Delhi was just a daytime stop-off on the way further north. But we did have to submit our passports in application for our Chinese visas before catching another sleeper to Kalka that night, then the “toy train” to Shimla in the morning. We planned to get up to the mountainous northern part of India just to see what it was like. By this time Joanne had more or less decided that she did not like India and hoped that it would be more like Nepal or Tibet in the mountains. I had decided that India needs a lot longer than we had allowed for it and I just wanted to see a couple more places before we left.

I had remembered Delhi as being more civilised than the bits of India we had so far visited on this trip and it was certainly cleaner, and the metro was a joy to use: very modern and efficient, unlike most of our India experiences. There was also a lot less hassle.

We found our way to the Le Méridien Hotel where the Chinese Visa Service is located and came up against a predictable mix of Indian and Chinese bureaucracy. First we were searched and our bags X-rayed before entering the building, then I wasn't allowed into the CVS office because of the laptop in my bag. Then, when Joanne handed over the forms and passports she was informed that we each also had to submit a letter to the Chinese Embassy, stating that we wished to apply for a visa, and telling them exactly all the same information requested on the application forms. What is the point of the application form if everything has to be repeated in a letter? The letter was not mentioned on their website or on any of the “what you need” information on the walls outside the office. Fed up, we tried the hotel, which was just round the corner, hoping for a business centre to type up the letters. We were in luck but they told us it would be Rs200 per page, compared to about Rs10 usually charged in an internet cafe. Joanne quickly typed up the letters then when she asked which printer to send it to, the guy at the desk said “oh – you want to print them out to?” . What on earth was the Rs200 charge supposed to be for? When we were done he told us that the charge is just for typing them up, maybe to save on a memory stick, and there should be another charge for printing them out! He saw how shocked we were and must have felt sorry for us because he only charged us Rs200 instead of the Rs800 or so we should have been charged. Delhi is much more civilised!

Nice Doric columns around Connaught Place

Passports submitted, we went to Connaught Place, the centre of New Delhi, to look for a cheap place to eat. With the help of the Lonely Planet we managed to find an affordable place among all the very expensive posh places. The waiter put a jug of water on the table and assured us it was OK for us to drink because it was filtered. I wasn't sure that filtering is enough to make Indian water safe; surely it should be UV and reverse osmosis treated as well? After a couple of sips I decided it didn't taste very nice and left it. However the food was nice and I really enjoyed the atmosphere: there were no tourists and something about the people seemed really nice. Delhi seemed to me totally different from the rest of India, but Joanne's opinion was not going to be changed, although she did say that she preferred Delhi.

Expensive Connaught Place

We wanted to go online to look for accommodation in Shimla. The nearest internet place was in Paharganj, which was ideal because it's near to the train station and it's also the backpacker bit of Delhi, where we were likely to be staying when we returned, so I wanted to see what it was like. It was like everywhere else in India outside of Delhi: dirty and lots of hassle, although there were more tourists than anywhere else we had been. When we finished online, without booking any accommodation, we went into a Nepalese restaurant next door, only to find Dominik sitting there. He had managed to get a bus to Varanasi after we left him in Gorakhpur and, having spent one day in Delhi, was now waiting until his train for Dharamsala, one of the mountainous places we intended to visit. We spent the rest of our wait chatting to Dominik and eating momos. He hadn't really been enjoying his time in India and had the same idea as Joanne as far as hoping the mountainous placed would be more like Nepal. He just kept saying that he can't believe how different it is from Nepal and how unfriendly Indians are. “They never smile” he complained.

