Putting skills to use

No articles or PR musings here, but I thought I’d include this post as it gives a little insight into me and my interests.

Having shared a building at university with a media production course, I’ve had access to a wealth of absurdly expensive cameras and macs that I could only otherwise dream of using. Inevitably, I’ve found myself playing around with said equipment and actually quite enjoying it, perhaps thinking that one day it would come in handy.

Well, one day recently turned into one week – a week of skiing in the Alps with friends to be precise. I decided to document the trip in a short video, nothing too serious, just trying to capture the fun of it all really!

Enjoy:

Goa and my run-in with the police.

(From Summer 2010, rewritten for blog)

Having spent the majority of my time thus far in various crowded cities, I wanted to travel slightly further afield to pastures slightly greener andperhaps  findroads that weren’t gridlocked.  After some brief research my best option seemed Goa, a luscious strip of coastline down the west of the country.

With that in mind I booked a cheap last minute flight and was shortly on my way with great anticipation. Stepping off the aircraft I quite literally couldn’t believe my eyes – green trees and shrubbery as far as my eyes could see, a stark contrast from the previous places I had visited…was I in the same country?

Another welcome difference, especially during the tourist ‘off season’ is the huge decrease in touts hounding you for business. For a change I managed to get to the taxi booth without too much effort, and I was soon cruising down the smooth ocean roads with the fresh sea air swarming the cabin.

My accommodation was in a small beach hut complex just off of Calagunte beach. Between October and March this place would be absolutely thriving, however, in August it remained a calm, serene getaway location – perfect.  A walk along the beach led me to a friendly local cafe, where I spent a couple of evenings chatting to other travellers over a few local beers.

I’d been advised that the best way to explore Goa was by scooter, so for a mere £5 I rented out a little 50cc Honda and meandered my way around. Filling up with petrol was not quite the wallet damaging process that it is in the UK, every few miles along the road you’d see a little table set up with empty coke bottles full of fuel, I can’t quite remember the price but it was mere shrapnel.

The roads were surprisingly smooth, however that’s not to say they were safe, often I’d find myself coming around a blind corner only to be confronted by a herd of cattle casually stood in the road. A few near misses taught me to proceed with a little more caution in future.

It was around this time that I had a run in with the local police, which transpired to be quite an incident. I got pulled over in the early afternoon, the two policemen spoke broken English at best and were quick to quiz me about the legalities of my scooter riding: “Insurance, you have this, and driving license?.”

Insurance? Surely that’s an issue they should be taking up with the hire company from whom I rented the bloody thing. Oh, and as for my driving license, “well, you see that got stolen on a train the other week, I can show you my passport though?”

I won’t bore with the details, but the conversation literally went round in circles until I can only assume they got fed up and decided to take me down to the local station in Mapusa. I wouldn’t be going in the back of their jeep though, oh no, I’d be following them on my scooter; which in itself seemed a little strange, surely if I didn’t have insurance as they insisted then I wouldn’t be allowed to ride at all?

Delusions of grandeur and escapism flashed through my brain, my little scooter could probably outrun their jeep, perhaps. Luckily I saw sense and decided against it, realising that I’d probably be in a whole other world of trouble if I got caught.

When we got to the station I was put into a ‘waiting room’, though with its drab grey walls and metal door it seemed more like a cell. After 45 minutes or so another chap came in and explained that I was being held because I was ‘riding without insurance’, no mention of my lack of driving license though which was interesting. I was still a little weary of this accusation but I let him continue and it soon emerged that I could buy my way out for 4000 rupees (about £50), not the end of the world but a considerable pain in the arse for me and a nice little earner for them. It was at this point I asked if I could ring an aunty who lived in Mumbai to explain the situation, his tone quite literally changed in an instant and he proceeded to probe me with further questions. I explained what I was doing (travelling, obviously) and that I was planning to meet up with my her at a later date on my trip, he asked me what her name was and what she did, I explained and he swiftly left the room without saying a further word.

