This chapter should simply be called delayed for one good reason.. every part of my journey to Dehradun was delayed.
9am 11th August bright and early I was at the bus station ready to go.. 9.55am bus due to leave..bus driver wondering around the coach with a fag..20 minutes later he decides to let us on the coach and off we go. Luckily the timing of my coaches arrival to Heathrow gave me a 40 minute wait between arrival and checking in.. good job hey.. Long queue after long queue and I'm ready to board the plane to Delhi.. On the big flight boards it said that my gate number would be shown at 18:50....18:38 came and I looked at the board for the 100th time to see DELAYED!! your plane will now leave at 9pm!!! instead of the 7:25pm scheduled time FML more waiting... Why the delay? because the plane had arrived with a damaged blade in the engine so got a new plane..I hope they didn't tell the people on the plane before about the damage!!! With little battery and credit I scrambled around to sort out the rest of my schedule since everything was done on timing...after I had sorted everything for my new time an announcement came through the speakers "gate no B44 departure at 8:15pm"... all on board.. find my seat..nice and comfy window seat..got a pillow , a blanket and headphones I'm good to go the same couldn't be said for the people around me, an old Indian couple and 2 Indian girls travelling together had been split up on the plane. They argued and then weirdly the old lady of the couple who was sat next to me moved away and didn't come back so there was no one in the middle seat..yay more stretching room and more table space :) flight took off at 8:30pm and landed at 9:40am (3:30am GBR)
The immigration officers do not know how to crack a smile do they?
Security is odd all the ladies are put in a cloaked box and told to stand on a pedestal whilst the guys are just out in the open..either way you get your ass groped by a crazy lady in green. Through immigration, security, recheck in with 4 minutes to spare on the gate opening for my original connection flight to Dehradun.. finally back on time with things..
If only that were true.....
All on board ready to go to Dehradun.. Plane is rammed to the max, couldn't put another seat in there if you tried. I'm squeezed between to guys..it is really hot in the plane.. plane only blowing hot air 35C I am sweating loads...Anyway all ready to go..plane on the runway...going down the runway full of speed, about to lift off the ground when eeeeeeeeeeeek!! Plane is brought to a sudden hault..FFS comes to mind! What now? Plane stays in the same place at the end of the runway for about 30 mins with no news of what is going on..."Sorry for the delay as we were taking off we realised there was a technical fault with the plane and we have to take it back to the engineer...They do like to cut it fine here not just with their planes!! 50 minutes later and we are back to the engineer..30mins after that we are still sat on this swelteringly hot plane with a tiny 100ml bottle of water and a revolting onion and tomato sandwich. I could have been sick at this point.... Next thing I know is that the plane is coming into land... I have no recollection of the plane taking off or any of the flight...I'm convinced I passed out in the heat!!... By this time I had no phone with any credit or battery I had no idea of the time or if there was someone from my accommodation waiting for me to pick me up!! Great!!.... Dehradun airport is ALOT more relaxed than DELHI no passport checks or anything just stroll onto the tarmac, stand there whilst the next plane is about to leave mere meters away from you then stroll across get your bag and off you go I may have been nearly 2 hours late but I was in Dehradun.. Thankfully I saw a man I recognised. The guy in the picture for my accommodation. He comes up to me and asks if I was Jade.. I take this as the little knowledge I have about the person picking me up and jumped in the back of his 4x4.

Indian roads...more pants needed!! They are bleddy scary!! They are basically a do what you want free for all type of play...sides of the road who cares..road or rubble..children probably Ty's age and younger driving Tut tuts and mopeds...4 people on a moped at the same time.. no helmets or carrying the helmet in one hand and controlling the moped with the other (surely that defeats the point but hey ho) traffic coming to a halt because of monkeys in the road.. people not giving a crap that monkeys are in the road and speed up... 50 odd cows cooling themselves in a big puddle from the monsoon... little kids running in front of cars so try and clean them for Monday.. cars just stopping in the middle of the road for a middle road car snack... I don't know how many mopeds were mm's are from crashing into my 4x4.. i lost count...the list is endless. However after going out to try and get some money exchanged this evening in the dark in my accommodations taxi...the roads get 100 times worse in the dark!!
40 mins of serious butt clenching and I have arrived at my accommodation..only 3 and a half hours late but I'm here in 1 piece.. my little tent cottage is cute..it's small and cozy..no cooking facilities which isn't great but amazing air con THANK GOD!! Wifi is pretty shoddy I can only get it outside on the other side of the building next to me..so I sit here now 23:30pm (here) watching little lizards scurry up the walls... until next time...