Another sleeper train, another night with almost no sleep and we were in Kalka.

written by  The Happy Couple on June 19, 2009 from Delhi, India
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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We arrived in Shimla with loads of Indians who were obviously on holiday. Joanne asked if I knew whether it was a popular holiday destination for Indians but I wasn't sure; I only knew it was a popular honeymoon spot. I spent some time in Shimla last time I was in India, and it's worth a look but we were only planning to spend one night there as I thought that would be enough. Shimla is on a steep hillside and there was already a big queue for the public lift. When we got up to the main street of Shimla, called the Mall, we could see just how busy the place was. Joanne was really fed up and said that she wanted to go somewhere there weren't any Indians. She had thought Shimla would be full of foreign tourists and Tibetans, not Indian tourists. She had really had enough of the country!

The Ridge with Christchurch in the background

After a long and tiring search for a hotel, leaving Joanne in a bar with the bags, I realised the only reasonably priced placed with any vacant rooms was the YMCA. The bar I'd left Joanne in I remembered as being the only bar in Shimla. It had been a really rough place with the worst toilet I'd seen in India (which is obviously saying something) and everyone there so drunk that they were falling over and walking into things. It had seemed that drinking was so unrespectable that people thought they really had to go for it if they were crossing that line. The place had completely changed and it was now actually quite a nice upmarket restaurant and bar. I think attitudes to alcohol in India are changing, although in many places it is still far from acceptable.

The YMCA was a really nice building, if a little institutional, and quite high up the hill with a nice view. We had been told that there was only hot water at certain times, but after two days of travelling we were quite happy with cold water, so we both jumped in the shower as soon as we were checked in. After just a couple of minutes, when we were both covered in soap, the cold water stopped. Apparently it wasn't just the hot water that stopped during the day. We later discovered that there were currently water shortages in Shimla. After our abortive showers we slept. Most of our time in India seemed to be spent not sleeping on overnight transport or catching up - or trying to catch up - on missed sleep. That's one reason you definitely need to take your time in India. That day Joanne was quite ill and I discovered that she had drunk quite a lot of the filtered water I'd rejected in Delhi, which I reckon was probably to blame.

The next day I left her in bed and went out to secure tickets to Manali, our next destination, and top-ups for our Indian mobile phone numbers. When I asked for the top-ups, the man in the shop told me to write down the two numbers. When he looked at them, he realised that they were not local numbers and confirmed that we had got the SIM cards in Mumbai. In that case, he explained, we would need to spend Rs351 “for full talk time”. I didn't know why, but I took his word for it and handed over the Rs702 which was far more than I thought we needed. He started tapping away on his phone, several times asking me to confirm what some number was. Not a very good system and very error-prone I thought idly. One number in particular he asked me about three times: an 8 or a 6? It's a six, I told him. Three times. Before I left the shop I got a text from Joanne thanking me for the credit. I was expecting a message from Vodafone saying that I too had credit, but it didn't come. The shop owner assured me that it had gone through and told me to come back later if there was any problem, so I headed back to the YMCA.

View from the YMCA

Much later than day Joanne was feeling a bit better and my credit had still not registered so we both went into the shop. After a bit of discussion we discovered that he had typed in 8 instead of 6. That's why he'd asked me three times, he said. Yes, I explained, that's why I'd told him 6 three times. He told us that there was nothing he could do because he had no way of contacting the Vodafone centre in Mumbai and local Vodafone would take more than a month to reclaim the credit, and that would only happen if the number he had added it to wasn't in use. I told him I couldn't believe that there was no way, but he insisted that there was nothing at all he could do. What a ridiculous system! I left furious, now certain that India will never truly compete with Western economies; how could they possibly rely on such obviously flawed procedures? The shop owner had kindly given me his card so I could call him the next day in case he was able to contact the recipient of my misplaced credit. If they are a good person they will transfer the credit to you, he assured me.

