WENDY'S WORLD

Freestyle, waves… and a kiss?

It wasn’t until I was bobbing about in the surf at Goa’s popular Calungute beach that I realised I was the only woman in the water. I was obviously creating a stir because I was suddenly surrounded by youths.

Okaaaay. Antennae up, activate and arm oneself with attitude. Naturally, I am well aware of India’s ugly underbelly of assaults on women, but I sensed these young men were more curious at seeing a western woman in the water past the breakers, than actually plotting an attack. At any rate, having always been more at home in the water than on land, and registering their awkwardness, I figured it wouldn’t take much for me to drown one of them. Yes, harsh, I know, but when about eight of them are forming a semi-circle around you and clearly discussing you, your mind drifts to solutions for all sorts of scenarios.

Predictably, their interaction began with warnings of how dangerous it was to be in the water. Queue Wendy to show off and treat them to a few strokes of freestyle, followed by a dash of butterfly, my master stroke. This caused great guffaws and shouts of appreciation, and okay, maybe I was showing off… just a little bit.

It didn’t take long for one cheeky sod, wearing a natty bandana, to show off himself and ask where I was from.

Be polite, but don’t engage has always been my strategy, and when I replied Australia, there was huge excitement and chattering, with Mr Bandana proceeding to name every Australian cricketer he could, the names tripping off his tongue like the alphabet. Ricky Ponting was clearly a favourite because he was mentioned several times.

Encouraged by my laughter, and obviously thinking my mirth showed great potential, Mr Bandana took his bravado to one more level and asked for “just one foreign kiss please” and pointed to his cheek.

I nearly choked on the salt water, not because of his audacity, but because he wanted a kiss from the overweight nanna in the bathing suit! I mean, what are the odds? Clearly, his exposure to Baywatch had been limited, he had no clue there were plenty more better fish in the sea than me!

Naturally, I said no .. and when he persisted I put my stern mother voice on and repeated NO! But hang on, I thought, I can give him something even better and it wasn’t long before my opportunity came.

I caught a wave.

And I’m pleased to say the old girl still has it. I caught that baby right into shore, leaving a ripple of amazement in my wake. I stood up to frenzied cheers and clapping.

“Take that Ponting,” I muttered. “It took an Aussie sheila to prove there’s more to Australian sport than hitting a little white ball with a bat!”

Now I was elevated to hero status, and although they still floated around me like a swarm of jellyfish, they kept their distance, encouraging me to “do it again, jump that wave” and of course, the show off in me obliged.

Later, when dressed, I went down to the water’s edge to take some snaps. Mr Bandana rushed out to greet me with the enthusiasm of the keenest cricket fan. He asked me to take his photo.

And he couldn’t help himself. He asked again for “just one foreign kiss please”.

The question is … did I give it?

Late trains and Balu’s hullabaloo

The teen and I were catching our first train in India.
We were travelling from Ranthambhore to Delhi to meet up with an old friend, Tanya Willmer, where we would spend just one night before flying to Goa.
Although our train tickets had been booked, that didn’t necessarily mean things would go smoothly. We had heard all the nightmare stories – people claiming your seat, theft, trains not turning up, break downs, fires, or just plain running late.

One Aussie traveller we met travelling with his wife and three daughters, took a sleeper train and woke one night to find an Indian sitting on the end of his bunk.

“He was just sitting there as if it was a perfectly normal thing to do,” he said. “So we had a conversation for the next three hours, which was interesting considering he didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Hindi.” Throughout the 17-hour-journey he was also handed a Glock pistol to admire, was admired himself by one gentleman who constantly told him he loved him, and he watched in astonishment another man snap a photograph of his daughters before jumping from the moving train as it pulled out from a station.

So what was India without a trip on a train! I figured it was all part of the experience and we had to do it, if only once, and a short trip at that.

Daylight was just breaking on this very cold and foggy morning at Sawai Madhopur station. We were met by a cow blocking the narrow entrance (the teen wouldn’t let me stop and take a photo) and there were lots of shadowy figures…

…lurking around…

…which was why the teen was understandably a little nervous.

Some passengers were making sure they didn’t miss the train…

…while others waited patiently in the waiting room. This lovely lady couldn’t take her eyes from us, politely staring, while her baby looked just a little alarmed by the teen.

But once we were on board our train we were pleasantly surprised. The seats were comfortable and clean… and it was quiet. Not only the train itself, but the passengers! It was rather disconcerting being surrounded by people normally so vocal. Our newfound peace was occasionally shattered by the food vendors walking up and down the aisles offering water, chai tea, samosas and vegetable biryani, but apart from that it was probably the quietest time we’d shared.

