One thing that I did not mention in my last blog was that
the girls in our group have been ill for a few days. At the time of writing it
just seemed like it was a fairly mundane thing and they would recover in a
couple of days. Millie had been ill on Thursday and gone home from work. She
went to the local hospital and they gave her a test for swine flu. Jasola
Apollo Hospital has a bit of a reputation for giving people unnecessary tests
to make money so we thought nothing of it. That was until her test results came
back positive on Monday. Jess had been ill from Friday morning, but we thought
that as she was sharing a room with Millie it was probably the same thing. So
both of them had to have a week of work and wear masks when they were in
contact with any other people. Swine flu is not actually that serious as the
strain of the disease has weakened, but it is still very infectious. At the
start of the week I felt as if we were just waiting for the virus to pick the
rest of us off. The hotel staff went into panic mode and were visibly taking a
step back in fear when they came into contact with Millie or Jess. As it turned
out, Jess did not have swine flu and both girls are now fully recovered to go
back to work this week. But it had been a bit surprising and of all the things
to get in India, swine flu would have been one of the last I would have thought
of.
The other thing that I forgot to mention in my last blog
post was that the BBC had filmed a piece in the Sannam S4 canteen. Ahead of
David Cameron’s visit to India they did an interview with Sannam S4 Chief
Executive Adrian Mutton. At the time we were all told to go to the canteen to
make it look busy. So in the footage you can see the back of my head as I am
eating lunch.
This week Pritesh arrived in India. He had been with us in
Dundee and so it was good that he was finally able to join us. His flight
arrived at 5am in Delhi, but rather than sleeping when he arrived he had to go
to an orientation session at Sannam S4 in the morning. To make things worse he
had drunk the equivalent of a bottle and a half of wine during the plane
journey and so he was a little worse for wear during the orientation. To wind
him up the staff at Sannam S4 told him he had to deliver an hours presentation
on what he had learnt during the orientation session. It was good to be on the
other side of the joke after the incident with the food last week.
Pritesh was able to have a couple of hours sleep before we
went out for the evening. Arun, who is the University of Dundee’s representative
at Sannam S4, took us to a surprisingly nice roof top bar called Cafe 27 in Kalesh Colony. I
say surprising because I would have hardly noticed it existed from the outside,
but it was quite a large space upstairs. Arun had arranged a special deal which
gave us unlimited food and drink for the night for Rs.1100. The waiters kept
coming over with more food and there was a bucket full of bottles of beer in
the centre that was constantly being re-stocked up. After finishing at the bar
Arun took us to see India Gate at night which was quite special because it was
so different seeing it without all the tourists. He then took us to a Sikh
temple which, despite it being past 2am, was full of worshippers.
On Saturday I went to visit Humayun’s tomb, which is the
third most popular attraction in Delhi. The nearest Metro station was at the
JLN stadium, which is where the 2010 Commonwealth Games were held. The Metro
station there seems like a ghost town as it was clearly built for the games,
but is now not used at all. The tomb was a 10 minute auto ride away, but I
think most of the tourists were arriving on coach trips or by taxi. Humayun’s
tomb is considered a precursor for the Taj Mahal and the architecture is very
similar. The tomb is currently undergoing renovation work so it did not look
that good from the front. Fortunately all sides are symmetrical. Sadly, on the
second side there was a couple posing for photos and it looked like they would
be there for a while. On the third side it was facing the sun so it was not
suitable for pictures. Luckily, as can be seen in the picture below, there were
no obstacles and so the photos came out ok.
Yesterday we decided to go to Tughlaqabad Fort, which is one
of the few sites of interest in Delhi that is south of Jasola. The fort was
built in 1371 and is now mostly in ruins. It is a huge complex, over 6km in
diameter, and so there was lots to explore. The most exciting thing about the
fort was the presence of monkeys. They were running about amongst the ruined
walls of the fort and looked like they were teasing us by hiding when I tried
to take photos. After the fort we went to Khan Market for lunch and on to Lodi
Gardens. We bought a football at Khan Market and started playing a game with
some kids who were playing in the park. Annoyingly, after a short while, a
warden came and told us we were not allowed to play, despite the fact that there
were hundreds of others playing ball games. It is possible we were playing a
bit more competitively than most and, as we were clearly foreign, we are always
going to attract a bit more attention.
Today I booked the train tickets for the group to Jaipur. We
will leave on Friday evening after work and get a 5 hour train to Jaipur. On
the train journey we get a meal and a bunk to sleep on. We will then return on
Sunday evening so as to get to work the next morning. I am also trying to
organise a trip to Goa as we get a few days off for Holi, but it is a bit of a
nightmare trying to get flights because it is, in effect, like booking at
Christmas in the UK. But I’m hoping to get that sorted as soon as possible so I
have something organised at the end of March.
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