And that was Shimla. We didn't even visit Jakhu Temple, another Hanuman temple, where the monkeys supposedly frisk you for food or drinks, and for which several shops in Shimla sell “monkey sticks” for hitting them with. The next day we had to hike down the hill to get our bus to Manali because the public lift doesn't open that early in the morning.

written by  The Happy Couple on June 21, 2009 from Shimla, India
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Modification made to the bus

We spent the next hour waiting to see what would happen while the responsible parties argued, presumably about whose fault it was, although it's hard to imagine there being too much disagreement. We were envisaging having to wait for the three hours or so we had travelled from Shimla, while a replacement bus was sent for us, but in the end Indian-style common sense prevailed and we set off again with no windscreen. Several rows from the front we were getting dust in our eyes, so I was glad to see the driver had taken the safety precaution of wearing a pair of sunglasses. It actually wasn't too bad without the windscreen but when we stopped for lunch, the true nature of their plans because clear: all the luggage was swapped with a bus heading in the other direction and the passengers from that nice intact bus were herded onto ours. I felt a bit sorry for them but I was pleased to have a windscreen again.

Mountains behind New Manali

Only about thirty seconds after we got off the bus in Manali, Joanne complained that it looked like a horrible place. It certainly wasn't what I was expecting. I had been expecting a really quiet mountain town full of western tourists, but it was even busier than Shimla, there was no sign of westerners, and it was very polluted with exhaust fumes. The Lonely Planet has advised against staying in New Manali, where the bus had dropped us, so we took an auto-rickshaw up the hill to Old Manali. It certainly looked more that part the further up the hill we got, but I started worrying that it looked a bit too touristy. We checked into a hotel with a nice view of some mountains, which was a bit more expensive that we had hoped for at Rs400, but the room was very nice and we decided just to spoil ourselves after all the transport hell we had suffered lately.

Indian breakfast. Yum!

We had some really nice food in the lovely outside dining area where we were served by an extremely friendly waiter. He must be Nepali, not Indian, we bitchily joked to each other. But maybe the Indians were different here after all. When he returned with the bill he asked where we were from and, after telling him Scotland, I asked if he was from Manali. No, I'm from Nepal, he said.

View from our room

View from our room

After getting over the shock of having our prejudices confirmed, we ventured out into the town. There isn't really much to Old Manali and it is far too touristy. It's not my kind of place at all actually but, at least for Joanne, there were hardly any Indians. In fact it's just another bland standard-issue backpacker resort. All the same food we've been seeing in those kind of places since we started our trip and no real sign of the native culture. We were not going to be trekking because Joanne's feet had still not recovered from the trek in Nepal and, as far as I could see, if you aren't planning to trek, the only other reason people were in Old Manali is that it seems to be absolutely acceptable to smoke joints openly in all the bars and restaurants.

We did find quite a nice bar called Shesh Besh, playing great music, where they have backgammon on all the tables, but it was absolutely swarming with flies. Apparently it's just the time of year. The staff were really nice: Nepalis again. The food was even more disappointing around Old Manali that it had been in the rest of India. Who would have thought you can spend five weeks in India and never eat any spicy food? Quite bizarre.

Unusual way to promote a shop

The next day we bumped into Dominik again. He didn't have anything good to say about Dharamsala but he said Macleodganj, where the Tibetan government in exile is based, was OK. Just like Manali really, he said. Then he said that he was going to Leh as soon as possible because he didn't like Manali, quite shockingly, as there were too many Israelis. I think it sounded even worse coming from a German. It's true that there were a lot of Israelis there; the keyboards in the internet cafes all have Hebrew characters on them. In fact most of these ultra-backpackery places, where there's obviously a lot of drugs, seem to attract large groups of young Israelis. I suppose mostly they are probably just finished their national service and wanting to go a bit wild, not really caring where they are.

A bin! In India!

We said goodbye to Dominik and then spent the next few days not doing very much. I did lots of blogging and Joanne did lots of reading. One day the waiter asked me what I was typing about and he seemed very pleased when I said I was writing about Nepal. The weather remained pleasant and the hotel owner told us it was far too hot. When we said we had come from Varanasi where it was about 45C he explained that mountain people like him can't handle the temperature if it goes near 30C, and it was only 26C. We were nice and cool.

