We had project in the morning which was fun. Today I taught some first aid and English, though it was quite difficult trying to translate words like choking, so had to do some questionable acting... Afterwards we headed back and had lunch, and at 2.30 we got a tuk tuk to the metro station to go to Delhi to book train tickets. There was a lot of us so it was a bit confusing trying to navigate our way around, especially as New Delhi Metro Station is pretty mental and there were no signs anywhere to get to the tourist information centre.
We did eventually find it though, and had a very confusing time trying to book a train. The plan was for 5 of us to go on friday at some point on the train and come back on Sunday, but at the last minute 2 girls decided to come with us. The train was sold out, but they keep 5 foreign tickets per train. However obviously with 7 of us this was never going to work. They had seats in non air conditioned, and they also had 7 seats on separate classes, with trains arriving 45 minutes apart. We did a lot of debating as the different classes varied in price, and no one wanted to go without air con. The two girls who joined late wanted us all to go Saturday to Monday but I didn't want to miss placement as I'm missing a lot next week and two of the girls are doing it as their uni placement, so we thought that those two could come a day later, which they weren't happy with.
We finally decided to go without air con, went up to book and found out that that was only available to go in saturday night and arrive Sunday morning... We had another debate, decided to pay for the trains with different classes and all put in more money for the people who got the higher classes and just pull straws. We went up to book after like an hour during which the others (who aren't coming away with us) just sat for ages, only to discover that there were no trains coming back on Saturday.
It was super annoying, but we called our coordinator to see if we could get a bus, and he said he'd look into it and call back, and in the meantime we went to a local market. I love the markets here, but this one was particularly impressive. The prices were pretty much fixed but it was soooo cheap! I bought some souvenirs but definitely want to go back before I leave. I got a massive wall hanging for £3, and there were just so many pretty things which I wanted! Half way round the coordinator called back to say that we could get a bus back for £10 on Sunday night, so we decided to go back to the train station (which was luckily only opposite the market). At this point the 2 girls decided they didn't want to go after all.. so the 5 of us headed back and booked it, with a bit of a pause tracking down a passport (could anything else have gone wrong?!). By the time we'd finished it had gone 7 and we were going to find somewhere to get food but decided to just head back to town to do it and get some snacks for the way back.
The metro took about an hour and was quite busy, but we arrived back and got a tuk tuk to the house. There turned out to be lots of food left so we all sat and had pasta, before starting our packing. The boys at the orphanage wanted to Skype a long term volunteer who left a while ago, and we'd arranged this for tonight, so I headed over and they videocalled her for about 45 minutes. After that I finished packing, spoke to the coordinator about the place we're going and headed to bed with an alarm set for 4.25am..
Laura x
We did eventually find it though, and had a very confusing time trying to book a train. The plan was for 5 of us to go on friday at some point on the train and come back on Sunday, but at the last minute 2 girls decided to come with us. The train was sold out, but they keep 5 foreign tickets per train. However obviously with 7 of us this was never going to work. They had seats in non air conditioned, and they also had 7 seats on separate classes, with trains arriving 45 minutes apart. We did a lot of debating as the different classes varied in price, and no one wanted to go without air con. The two girls who joined late wanted us all to go Saturday to Monday but I didn't want to miss placement as I'm missing a lot next week and two of the girls are doing it as their uni placement, so we thought that those two could come a day later, which they weren't happy with.
We finally decided to go without air con, went up to book and found out that that was only available to go in saturday night and arrive Sunday morning... We had another debate, decided to pay for the trains with different classes and all put in more money for the people who got the higher classes and just pull straws. We went up to book after like an hour during which the others (who aren't coming away with us) just sat for ages, only to discover that there were no trains coming back on Saturday.
It was super annoying, but we called our coordinator to see if we could get a bus, and he said he'd look into it and call back, and in the meantime we went to a local market. I love the markets here, but this one was particularly impressive. The prices were pretty much fixed but it was soooo cheap! I bought some souvenirs but definitely want to go back before I leave. I got a massive wall hanging for £3, and there were just so many pretty things which I wanted! Half way round the coordinator called back to say that we could get a bus back for £10 on Sunday night, so we decided to go back to the train station (which was luckily only opposite the market). At this point the 2 girls decided they didn't want to go after all.. so the 5 of us headed back and booked it, with a bit of a pause tracking down a passport (could anything else have gone wrong?!). By the time we'd finished it had gone 7 and we were going to find somewhere to get food but decided to just head back to town to do it and get some snacks for the way back.
The metro took about an hour and was quite busy, but we arrived back and got a tuk tuk to the house. There turned out to be lots of food left so we all sat and had pasta, before starting our packing. The boys at the orphanage wanted to Skype a long term volunteer who left a while ago, and we'd arranged this for tonight, so I headed over and they videocalled her for about 45 minutes. After that I finished packing, spoke to the coordinator about the place we're going and headed to bed with an alarm set for 4.25am..
Laura x
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