
With that done we headed off to Barnsdale Lodge (at Lady Campden’s recommendation) to look for a place to go for a family meal afterwards. Intially we thought something nice like a corner in a pub but barnsdale lodge is perfect and cozy to hold a family event. It has the prefect unspoilt English countryside seting as well which both of us really took to. So we are now organising a dinner reception and hopefully friends will pop on over afterwards to join in for some drinks. All that took no more than 4 hours. Nice and simple. No nasty wedding fairs, no difficult conversations about prices – we both agreed on everything. I guess now I really need to build a website for our wedding!!
Laters
I dont intend to write alot about our wedding plans as we aim to have a website up and running dedicated to our wedding shortly but id like to share one event with you…..
Ann and I went to a wedding fair at the Holiday Inn in Peterborough last week, to check it out and see what was on offer. I have to say that it was a very stressful and highly displeasureable thing. In contrast our 5 days of wedding planning were completely different and very enjoyable, but more on that later!
To begin with, everyone wanted to know the exact details of our wedding before we had even chance to find out what each exhitbitor was offering. To be honest if people knew all the details they wouldnt be attending the wedding event in the first place!!! I have to say that everything was so over priced and expensive without offering much in the way of decent value. For instance every photographer we saw (which was about 5/6) would only give away all the electronic images at a hugely inflated cost (upwards of £100). One of the beauties of digital is the amount of photos that can be taken and kept. No they all wanted to horde them like a precious material so they could squeeze more out of you.
The Indian approach is much more pleasureable. you identify the person you want to speak to, tell them what you want, tell them how much you want to spend and bish, bash bosh sorted. Some of them will tell you the minimum an element of the wedding will cost but its a very cheap price. If you want more you just pay for it!
Anyway my heart goes out to anyone organising their wedding in the UK as it is wholy stressful!!
The Journey
I guess I should start at the beginning. We flew out on boxing day 2008. Ann had been ill for the last 4/5 days and only really managed to open presents and eat a little bit of our christas paella meal. As usual the M25 was blocked so me being Mr Intelligent decided to place my trust in the sat nav and go through the back roads. This would have been a good plan had I not been miles from Heathrow and had the roads not shut down for road works. Sat nav’s dont do road work diversions very well. The amount of times it asked me to do a u turn made me dizzy. Anyway enough of that as its boring!
We flew with Egyptair which I now understand to be a very bad idea according to Lonely Planet. The staff were predominately male, which isn’t a bad thing by default but lets just say that comfort and customer assistance wasn’t top of their agenda – sleeping on the back of the plane on the other hand was. Ann was panicking at every step. She is a seasoned independent traveller however she had her Lumpy to consider and keep safe which was all new to her anyway the flight from London Heathrow to Egypt was better than the flight from Egypt to Mumbai. At least it wasn’t British Airways we went on. Cairo airport was nice and had free wifi which is always a bonus when your a gadget freak like me and have a wifi enabled phone. Facebook got spammed to pass the time – well what else is it there for!
Arrival
The airport was near deserted. Apparently it is usually rammed with people but that day it was empty. It may have been down to the time or day or because of the recent bombings. Whilst waiting for our luggage I had my first taste of Indians at work. Unfortunately I couldn’t take a picture because my camera was packed away. So the scene – two chaps standing on a wooden plank with a ladder at both ends of the wooden plank. Another 4 men stood around watching them. I quickly learn’t that for building and contruction work the number of people watching the people do the work had to be double the amount of people actually doing the job. Therefore it takes 6 men (two ladders and a blank of wood) to do work on the ceiling of mumbai airport
We swung out of the airport and booked a taxi. I now see Ann in authoritive mode. To me she is a fluffy soft toy that wouldn’t say boo to a ghost but she knows these guys will take the cheap option is possible and she gave them hell making sure we got a good cab etc.
Onto the traffic which I have explained in the previous post. as a first experience it was excellent and the sights we past were just beautiful. When you land at mumbai you cant help but notice the massive slum right next to the airport. Once you get into the traffic you experience this at a much closer hand. People work and live right on the street. They go about their day collecting water, repairing broken auto rickshaw’s selling fruit, praying whilst a million cars whizz by. Old slum houses sit on top of older slum houses. some of them are slum shops and businesses selling or making all kinds of things. I wish I had had my camera out as the shots I would have been able to get would have been amazing. But anyway maybe next time.
The journey to our friends (Arul and Sherie) was very interesting and its only later I realised what was actually happening when Sherrie told me. the problem is that not all streets actually have names. you would think this would make life tough? so ok places are labelled after big buildings or landmarks near to the road. Thats a good idea as it means you can navigate by those. However just for sporting fun, big buildings and landmarks (such as factories) frequently get demolished to make way for new housing or industry, and on this occasion our friend lived in a lovely appartment off a street with no name, next to a factory that had been demolished. Generally in India you stop and ask for directions and help. Something which people dont do in the UK especially me as i forget everything after “go around the roundabout and throught the traffic lights” but on this occasion we needed to find a person who new the location of the nameless road near the former factory. needle in a haystack I tell you. thankfully we arrived and in good spirits.
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