Half-built pool hall

The ouside dining area and pool hall behind

Eventually we got a ticket for a bus to Macleodganj. Infuriatingly the buses only went at night, which we were certain meant another night of no sleep, then a day or two trying to recover. On these mountain roads there is no way you can sleep.

written by  The Happy Couple on June 26, 2009 from Manali, India
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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As predicted the overnight bus to Macleodganj was completely sleepless, being buffeted from side to side round every corner on the twisty mountain road. The bus helpfully dropped us at 4:30am, not in the bus station and not anywhere easily identifiable on the Lonely Planet map. We did manage to work out where we were but clearly after everyone else did because our chosen hotel was fully booked, apparently having given their last room away only five minutes previously. However the owner there took pity on us and invited us in to sit, telling us nowhere else would be open yet. It became obvious that we were in a Tibetan enclave, not really India, when he brought us free cups of tea to drink as we planned our next option. When we had rested a bit we headed out and found that most of the hotels in town were booked up. We were getting near the end of our choices when we found a hotel up lots of steps with our big bags which was able to offer us a room.

Our plan after checking in was to eat some breakfast then go to bed, but the hotel we were in had no kitchen and told us that nowhere would be offering breakfast yet. We were sure we had seen somewhere near the bottom of the steps which looked kind of open so we went down there to find they were actually serving breakfast on the veranda. Halfway through a rather poor breakfast of kidney beans, which were horribly dry, a tall slightly punky looking guy appeared at the opposite end of the veranda and stared for a bit. At first I thought it was big Davie from The Plain of Jars in Laos but the near-impossible coincidence and the fact he looked younger than I remembered him convinced me it was an unknown stranger instead. He kept looking, though, in a way that suggested he wasn't convinced either, but clearly did not have the extra too-young factor to completely put him off. In the end he cracked and asked “Michael?”. Of course it was him! But what an idiot I felt for not recognising him immediately. He was staying at this hotel.

The return of Big Davie

The day before Joanne had said to me that it looked like we wouldn't be meeting up with Davie. We had had a vague plan to meet him, but headed off in opposite directions when we reached India, and last email contact we got from him suggested he was still in Rajasthan, soon leaving for Nepal. In fact he was planning to enter Nepal from the West, via Macleodganj and Manali. Rajasthan, at 49C, had been ever hotter than Varanasi and too much for a Scotsman he expained. Certainly the three-day camel ride in the desert sounded like an error of judgement! Apparently alcohol had been so hard to get hold of where he had been in India that he had been on the wagon for several weeks and, in fact, had been drunk for the first time again the previous night. So he was ready for a reunion session later. He told us that he'd paid for a shave at a barber's the day before and thoroughly recommended it. I realised immediately that this must be the secret to his youthful appearance and asked him where he had got it.
We agreed to meet him later back on his veranda and went out in search of his barber to regain my lost youth. His directions were a bit suspect, but who gives away the secret of the font of youth? In the end I settled for another barber, reckoning that just a shave would do, even without the elixir of life. The whole experience was quite unusual: exposing your jugular to a stranger with an open razor, who is only going to get Rs20 if he doesn't cut your throat. But it was also very pleasant; total luxury at a low price. No need to go through the terrible hassle of foaming up and shaving your own face: just get a man in! I left feeling much nicer and fresher as I'd left it a couple of days too many in the relative cool of Manali. I didn't think he'd done as close a job as my Mach III normally does, but at Rs20 a day it would be cheaper to pay for a shave rather than do it myself every second day, Mach IIIs and Gillette shaving gel included. Why hadn't I tried this at the start of our trip? I was definitely hooked now.

