Day One

Hey guys! It's Leo, Nancy and Nadeen. As you all know we set off from the Botanical Gardens at two in the afternoon. A toilet stop and three Easter eggs later, we arrived at Heathrow airport where Leo and Shalaka were singing "We're going to Heathrow to buy a Heat magazine", which we didn't in the end. Getting through customs was interesting as Jenny almost got arrested for taking photos of security guards. After this already eventful afternoon we were let free in Heathrow to do whatever we pleased. Now, for those of you who haven't been to Heathrow, there are some rather expensive and extravagant shops there. However, we managed to side step some of these...except for Tayla who insisted on looking in ALL of them!

After our first experience of freedom we were herded onto a plane for the next EIGHT AND A HALF HOURS. Nancy managed to acquire the seat with the only non-functioning screen on the entire plane! As for the rest of us we got to watch Sex and the City 2, Horton Hears a Who, Kick-ass, Inception and (just for Nadeen) a few episodes of Friends. To say this was a calm and turbulence free flight would be a major understatement as Nancy, Lois and Caroline managed to show us all what they had for lunch complete with sound effects during the turbulence and getting off the plane! The rest of us blocked out the noise with our headphones and music on full volume; for some of us this was not enough!

Anyhow, after arriving at New Delhi Airport, within the first five minutes, Tayla saw some shopping to do!  Mrs Harvey was not best pleased!  We met Anoop who greeted us with garlands of flowers and an air-conditioned bus.  We were welcomed to our hotel in much the same way, but with bindis and drinks for all.  After refreshing ourselves and some of us (i.e. Tayla) changing our outfits six times because they were deemed inappropriate, we visited the Guhib Minar, which is a tall minaret (‘minar’ meaning ‘tall’) and were told the gruesome tale about the 37 children who were killed after charging down the spiral staircase, hence we weren’t allowed up it, or down it for that matter!  The Minaret was surrounded by decorative towers that were constructed with Hindu statues that had been defaced by Muslims because they don’t worship idols.  We found that some of the people at the site wanted to have pictures taken with us because they don’t often see white tourists, never mind blond ones!  For most of us this was our first taste of India and we were blown away by it.

After a writing session with Mrs Harvey we found out that there was a "club" in the hotel which we were allowed to go to. Now, some of us (Leo) had been up for over 30 hours but still insisted on going. Others however, namely Nancy and Izzi, retreated to their rooms to re-fold their clothes for the next days journey. While the others partied away till nine at night in an empty, Mrs Harvey and Miss Jones sat and watched the girls dance...it was a sad affair.