incroyable...

Let's finally talk a bit about the India trip, before it becomes an all too distant memory. First trip in a long time that i've taken out of the country which i wouldn't consider a holiday. Probably all the way since army training all those years ago. I wouldn't even consider it a working holiday. Just plain work is more like it, just with a change in environment from cosy corner of the staffroom to less cosy legroom-deficient seat in a seasonally-airconditioned coach (we were traveling and caught in jams so much it's as though i never left - except for a brief spell in the middle, but more on that later...)

Granted it was nice to finally see India beyond the Mumbai (then known as Bombay) airport. Places like the old pink buildings in Jaipur and of course the Taj Mahal are definitely must-sees. Postcards and Incredible India adverts hardly do them justice - especially with the latter, to see it in person is a totally different experience altogether.

The people there whom we encountered were a very hospitable bunch. Unfortunately, in the middle of the trip i was the recipient of more hospitality than i had originally intended for, after getting hit pretty bad with what i think was food poisoning. Don't know how that came about, if i ate more or less the same food as the rest. Maybe it was just that i enjoyed the food so much that i had much more than the rest (Indian McDonald's aside, which i refused to touch). But whatever the cause, i must say i've never had so much bonding time with a toilet seat as i did with the one in room 26 of the fourth floor of the N***** M*** School Hostel. Two whole days straight. The silver lining being that i could get away from the students for those two whole days. And in any case the staff there were most helpful, and even volunteered to bring me to the doctor to get some medication. Even if the doctor ended up being one in a place which, for someone adequately familiar with Malay/ Tagalog like me, was somewhat worryingly named "Saket Hospital" they still were great nevertheless.

In retrospect, i've learned a few things. 1) Going on a school trip as a student is a piece of cake. Going on a school trip as a teacher, on the other hand, well, ahem... 2) Always bring toilet paper wherever you go when you are overseas. 3) Money spent on inundating potential tourists with Incredible India publicity could instead be spent on things like streamlining the secure but still unnecessarily convoluted immigration and security clearance at the Delhi airport. Woohoo.

Now to try and put together a real holiday this June...