We met Davie again later and went to what seems to be the only bar in town, where he had been drinking whiskies the previous night. He had warned us that the whisky seemed to be difficult to get hold of and only one employee would serve it to him. This time nobody would so we had to settle for beer, however the fact we were not ordering food seemed to make us of very little interest to the waiting staff and we were unable to order again. We decided to save a bit of money and actually get a drink by going to the off-licence outside with the intention of having a few drinks on Davie's hotel veranda. We had time for one drink before the very grumpy manager appeared and switched off the light, leaving us in the dark. It was only 10 O'Clock, but clearly it was time for bed. Our hotel had no common area so our last hope was to retire to Davie's room for more drinks, but as we were filing in his next door neighbour, a twenty-something french french guy complained that he would be able to hear us if we were talking in the room. It was only just after ten! And he wasn't even thirty! We gave up and Joanne and I settled for a couple of drinks alone in our bedroom. I much preferred Macleodganj to Manali, but clearly it was not anything like as much of a party town.

Rubbish collection in India!

As usual in India, the next morning we were denied our catch-up sleep from the bus journey by noisy people early in the morning. It's a nice little town but there's not loads to do and the only tourism we had intended was a visit to the Tibetan Museum. Although we hadn't had many drinks the night before, they had all been strong beers and ciders, and I was feeling a bit hungover as well as tired. I just couldn't face the museum; I went in, but it was hot inside and when I saw all of the exhibits were mostly text with a couple of photos, I had to leave. Reading was too hard. Instead I waited in a nearby cafe and managed to read the Times of India. Apparently the monsoon was now so overdue that there were serious water shortages all over India. Terrible for India, but it did mean that we had got a break from the early monsoon that followed all round South East Asia. They were expecting the drought to continue for another two weeks at least. I turned to the international section which I had noticed before seemed to be nothing but gossip and a half-naked Western girl. It was the same again. I found a couple of older papers and checked: same again. Apparently the only news Indians get about the West is gossip and proof that all Western women are loose. No wonder they feel at liberty to grope them if this is the only way the are portrayed in the media! Joanne appeared and confirmed that the museum had not been all that interesting, but, for what happened in Tibet, she was now adding China to her travel-inspired list of evil countries which until then had only contained the US, for what happened in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. She suggested that we should re-route to avoid it for political reasons. On the way back to the hotel we were completely drenched as the late monsoon appeared just to spite that morning's newspaper.

That evening we met up with Davie again, but earlier, in the hope of getting drunk before the town shut down, this time not on strong beers in the hope we could avoid the disproportionate hangover we had both suffered earlier. We managed a bit better, but it really isn't a party town.

The next morning we were woken early again, but the non-strong beers seemed to have done the trick and I felt more human again. We spent the day wondering around town, buying bus tickets back to Delhi and off-loading the books we had read; as usual we came away with more books than we got rid of, which really isn't the point of the exercise, but when you see a good English bookshop in Asia it's hard not to go a bit overboard. Macleodganj in absolutely crammed with monks but what is particularly unusual is the very high number of female monks (or is it nuns?). Apparently the branch of Buddhism practiced in Tibet is far more egalitarian than other forms.

Again we had only been able to get an overnight bus, but I hoped that this one would be a bit more comfortable after the first couple of hours when we would be out of the mountains and back on the plains again. When we arrived at the bus station Joanne was not impressed: the “semi-deluxe” bus we had booked didn't look very deluxe at all. I found it comfortable enough and slept more than I had on any other bus trip. Joanne was not so lucky because, even though it was a night bus, they still crammed as many people in as possible, and she had people leaning against her headrest all night. Some people were trying to sleep standing up. They must have been even more exhausted than Joanne by the time we arrived in Delhi.

written by  The Happy Couple on June 29, 2009 from Macleodganj, India
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Before India we had been trying to eat street food as much as possible, but in India Joanne had never fancied it so we'd never had any. This had posed us with a bit of a calorie problem, as restaurant portions in India are huge and greasy, but we had been very restrained and had shared one portion at almost every meal. There were loads of tasty looking food stalls in Paharganj though, and I was determined to have street food at least once in India. Rs20 was all it cost for probably the best curry I'd had in India, served with two stuff parathas. I think I was ripped off actually, as a customer had told me it would cost Rs15, but a tourist mark-up like that I can live with; it's when they think they can charge tourists double that I start to object. Again Joanne didn't fancy it, but I went ahead without her. We struggled to find her something as we were running really low on cash and the ATMs were all playing one of their periodic no-money tricks on me.

