Delhi

17 May 12

Well nearly 5 days into our India adventure and we are on the verge of heading up to Wellington in the morning to start our year long stint at the Defence Services Staff College of India.  We arrived on Sunday morning after a pretty good flight and were taken straight to the Assistant Defence Attaché’s house at the High Commission for lunch.  Not exactly what we wanted to do after an all-night flight with 2 toddlers, but everyone was very friendly and it was our first taste of the colonial life at the High Commission - buffet lunch, Pimms, wine, cooks, waiters and someone to look after Daisy!

We checked into a Five-Star hotel, with true Five-Star service; a hotel for any RAF Officer to be proud to stay in.  Daisy has loved our time in the hotel – I think she thought she was the Queen.  All the staff looked after her, brought her toys, hot chocolate, doughnut, and she just smiled and waved at everyone! 

The first week has involved a series of briefings for Neil, and an opportunity for the girls to start acclimatising to India.  Medical checks for everyone and customs freight clearance followed with the latter causing problems.  The freight forwarding company in the UK forgot to ship our freight consignment to arrive in India on Tue 15 May 12, and after a lot of testing phone calls finally agreed to emergency ship the freight on 17 May 12.  Unfortunately, Indian customs requires the freight to be cleared in person, and we were scheduled to be flying to Coimbatore at the time that the freight arrived.  Thankfully the British High Commission wrote some hasty letters, and Neil met with the New Delhi Cargo Customs Commissioner and they agreed to honour a signed copy of Neil’s passport to clear the freight in his absence. Fingers crossed this will get the job done; however, as we’ve now arrived in Coimbatore, we’ve had no news yet! 

The view of Delhi from our room - so many trees!

The journey to Coimbatore has been an interesting one.  Throughout our trip through the Domestic terminal and on a 3-hr flight, Daisy and Ava have been treated like filmstars!  Indians crowding round them to touch them, squeeze their cheeks, stroke them, have their pictures taken with them.  Even the aircraft captain wanted a picture with them – it was really funny!  We’ll upload some pictures of it next time.  They were exhausted by the time we got to the hotel.  Well that’s all for now.  Tomorrow, we’re travelling to our new home and the year at the Defence Services Staff College begins......

A 2-year old's idea of heaven - room service pizza and Toy Story 3!