There was plenty to see through the window.

People working beside the tracks…

…waiting to cross the tracks…

…or for a train.

Wildlife…

…and of course India wouldn’t be complete without a cow staring at you through the window while stopped at some random station.

We were comforted to know there was always someone watching over us…

…there was protection…

…tender moments…

…and we were always connected.

The five and a half hour trip took eight and a half hours, not that there were any announcements en route informing us we were running late. It was a wild guess that this station we pulled into at our designated arrival time wasn’t Delhi.

Naaaah.

THIS was Delhi.

Definitely a huge WOW! moment. Nothing could have prepared me for the sheer numbers gathered at Nizamuddin, one of Delhi’s three major railway stations.

It’s being developed to ease congestion.

And we had to get up those stairs …

…along with everybody else.

But just getting to them was a challenge.

There were hundreds of boxes and sacks piled up, people pushing carts, pulling trolleys, carrying bags on their heads, and among all the chaos, the odd sight of a large dog sitting serenely on a pile of suitcases. Sadly, I couldn’t stop to photograph it, we had to get right in there and flow with the human tide, hoping it would sweep us along to those stairs and up.

Needless to say, the teen didn’t share my optimism. She was rooted to the spot where we had alighted at the end of the station and where there was still room to move.

But we had no choice, so in we went.

And we got there, to the top of the stairs without incident, except when I nearly strangled a nanna when I stepped on her long scarf.

Victorious, we then had to figure out how to find our driver. We had said goodbye to our old driver Prakarsh in Ranthambhore and despite phone calls to and from this new driver we still hadn’t determined where we were meeting. Balu was very shouty with an accent as thick as syrup and I couldnt understand a word he was saying. He’d rung us twice on the train, and me, in ignorant bliss of our late schedule, kept telling him we were arriving at 12.30. Of course when I realised how late we actually were it took several calls back and forth to the hotel and the agent to determine our whereabouts and an ETA. I was told “no problem, he will wait”.

But would he? And where?

Our first problem at the top of the stairs was to decide quite simply whether to go left or right, and we had to make a decision in a hurry. Standing still, and dithering, wasn’t an option as we would just be bumped along anyway.

A kind man, alert to our obvious confusion shouted and pointed right so off we headed, interrupted by more phone calls from the incomprehensible Balu , clearly was beside himself with anxiety that he’d lost his cargo. I was forced to keep hanging up on him as I was dealing with the more immediate problem of trying to get through the crowd. I can only imagine how this would have exacerbated poor Balu’s hysteria.

Reaching the exit at the bottom of another set of stairs and a much calmer environment I tried Balu again. We both understood that the teen and I had arrived, it was just trying to describe to each other where we were.

Then an angel intervened.
This young girl approached and asked if she could be “helping me”. I gave her the phone and could hear Babalu shouting into her ear. I also noticed her family standing behind us, watching intently and as proud as punch, that their daughter was able to help the foreigners.

While we waited for Balu I discovered this young lady’s name was Chandra, she was in Year 11 and was returning to Delhi after celebrating the new year festival with her family in Rajasthan.

Our phone rang again… Balu. Another conversation with Chandra followed…

And then finally Balu arrived, running towards us flustered and frenzied with his “Miss Wendy” sign. In a tsunami of Hindi he proceeded to explain to poor Chandra everything he’d been through, before charging back to his car, with us trailing behind like naughty schoolchildren.

Inside the car we learned he’d been there since 12.15, (it was now 3.45) because “Miss Wendy you tell me you arriving at 12.30”. It was far too hard to explain that I had no clue when we would arrive, but I think he concluded that “Miss Wendy” had no clue about anything at all. Anyway, Balu was on a roll, nothing was going to stop him recounting to us every minute of his sad afternoon and he dramatically lamented the saga for the whole 40 minute trip.
Each time I thought he’d finished and there was wonderful silence, he was in fact only drawing breath to start all over again … “Miss Wendy, I wait since 12.15…”, never missing out his favourite part about how he’d missed his lunch.
I just tutted sympathetically where I could.

We were near the hotel when Balu’s brouhaha was diverted by a traffic jam of rickshaws, tuk tuks and cars all trying to negotiate the same intersection at the same time.

This vendor took the opportunity to sell us maps through the car window.

He stalked us faithfully, convinced we wanted a map of India or the world.
And because the traffic was so slow, he was there, again, when we pulled up at our hotel.

It was goodbye to Balu, and I could only imagine how his poor wife would be forced to listen to over and over again how “Miss Wendy said she’d be there at 12.30…”