“Incredible India”…??

Crossing Dubai Creek on a water taxi...

Flotillas of these taxis ply their trade across this busy waterway...

With only a backpack to worry about, and more than eight hours to kill before my flight to Delhi, I wandered along the streets of Dubai, and eventually found myself on the banks of the Creek that spits the city…

I took a water taxi from the west bank over to the water-taxi rank near the mouth of the waterway, and then sat at a riverside eatery and watched the fishing boats and other craft ply their trade up and down the Creek…

We passed the Wonder Bus, which can take to the water as easy as it does to the streets of Dubai...

With no check-in luggage to declare, I passed through Immigration and customs with the greatest of ease, and after a 3 hour flight, touched down in India at the un-Godly hour of 3.45am… The Indira Ghandi International airport was all but deserted, and for the first time in my life, found myself in the envious position of being able to choose between a dozen open passport control booths…!!

Bright welcome to an empty arrivals hall...

Barely half an hour after touchdown, and after purchasing an Aircell sim card for use in India, I walked through the glass doors and out into the balmy New Delhi early morning…

I had made arrangements for the hotel to send a driver to collect me, and as luck would have it, a man bearing a large placard with my name on it was the first person I saw as I exited…

Delhi Garden Service... This cow and her calf cropped the lawn below the balcony of my hotel room...

I was whisked through the darkness of Delhi to the Enkay Residency, a hotel situated in a residential district close to one of the main arterial highways that run north into the city….

I chose this area because it is within 20 minutes of the airport (If you are on the road at 4.30am in the morning, that is…!!) and it is fairly close to the offices of LSH Logistics, the freight and clearing agents who form the diplomatic buffer between myself and the massive, creaking bureaucracy that controls the Customs Department…

After a quick shower and a short nap, I was collected by a driver from LSH and deposited at their offices in a new building on the edge of the city…

There I met Hari, a friendly and affable man who had been working in the freight industry for many years and knew his way around the many obstacles that make can make dealing with officialdom in this country, a veritable nightmare…

After a tasty lunch, Hari dropped me off at my hotel and bid me a pleasant remainder of the weekend, arranging to have me collected again on Monday morning to begin the process of clearing the Big Fella…

You may have seen the “Incredible India!” ad that airs on CNN and the BBC news channels… In the ad, a solitary backpacker seems to be making his way through various parts of India, exploring it’s rich culture and diversity…

Tuk-Tuks, or Auto-rickshaws as they are called here, viE for a space in the traffic...

I am beginning to think that this ad was shot on location in some other country or even a studio with scenes of India as a backdrop…!!

If you consider how few people you can see in the background of the ad, and then remind yourself that India has a population of 1.3 billion people, you will understand my suspicions…!!

I would have shot the ad from a stationary car on the highway… That would lend far more credence to the term “Incredible” than the current ad does…!!

You have to see it to believe it…!! The painted lines that form lanes are deemed to be an unnecessary form of decoration, and are completely ignored…

To allow even the smallest of gaps to form in front of you, is to invite anything from a bicycle to a bus to squeeze into it…!!

Seeing four lanes of cars on a two laned roadway is quite normal here…!! Authorities have obviously come to realise this and on many roads, there are not painted lines at all, which makes interpretation of where exactly the centre of the road is, quite tricky…!!

Delhi traffic... Where Angels fear to tread...!! A panel-beaters paradise if ever I saw one...!!

India is roughly the same size as South Africa, but it has a population almost 25 times larger…!! Delhi, the capital, is a sprawling city, and I am in the south eastern part of the city, in Gurgoan…

Hari Krishnan and his assistant Kris are doing an excellent job of keeping the lid on my temper, and with a bit of luck, should get the Big Fella cleared later today…

We were turned back at the next to last hurdle yesterday, when the Deputy Commissioner of Customs at the airport, decided that my International Drivers Licence, which expires on the 16th of February, rendered me “invalid to drive on India’s roads”…!!

Explaining that by the 16th I would already be in Nepal, had no effect on him whatsoever…

The licence is still valid for another 9 days, so why this is an issue with him is beyond me…!! My visa expires in 11 days time… Does this make me an “invalid visitor”…??

Kris tried to explain the situation to him, showing him my calling card as proof that I was doing a trip around the world that kept me moving in and out of countries at short notice…

After getting his ear chewed by the commissioner, we eventually gave up and trudged back to the car… I began to wonder if I was going to get out of India before my visa expired… The days were ticking away, and a long delay now, would raise my stress levels considerably…!!

With reputation for being one of the most corrupt countries in the world, India is trying to stamp out corruption, but I fear the odds are stacked against the powers that be...!! There was no sign saying "If you have a problem with the logic of our decisions, please contact...." ...!!

Thums Up Cola... "Taste the Thunder", ...and then take a spelling course...!!

Frantic calls to SA to arrange for another International Drivers Licence had to be made, and the unflappable Debbie torn away from her usual hectic work schedule to visit the offices of the Automobile Association in Kyalami…

My new Carnet was also ready for collection, as not only is the old one nearly full, but it also expires early in March…

Meliza had it all sorted in a short space of time, and a few hours after my initial call, Debbie had scanned, and then emailed copies of each document to me in Delhi…!! Great service from the GBWT HQ back in SA…!!

Amazing how modern technology has allowed us to achieve something like this…!! Ten years ago, this little problem would probably have set me back a week at least…!!

While Kris heads off to experience the marvels of another day at the Customs Department, I sit fretting about the shortest and quickest route to Kathmandu in Nepal, having decided that getting out of the mayhem that is Delhi traffic, is my No: 1 priority…

Last night it took us more than an hour to cover about 5 km…!!  M

y hotel is roughly 30 km from the city centre, and I have considered spending a few days trying to see the sights of the city, but cannot spend the greater part of the day sitting in a taxi and counting the near death experiences that we would undoubtedly be involved in…!!

I would far rather poke myself in the left eye with a sharp stick…!!

So until I have my bike assembled and ready to roll, I plan to spend my spare time studying the inside of my eyelids and practicing behavior that sloths are famous for…

After a heavy downpour last night, I woke to a misty morning in Gorgoan...

©GBWT 2011