29 March 2008

I should say at this point that the hotel is on a busy road. It’s a four lane road separated in the middle by a barrier. Not that the traffic sticks to the two lanes on their side. More often than not there are three to four lanes of cars, trucks, bikes, well you name it, all heading in the general same direction. Even that can’t be assured. Whilst we were heading into breakfast we saw a bull standing on the barrier looking of into the distance. It was completely non-phased by all the commotion around it. It was still there later when we were about to leave for the day.
We were heading out early to head off to Jalandhar. When I say early, it was 9.30 am when we finally got away. The trip was amazing. I suppose it would be about the same distance from the centre of Christchurch to say Amberley but it took us two hours. The first thing I noticed is that the bull had decided to move on, so he casually walked off against the flow of traffic. And if that kinda weird, well two minutes up the road we found the rest of the herd busy watching the traffic from their barrier vantage point. Along the motorway, we travelled through some countryside. We also went through a few smaller towns. There were also a number of resorts and malls. Some were not yet finished. We passed a fairly big waterworld like park with waterslides, merry go rounds, and the likes. There were a few Hindi temples. They are always really amazing architecture. The Hindi like domes. Similar to the Muslims.
Whilst we were waiting in the traffic, an Indian woman and her child walked through the traffic begging. She had been crying.
We arrived at a hotel in Jalandhar and were directed to ‘Kitty’ hall number two. This was kinda interesting as the hall seemed to be occupied by another event. It was one of the universities in Ireland offering their courses to potential Indian students. It turned out that our room was directly behind theirs. Khilandeep quickly out uo some signs to direct those interested in Natcoll and then we, … waited. There was some interest during the day, but not a lot. Some other agents came and chatted for a while. A couple of potential students. A chap who was Indian, had lived in America for twenty year, had an American/Indian accent and was thinking of coming to New Zealand. One lad the Khilandeep knew came to say hello. He is heading to Perth to study for a couple of years. So in all, it wasn’t an overly productive visit. Still, you get some of those days.
The power gets cut regularly in India. It can occur anytime and around twice a day. Nearly everyone who can afford it has a generator. Some kick in automatically. This hotel lost its power three times whilst we were there. Really interesting when the room you are in is underground with no windows.
Sue left us around 4pm to head to another appointment. She had a two hour taxi drive ahead of her.
We headed home. The traffic wasn’t to bad for most of the trip. There was one part where it slowed to a crawl. That took us about half an hour to get through. It was caused by a petrol tanker rolling and squashing another truck. Quite a mess really.
Khilandeep took me to his house before heading back to the hotel. I had a chance to meet his mother and wife. He showed me his wedding photos whilst we had a coffee and snack.