WildyWeb: two Scousers in India

A bit of a film theme..

The "occasional" nature of this Wildylog has been strained to the limits this semester - this is only the third entry in three months. Very poor. I'm afraid my only excuse is a mixture of illness and, well, not a lot happening. The illness more or less passed a couple of weeks ago, but lo and behold here I am laid up again with a back injury.. So at the expense of painful twinges, let me bring you up to date.

Bill and Fred's Excellent Adventure

Another visit from home! Fred, one of our old friends from church in Liverpool, and one of our ringbearers (I haven't written about them, have I? Must do that when I finish this instalment) has paid us a visit, together with a friend of his, Bill. For both of them it was the first trip to India, so something of an adventure. Even more so when Fred was burgled four days befoe he left, losing his cameras and laptop, and being deprived of his passport and visa. Fortunately the latter was found and the trip could go ahead.

The trip was timed to include a bit of our holiday time, so they flew in to Delhi on the Tuesday before our quarter break and had a night in Agra before we met up at Delhi Railway Station on the Thursday for three days of sightseeing. Of course, with the heat and tiredness from travel you don't always get to do all you plan, but we had a few highlights. In no particular order.. Humayun's Tomb (always good value), the Rooftop Terrace at the Bistro, Hauz Khas (wonderful food, especially the Dale Wale Meat - unbelievable), Dilli Haat - day-time and night-time visits; good food and atmosphere - ande good South Indian food at one of the Saravana Bhawan restaurants on Janpath. We also made it to the Delhi Bible Fellowship Easter service in a big, airconditioned auditorium at the Natural History Museum. More eating at Swagat in Defense Colony and - very boring - at Nirula's Pot Pourri (why do we still go there?).

Sorry to emphasise the food. Being with Fred does that to you. When it's ready there will be a link on this page to Fred's photo diary, and I can tell you now it will be photos of everything we ate.

But, a virtue can be made out of a necessity, so the first order of business on our return up to Mussoorie was to set Fred to work creating a Chinese feast for some of our friends at the school. Preliminary shopping was at INA market in Delhi, pork, chicken and frozen prawns from Central Store in Dehra Dun, rice and vegetables from Sardarji in Mussoorie, a taxi trip to the bazaar for more vegetables.. I have to say it was pretty good food: salt and pepper chicken, barbecued pork ribs, prawn sesame toast, chicken cashew nuts, aubergines in black bean sauce, mixed vegetables, shiitake mushrooms..

Bill and Fred are both keen photographers, so we also made use of them round the school, particularly in photographing the first matches in the 7th annual Win Mumby basketball tournament. Click here to view their pix on the Woodstock website.

Finally, to complete the food theme, we took them the Carlton Plaisance hotel out past Library bazaar for a special treat. Let me see.. pate on toast, spring rolls, soup, fried fish and chips, Lucknowri-style kebabs, potatoes and puris, special naan, baked eggs, mushroom and peas - unbelievable amounts of food. We couldn't finish much more than half of it. Although we forced down some ginger pudding and ice cream and mango delight to finish with. And then a nice drive home in John Monty's car, borrowed for the evening, and my disastrous attempt to reload his box of amplifiers and microphones,, which leads me to the back injury I started with. Excruciating for a couple of days, but wearing off now, thankfully.

Dot gave Bill and Fred a final tour round Sisters Bazaar and a meal at Char Dukan before seeing them off to catch the Shatabdi, so they pretty well had the full Mussoorie experience. They didn't get to see the snow peaks, though - too hazy. So I've included a photo to show them what they missed.

The Ringbearers

So, what about the ringbearers? Well, when we came out to India we had this idea to help sustain our link with home. We have a friend, Stephen Broadbent, who is a sculptor, so we asked him to create a piece for us based on the verse from Matthew "a city set on a hill" . He also cast seven paperweight-sized versions, and these we gave to those we felt would be our prayer support while we were away, our closest friends. Of the seven, three have now been out to see us, and one more is planned for later this year, so that's an encouragement in itself. And the "master" looks great on our mantelpiece in Mussoorie. And here's a link to Stephen's website.