TRAVERSE Issue 23 - April 2021 | Page 50

TRAVERSE 50
would pass my lips , well I had been told not to drink the water .
Sorted and down for breakfast . Having not taken any extra footwear , except for my motorbike boots , I went downstairs in sock covered feet . Well , it was warm at 8am , some 16c outside , oh bring it on , whilst my bedroom was airconditioned it was still warmer than the whole of England at this time of year .
“ Hey this is okay , isn ’ t it ?”, I thought to myself , a warm , fabulous hotel in December , happy days and nobody even looked at my feet when walking through the lobby to the breakfast area .
So , there I am in India for the very first time , on my own , in a hotel breakfast area , faced with a magnificent display of fruits , yoghurt , hot plate of everything spicy , and eggs in shells being gently warmed , and me standing like a plank wondering - what should I eat , because I had not eaten in this country ever before and advice , before I left , was basically don ’ t eat or drink anything that had not been blasted with radiation to the spray ‘ kill bugs or you will die ’.
Food in a hotel couldn ’ t kill me . Could it ? I chose fruit and prayed it had not been washed in a stream , some bread which hopefully had not been made with any water or chicken , and a couple of eggs , that hopefully , were not chicken or raw on the inside along with a couple of spoons of ‘ stuff ’. I did not have a clue .
The breakfast was superb , once I had sorted myself out , along with coffee thick enough to put a new sole on my boots I was well and truly stuffed so , back to my room and wait … and wait … oh and did I say WAIT !
There are obviously two interpretations of something will ‘ happen ’ shortly in this world . My shortly , as in 5 to 10 minutes and the Indian shortly , which could be , as I was to discover many times , sometime that day .
It was an hour and a half later that the taxi turned up . It was the same chap who brought me from the airport to the hotel and I was already looking forward to our “ laughing ” conversation .
The traffic continued to make me laugh , along with my driver who was just smiling until eventually , after many U-turns , winding down of windows and conversations we arrived outside this building .
The buildings in Gurgaon are born in the middle of barren land like a rocky dust , sprouting up with many buildings just high-rise blocks of flats with holes in the walls where windows may be going , so many unfinished but obviously the basis for the blocks of offices I could see finished . Were these buildings just breeze blocks with a covering of ‘ plaster ’ to make them look complete ? Are the building
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