A relatively quiet queue at the train station

It was quite a shock to be back in the crowds of Delhi and the heat in Delhi was a bit much for us after all the time spent in quieter, cooler mountain towns, so we retired to room and lazed about most of the day, watching Bollywood on TV. Joanne had never seen any Bollywood before and decided that she really like it. Actually I really like it as well – another thing I love about India! We were waiting to see Swarg when it came on at 7pm. This was the new TV series we had worked on as extras for a day in Mumbai. It had started the day before so we had missed it travelling on the overnight bus. As soon as the program started we recognised the scene as one of those we were present for. It was quite surreal watching the finished version after having witnessed take after take. The production quality was far higher than we had expected after witnessing the set and the performances from behind the camera, but the magic of television really had worked wonders on it and it seemed like quite a polished, very professionally made piece of television. It just goes to show how little I know about making television as I clearly had not been able to imagine anything close to what the director saw while it was being filmed. Alarmingly, though, the cuts were far faster than I had expected and the shots were much closer in to the actors than I thought. The net result was that there was far less footage of the extras than I thought possible. At first there was no sign of us at all so I started to focus more on the background. I suspect that quite a bit of digital post-processing had been done on the background because some action seemed to go at a slightly different speed from the foreground, and some seemed to be taken from a slightly different angle, but mostly there seemed to be far less going on than there had been at the time of shooting. In a couple of split-second cuts we spotted the two blond dutch people who had worked with us, and after downloading and extensive analysis, we believe Joanne also appears briefly, but I am almost certainly not there. I suspect some digital editing was to blame there. I can just imagine how it went: “Look at the state of him! Take him out. Leave in the girl and, oh yes, the two young blond ones”. Even the scene I was certain would contain lots of me had none. They must have re-shot it on subsequent days! Our dreams of Bollywood stardom – over!

You can watch "our" bit of the program here: http://www.desi-tashan.com/?ID=620478784e4311ab or else by searching for: Swarg colors 30th June.

And this is a reminder from when it happened: http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?CommentID=72447

A postcard for whoever is first to add the time Joanne appears as a comment below! And if anybody finds a higher definition version than the above link, please let me know so I can go through it more closely looking for myself!

written by  The Happy Couple on June 30, 2009 from Delhi, India
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Real India curry. Greasy as anything.

We were definitely ready to leave India now, and were getting really excited about Japan: after picking up our passports complete with Chinese visas, we bought a Japan Lonely Planet for a very reasonable price and that night decided to treat ourselves to a relatively expensive meal out in Parikrama, a rotating restaurant I had eaten at during my last trip to India. I remembered the food was OK, nothing special, but the view was great and the whole thing was quite fun. Since it was nearly our last evening in India we decided to go for the full dish each and what a place to do it!

My food was shiny with fat. It seems in India the more you pay for your food the more fat is in it. Obviously they still associate fat with prosperity and wealth instead of the other way around like we now do in Scotland. And middle-class Indians certainly are fat, on the whole. I'm sure they must at least rival Glaswegians for the higher heart attack rate. The meal came to Rs1600 for the two of us, which is not expensive by Glasgow standards but it's probably more than ten times what we had normally been paying. A young Indian couple came in and sat at the next table while we were eating and the girl looked really shocked when she opened the menu and pointed out the Rs40 rotis to her blanching boyfriend; they are usually no more than Rs4.

