Musings of an Idiot

South India

It is a really fine winter morning in Vijayawada and it is great to be here. The normal winter day over here is about 26-30 degrees and simply love seeing the sun. The sun in India never stings as much as it does in NZ. Yesterday and today morning was spent in travel and feeling a little tired because of the waiting period.

We got lucky and none of the flights got cancelled yesterday but the flight which Lance and me took got postponed heaps of times. It was supposed to depart Delhi at 15.50 and then it got postponed to 17.15 and it got further postponed till 18.30 and then 18.45 and then finally the flight boarded at 19.00. So as you can imagine it was a lot of waiting and people watching - every person tells a story just by the way they walk and it is interesting seeing it unfold before your eyes.

Lance and I had some cold lemon tea and then some cold coffee afterwards and it happened to be an hour before the flight started and it gave me a bad stomach ache/cramps. It was unbearably painful at times but I seem to have survived it without getting a loose stomach.

I was sitting in the seat next to the emergency exit, so I was instructed on how to operate incase of an emergency and it was a really cool feeling. The person sitting next to me was a complete idiot {sorry had to say it!!) as he would not listen to even the simplest of instructions and it took a scolding from the air hostess for him to adhere to the safety regulations on the aircraft. The thing with domestic flights is that people don't really listen to what is being said and blatantly disregard information like switching on their cellphones 5 minutes before landing; unhooking their seat belts and standing up even though the seat belt sign is still on -to name a few. People here don't really seem to give a shit about safety regulations or rules and it is shocking to see such behaviour from grown up people.

The flight was made bearable because I started reading 'The Alchemist' which is a gem of a book and I would have finished it during the train journey but all the lights were switched off. I will probably finish it off today as there are only another 40 pages remaining. Yeah!!! you read it right - a train journey. As soon as we got down at Hyderabad airport, dad's youngest brother picked us up and dropped us off at Hyderabad railway station so we could catch our train to Vijayawada. Mom and dad's flight arrived 5 minutes after us (they came in a seperate flight), so it was nice going to the station together. On the way we stopped at a famous eating joint to pick up hyderabadi biryani for dinner and it smelt so good but my stomach cramps didn't let me enjoy the dinner much. Lance had 2 occassions to remember - his first train ride and also the first time that he ate with his hands. Eating food with your hands is a common thing in India, especially in South India, so it was a good initiation for Lance, so that he could enjoy the south indian food during the stay here.

Hyderabad seemed like a clean city and had more sanity than Delhi, atleast that was the first impression. I will probably get to know better when we go back to Hyderabad for a couple of days after the stay at Vijayawada. The train journey was uneventful and slept right uptil Vijayawada, after which we had to jump out of the train in a rush because it had a brief stop there. Vijayawada is a smaller city and is definitely quiter. It was awesome seeing gyanender uncle, aunt and veni. I haven't been out of the house yet but I guess that will have to wait till I get some rest.

The first funny impression I had of vijayawada was seeing people take a morning walk in the middle of the road, which doesn't have a divider. We got down at Vijayawada at 5.00 A.M and the city had not come to life yet. There were quite a few people taking a long morning walk for exercise and I was laughing that their risk of getting hit by a vehicle has doubled straight away because they were walking bang in the centre of the road.

Anyway I have started rambling. I will take leave for now.
Bye,
Amit

posted by Amit @ 9:13 AM