5 minutes later he came back in – looking somewhat remorseful – and fed me some tripe about there being a ‘big misunderstanding’, that I was infact free to go and didn’t have to pay the charge.  Once I got back to the scooter hire shop the manager there explained to me that this ‘charge’ was actually just a bribe, the common currency of the Goan police. Once they’d realised I wasn’t just another naive tourist and actually had Indian relatives who’d know the law and kick up a fuss, they no choice but to let me go free. Sneaky buggers.

I went back to my hut and bedded down for my final night in Goa. Tomorrow would prove to be another eventful day…

Agra, Utter Pradesh.

After a couple of chilled out days in the not so chilled heat of Delhi, the next stop was the city of Agra. Home to that slab of marble known as the Taj Mahal, ok thats an understatement  – one of the seven wonders of the world. Unfortunately this was around the time Hannah started to feel sick, at this stage we were unsure of what it was, she wanted to stick it out and we hoped it would pass without too much hassle. You’ll remember me talking about the street we were staying on, read: bombsite, let me tell you – walking down here with a fully loaded rucksack in the midday heat is not something to be envied!

Once we got to the station we were again hounded by ticket touts, as if the heat wasn’t annoying enough, all we wanted was to find out platform and get onboard. Train travel in India is an altogether different experience from that of the UK, for starters it’s absolutely manic, there are around 5 different classes of carriage, ranging from unreserved (hard wooden benches, open windows) to AC Tier 1 (air conditioned, privately sectioned births with pull out beds). The majority of India’s population travel in unreserved, while those with a little more money tend to travel in the AC classes, which is also what most travelers opt for. As the name would suggest, unreserved is the only class where you don’t have to make a reservation before hand, hence trying to get a seat is an somewhat ‘interesting’ affair.

I saw the approaching train in the distance, already people were jumping to their feet and as the train got closer I could hear the noise increasing – what came next can be described as nothing short of a stampede. Hundreds of people barged their way to the doors with the apparent mentality of ‘crush or be crushed’, filling the unreserved carriages to such extent that the doors simply couldn’t close – resulting in people hanging out the doors and windows, the really desperate resorted to sitting on the linkages between carriages, something which had to be seen to be believed. We however took a slightly more civilized approach in boarding our carriage. It was around this time that I read in the guide book that “India has the worlds most dangerous railway network, with statistics showing over 800 fatalities a year”, fantastic.

The journey went without incident and we arrived in Agra, we caught an auto rickshaw to our hotel, The Taj Plaza, which boasted a spectacular view of the Taj itself from its rooftop terrace. Having read that the best time to view the Taj was sunrise, we hit the hay early to ensure a good nights sleep.

5.30am: beep, beep, beep, beep.

7.30am: beep beep….Ok, so we slept through our initial alarm which ment we’d missed sunrise, still, I hopped out of bed like an excited child and ran onto the roof. Aside from the occasional tweeting bird, it was silent, absolute bliss.

Hannah still wasn’t feeling well and after breakfast I went to visit the Taj Mahal up close while she rested in the room. Tourism has certainly taken its hold on Agra,  in years gone by it cost a mere rs19 for a day ticket, however this has been hiked up to rs700, still, coming to India and not seeing the Taj would be heinous, so I handed over my fare without any fuss.

Built in 1632 by Shah Jahan to enshrine his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, the monumental structure took a workforce of 20,000 men over 20 years to complete.  Upon entering the courtyard, I was mesmerised, it felt surreal to actually be here – I’m sure we’ve all seen the postcards and photos of people posing in front of its marble walls, but to actually be stood infront of it was something else. It sits at then end of four lush green gardens, known as the Chabagh, which form a perfect pathway leading up to it. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

To walk on the marble platform that the Masoluem (main dome) itself sits on, visitors must either remove their shoes, or wear shoe covers provided upon entrance. I saw a lot of locals going barefoot, wearing flipflops myself I thought I’d follow suite. Oh how wrong I was, the intense sunshine had heated the marble slabs up to near cooking temperature, I let out a little wail before running like a headless chicken to the shaded area as fast as I could, no doubt with locals having a chuckle at my expense.