Sinister-looking building on way back from Parikrama

written by  The Happy Couple on July 1, 2009 from Delhi, India
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Soaped up

The shave started all according to plan: we agreed on Rs20 and he went to work. When he was finished he asked if I wanted a face massage. I was asked this after the first shave I had, but not the second and I had regretted saying no since the first one because I was sure Big Davie told me that he got a face massage included with his Rs20 rejuvenating shave. So this time I was not going to miss out and said yes. Joanne came in with her sandals during my massage which was OK, but not as good as the one Joanne's beauty therapist niece, Maxine had once given me. Once that was all over he said something to me which I thought was “finishing off?” and I assumed he was talking about the aftershave they usually finish with, so I said yes again. Before I new it my face was getting covered in a whitish caking substance. A face mask! I had never had one before and I can't say I really enjoyed it. I particularly didn't enjoy sitting there while other people could see me apparently paying to be pampered, but while I was starting to panic about the amount of time ticking away when we had so much to do. Do face masks really need that amount of time?

Nearly finished

Despite me holding us up we were still sure we could get everything done in time for the taxi we had booked to the airport, but just to make sure we broke with personal protocol and decided to splash out on an auto-rickshaw to Connaught Place where our next mission was: posting home a parcel of Joanne's new sandals and a couple of books I wanted to keep. When we arrived at the post-office the rickshaw driver ask us if we wanted him to wait for us, and when we agreed he asked how long we would be. About ten or fifteen minutes, it depends on them, we said.

After queuing for a bit we explained that we wanted to send these three items to the UK, whereupon they sent us back outside to get it wrapped. We had been expecting them just to put the stuff in a box in the post office itself but instead we had to wait around outside for about fifteen minutes until the freelance wrapping expert they use returned to his post. He asked for a small fee and we handed over the items, which he then started to sew up in a piece of canvas, which took some time. When he eventually finished we rushed back inside thinking we might still have time to shower and change before our airport taxi arrived. In fact we had to wait in a very long and very slow moving queue and when we eventually got to the front the man behind the counter did not seem to have any idea what he was doing. He kept wandering off for the next form to fill in, and at one point sent us back outside to borrow the wrapping man's pen and write the address, then later sent us out again to write the sender information on the canvas. Then we had to pay for a photocopy of Joanne's passport, which he disappeared for about ten minutes to make, and when he finally got around to weighing it and telling us the price we were five minutes over the “very latest we need to leave” and the auto-rickshaw driver had been in twice to check we were still there. We were surprised how high the price was (surface mail was apparently not an option) and since we didn't know how much longer this could go on for we just told him it was too much and stormed out with the silly canvas package. We were about an hour in there, just to post a parcel. Not for the first time I thought that the West has no reason to fear India as an economic threat and marvelled at their incredible bureaucracy and obstinacy.

Our patient auto-rickshaw driver was still there and returned us to our hotel just in time for us to retrieve our bags and book a hostel in Tokyo, since there were still no responses to our Couchsurfing requests, before our airport taxi arrived at the door. We were sweaty, unwashed, and still wearing our sweaty clothes. At least we'd be able to change at the airport.

When we arrived at the airport we discovered that Indian bureaucracy had not yet finished with us. At the door of the terminal building we were turned away by the armed guards because we were too early to check in. Instead we had to wait on the opposite side of the road in the waiting room. I remembered many very miserable hours in that waiting room from the last time I was in India but, luckily, they have upgraded it so that it now has a fast food cafe in it, instead of absolutely nothing at all except for some broken seats. When the allotted time had nearly passed we went back over the road and the guard grudgingly let us in. There was a post office in the terminal, so Joanne sent the package there while I changed in the toilet. It seemed to go much more smoothly there, but it still cost the same. After we had both changed we set about looking for our check in desk, but could see no sign of our flight. As the time grew closer and our flight had still not appeared on any boards we got a bit nervous until we finally cracked and asked someone.

