Good Morning India




After safely touching down in Goa, after a relatively painless flight from Manchester, I made my way out of the crisp air conditioned plane and into a beautifully mild morning in India's self proclaimed 'tourist capital'.

Once inside the pristine main building, it was only a 15 minute wait until a smartly dressed passport officer by the name of Stephan had tripled checked I was who my passport claimed me to be before I slid my way down the heavily waxed floors to the baggage collection point where all hell seamed to have broken loose.
The confusion was caused by two main factors, firstly; a group of 15 strong baggage handlers who had carefully selecting the heavyset bags to take off and hauling them off conveyor belt, which seamed fair enough at time. But when you mix this level of 'confusion' with a bunch of comatosed travellers, the consequences are hilarious! I witnessed two people attempt to haul there bags from the conveyor belt, only to be pulled onto the belt itself after failing to keep there footing whilst pulling there bags to safety. It was almost as though for a small space of time this insignificant conveyor belt in Goa had turned into a Alton Tower's-esk park ride.
Once I had recovered my composure and waded my way through the sea of taxi hawkers, I was speeding my way out of Goa with my 'trusted' driver Kamel. Its not really the scenery that hits you first, its more the smell of India that's the biggest shock to the scenes. Its a mixture of incense and body odder that hang in the thick morning air.

After one of the most nail-biting taxi rides of my life I was delivered to Panjim bus station where I proceeded to stumble across a beautifully maintained public garden with all my bags. Once I had inadvertently managed to decapitate a few helpless flowers on the way I was stood outside 'Paulo's Tours', and it was here I booked a ticket to Bangalore from a cheery sales rep. At this point though I was face with quite a dilemma, it was roughly 7:15 in the morning and my bus wasn't leaving until 4:30 in that afternoon and with the weight of three bags on me I was left with two choices; lug all of the bags around the city to try and find something resembling a café at this time in the morning, or sprawl out on the only available chair outside the coach station? I chose the latter, my body clock though it was around 2:15 in the morning, although the rising sun tended to disagree, and the prospect of physical activities was not appealing.
So after a nine hour dose of idle chit chat with the locals, Jeremy Clarkson and the occasional nap I passed the time with relative ease.



Once on board the cramped twenty seater coach I pulled my smart new travel pillow out of my bag (thank you Han and Dickey) and drifted of to a chocolate filled dream land where I would stay eating copies amount of Yorkees, until the bus reached Bangalore roughly twenty three hours later.

On arrival in Bangalore I was greeted by a beaming Amit Saran, my new boss. I honestly hope he doesn't judge people on first impressions otherwise I fear the Image of me looking like a cross between a crazed grizzly bear and Peter Crouch may stay in his mind for the duration of my stay in India. Once I had packed my bags away in the car he sped off into the bustling city centre, a place I will call home for at least the next six months, and after a short 30 minute drive out from the centre we reached the Academy.

First impressions were good, Its a well organized sports centre that is on the other hand crying out for some development. Equipped with a driving range, 9 holes golf course, tennis court, cricket field, volleyball court, five a side football field, club house, full size football field and my newly built quarters its a pretty pleasant place to be.




But as I currently write this blog entry watching the sun go down behind the academy on another warm Indian day, I cant help but think about my family, friends and someone else Iv left behind.