After spending a few more hours exploring inside and taking the obligatory photos, I decided to head back to the hotel. Aside from the Taj Mahal, there isn’t much reason to visit the city of Agra, hence we would soon be on the next train to Varanasi…

First stop, Delhi.

So, after what seemed like forever we finally landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi.  After depearting the aircraft we collected our luggage and made for the exit.  After being hounded by around 20 or so ‘questionable’ looking characters trying to offer us taxi services we headed to the ‘prepaid’ taxi booth, the safest and most reliable option according to our travel book. After all, getting ripped off on the first night wouldn’t be the ideal start!

After claiming our ticket and paying our fare we stepped out of the airport…out of the air-conditioned sanctuary and into the sweltering Delhi heat.

Nothing can prepare you  for it – the heat, the humidity - no amount of reading or stories from friends, it hits you like a wave and the feeling of suffocation soon ensues. After getting to grips with this, well, barely, we eventually found our taxi driver and headed towards Paharganj, home of the backpacker – at this point it really started to hit me that we were actually in India, doing this for real.

Roads in Delhi are unlike anything you’ve ever seen; no lane markings, no traffic lights, people make their own rules. Indicating is non-existant, when Indians want to overtake they simply bash their horn to make others aware, if you don’t hear it then that’s your problem. Unlike the UK, other road users included little children on motorcycles, trucks with people hanging off the sides, oh and a few stray cattle for good measure. On many occasions I stepped on the invisible passenger brake pedal, fearing my near death was imminent.

We reached Paharganj, or so the driver said. A desolate street, near pitch black and looking like a scene from WWII.

“No further, much rubble, you must walk” he said in a garbled Hindi accent. Walk?! Is he sure? Is this really it?

Already I could see small groups of locals gathering ahead, wondering what all the fuss was about and who these strangers were.  Just before Hannah had closed the door of the taxi the driver offers us a few final words of wisdom – “Do not talk to anyone, just walk”, this didn’t fill me with great confidence so I dread to think how Hannah was feeling.

After pushing through swarms of local street kids and stumbling over rubble, not to mention trying to avoid the wild dogs, we eventually reached our resting place; the Vivek Hostel -  complete with broken sign and cracked window to boot. One final hurdle however, the door was locked, oh dear. We looked at each other in disbelief before Hannah started knocking frantically. I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved to see a door open.

The next day was spent exploring the surroundings, starting with the street our hostel was on. Hannah made the comment that it looked like a film set which hit the nail on the head, the street was long, narrow and crowded.

All sorts of activities were taking place,  men hanging onto bamboo scaffolding (safe?) whilst hammering away aimlessly at the corners of a building was definatly a sight to be seen. The hassling started right away, people coming up to us trying to sell us all sorts of things, Ray-Ban knock offs, Opium, anything you wanted –  they had it. It’s very hard not to get sucked into a conversation with these people on the street as they are so in-your-face and sometimes appear genuinely friendly. I initially felt rude ignoring them but soon learned that if you gave them as much as an inch they’d try and take a mile.

Rickshaws, both auto and cycle variants are the preferred mode of transport here, small and nimble they provide a far quicker way of getting across town then travelling by car. Our 15 minute rickshaw ride to Connaught Place cost us around £2, the same journey in England would have been at least 4 times that.

The poverty contrast is something of a spectacle here, on the same dirt street where children are begging and sleeping in the dirt there is a brand new Nike or Levi’s store. On the same street where women are carrying water in buckets, men in fine tailored suits walk around with their briefcases. The old phrase “The rich get richer, the poor get poorer” really sums it up.