This flight is not on today, we were told. “You mean it's cancelled”, we said. No, not cancelled, just not on today, they insisted. They fetched a representative for Japan Airlines with whom we were flying and he marched us up and down, checking with people and making phone calls until he was able to confirm that the number of flights on this route had been cut two months previously, so we should have been rescheduled for the next day. But nobody had told us. He asked who our ticket holder was and when we said BA took us out of the building into a neighbouring office. This was not as straightforward as you would think because we all had to sign out of the terminal building again, including an excuse for leaving. Having taken us up one floor to a BA office, he promptly disappeared, clearly feeling he had dispensed with his duty. The two girls behind the desk were a bit confused and quite annoyed to be lumbered with us. It turned out to be the lost luggage office, but it was the only BA place still open after 5pm. They told us they couldn't help and wrote down a number for us to call, sending us back outside to a call box. We duly lugged our big bags down to the phone only to discover that the number did not work and when we returned to the office to check the number it too was shut. BA have no representation at all in Delhi International Airport after 6pm. A helpful janitor unlocked the door for me and I went in. Even more annoyed the girl I spoke to said that it wasn't BA's fault and I should contact whoever I booked the ticket through. Stuck an extra day in India and stuck right in the middle of their obstinacy again!

We didn't know what to do. Clearly we weren't going to get our flight until the next day, but unable to contact BA to find out whether they would give us compensation, we didn't know whether to just book into some convenient hotel or to return all the way to Paharganj and look for another cheap place within our budget. Not knowing what else to do, I sent my friend John a text asking him to get in touch with STA where I booked the tickets and ask them to call me on my Indian mobile number. We didn't have enough credit or money to call internationally, but I hoped this would work. John had already been a lifesaver several times when we needed information in a hurry but had no access to the internet; a quick text to John and the information is usually returned by text in just a few minutes. John came to the rescue again and I was soon talking to someone from STA who confirmed what I had suspected: BA were responsible for letting us know about the change of schedule, since STA no longer received notification relating to our schedule after we made the first changes. The guy was very helpful, though, and when I said there was nobody from BA to speak to there, he offered to call BA in Britain. A few minutes later he called back and told me that BA accepted responsibilty and would compensate us, so I should just go ahead and book into a hotel. He didn't think it would be a problem to get compensation for a fifty pound room in the nearby three-star hotel a taxi driver kept walking past and suggesting we go to.

Before we went with the taxi driver I confirmed there was a bar and a restaurant in the hotel, since we were now both starving and in dire need of a drink. Yes, he told us, and added that there was also TV, internet, Air-conditioning, and breakfast all included in the price. Great! A wee bit of luxury for our extra last night in India to make up for this awful turn of events. We took the taxi to the hotel, being sure to get a receipt. We eagerly checked in and dropped our bags in the room. The room was rather disappointing for three stars and we had actually stayed in similar places for nearly one tenth of the price. The TV turned out not to have any English language channels either. But it was the first time we'd had aircon in India. We left our shabby room behind and went to the desk to ask where the bar was. No bar. But they said they could get us alcohol and we ordered a few beers. They wanted cash up front, which was odd, and also problematic because we had spent all of our Rupees in advance of the rescheduled flight. It was not possible to put the beer on the bill apparently. Clearly this hotel wasn't even licensed, so I was going to be able to pay for beer by credit card along with everything else. It also meant, rather annoyingly that we would not be compensated for the drinks, and I was determined that we deserved to be compensated for some alcohol after all the stress it had caused us.

The manager directed me to a nearby cash machine, where I discovered that the ATM was refusing me card again. I returned and pleaded with them to put it on the bill, but they just sent me to the next nearest ATM, which was attached to the nearish Radisson Hotel. While I was in there I popped in to check their room rates, wondering if the compensation would stretch to that, fully intending to leave our horrible, barless hotel if it was at all reasonable. It wasn't: it was about five times what we were paying, so I just went to the cash machine. No money again. When I got back I was raging and had decided we would just get a taxi to another hotel if they couldn't help me out. I really wanted a drink! Maybe the could tell what I was thinking because suddenly it became possible to put the beer on the bill and we were able to get slightly drunk before falling asleep and dreaming of Japan.

written by  The Happy Couple on July 2, 2009 from Delhi, India
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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