London to Darwin #5: A Passage across India.
But first, the once Western region of India… Pakistan.
t’was all to brief a visit, but I’d had a fascinating time here 4 years ago, and with a tight timetable, I wanted to save my days off for places not visited recently or at all….
It was a long flight… nudging 9 hours, nearly all over water. As happened back in 2015, out over the middle approaching the Karachi airspace boundary, my radio range left me short of both Oman behind me and Karachi ahead. It was nearly an hour before I made contact, and boy was the controller annoyed… but they have a flight plan, they have a transponder code, they know I am coming and turns out could see me on Radar… seriously, chill… anyway…
Arrived into the main Karachi airport an hour before sunset and thought I might get a chance for a quick adventure… but alas no, couple of hours of arrival procedures, so just went for the airport hotel option and an early night. Boring snoring. Nothing to see here, move along…
Some predictable delays on the tarmac the next morning - reminiscent of trying to go from Egypt to Israel. While I at in the plane cooking, while waiting got to enjoy the steady flow of cars and people comig to take their photos with the plane - seemingly oblivious to the fact I just wanted to get going! But eventually onwards and upwards we progressed, and the real fun was ahead.
Delhi, India
We worked in India many years ago, we had nothing but good experiences and are very fond of the country and it’s people. There are cinemas in 30 countries around the world that we supplied curtains and projection screens for that used Australian wool, milled and woven in Amritsar, North West India - a long, wonderful partnership. We even fitted out some cinemas in India, stating with the first multiplex in all of India, for the Priya Village partnership, PVR in the heart of Delhi. We showed the locals how to make the equipment to our designs and accepted this transfer of knowledge as part of the process of bringing new comfortable and multi screen cinemas across much of the world. We loved it, and especially loved India. Gosh, most of that was last century!
Landed in Delhi late afternoon, then got to know the dozen or so staff who came to greet the plane and have their photos taken while waited a couple of hours for fuel. It was intriguing place to be parked, with more private jets than I’d ever seen. It was then explained to me - these are the small jets, the big private jets are on the other side - it makes sense - India is a big country with many large companies dominating nation wide in an enormous economy - with so many city centres it would be a great way to get a lot of work done efficiently. Like how I so easily just justified plane ownership!
Its nice that not only do the ground crew come to say hi, but so do the crews of other planes - to have the three man crew of a Falcon jet come and admire the mighty Southern Sun was really heart warming... They had a real glint in their, just like the Air India who walked down the stairs straight to me, shook my hand and explained “I like your boat” in Gwallior on my last journey through India. I can’t wait to be in Australia and let her get her keel wet.(insurance company has decreed this to be a dry journey...)
As always the handlers suggested a western airport hotel, I think it was a Holiday Inn or similar... but no, I had two nights, a day off ahead, so I wanted a 3 star Indian hotel, that was built and caters to Indian people. Off to Sarowar hotel we ventured and it was perfect - comfortable, with proper Indian food for dinner and breakfast - after all - I had a gourmet list from Anne to work through! The friendly staff at the front desk helped me plan tomorrows activities, which would start after something quite unusual on the trip so far - wake up without alarm!
8.05am Saturday.
Delicious... some sleep. Morning of writing and general catch up, Come noon, it was time for street food lunch whilst on the days adventure. How to get around? How else, in an auto-rickshaw, known locally just as an “auto”. The concierge found me a driver for the afternoon, we wrote out the planned stops in both English and Hindi, the journey explained and off we went... now, I’m going to admit that within the first ten minutes I thought I’d made a huge mistake - when he missed the turn off for India Gate, he simply did a U-turn and started driving back against the traffic - my instant reaction was horribly like “i’m going to die,” and for a minute i know on reflection I was really scared, because I went very quiet and felt strangely cold. Having tried to gesticulate afterwards that I didn’t quite enjoy that, the rest of the day with him was just fabulous... he had a great sense of fun and humour, and truly amazing how much 2 people can communicate with no common language.
We started at the India Gate, a World War 1 memorial set inside a magnificent sprawling park, full of the colourful life of Indian families and school groups on a Saturday.
I often find myself thinking of Finding Nemo driving around these manic streets, much like the joy of riding my postie bike around Dili, somehow it all works in a fluid organic motion. But I’ve often thought it would be more efficient to have horns permanently on, so you only had to push the button on the rare occasion you weren’t honking! And yes, in the video below, I was really scared for a moment…. oh please…!
Word came in late in the night that my planned overnight in Calcutta was not approved to no parking space available. Hmmm, same thing happened last time, so as midnight loomed and I was waiting up to do radio interview at 2am (7am Oz time) the plan changes to overnight in Patna, then an early start for Calcutta, with an Immi/Customs Piston then onto Yangon.
That was kind of good, as I’d originally planned an overnight I stop in Patna to catch up with Prakash and his team who had been so helpful back in 2015, but had changed to a pistop when the schedule was getting behind, so now we’d have time for dinner. Kolkata will always be there...perhaps easier to access anyway when we visit together after long last next year for Anne’s 50th.
Patna and not the Taj Mahal
I had some delays on trying to leave Delhi, as I had lodged an indirect route to track via Agra reporting point, home of the Taj Mahal, and the controllers couldn’t fathom why I would request an indirect route rather than the shortest... which was kind of ironic given usually I’m annoyed they keep rejecting my direct routes and insisting on the longest route possible... this just highlights (in my imagination anyway...) the whole thing is a game and they never said I could play on their side of the yard! They eventually harangued but thought very strange - surely every pilot wants to fly over the Taj Mahal?
Most of India is covered in haze this time of year, especially before lunchtime, and an S-VFR departure is often required. They also make you fly IFR routes and levels, and be in constant radio contact - and they call often for updates en route - so it’s VFR, but not as we know it.... I had naively requested altitude if only 2500’, it was neither granted nor even going to work, given the haze went up to about 4000’. I persisted with the plan, but on arriving it wasn’t going to work - I initially requested a lower level of 3500’, was given 3000’ but it was crap so climbed back out to 5 and then 7000’. (For the pilots, yes, I always requested 500’ increments but they always allocate IFR levels...and this is the abbreviated version of story….)
Anyway it was in military airspace so there was going to be no flying overhead - sometimes a plan doesn’t work - move on. In the photos above, you can see how looking across you’d think you were above a layer of thick cloud, but you look straight down and you can see the ground - very bizarre - and lot’s of it…. but 100 years ago, this was Ross Smith’s photo of Delhi…same week of the year.
But enough banter, back to the Taj Mahal - here is the photo Ross Smith took a century ago!
He got the Taj Mahal, I got a Boarding Pass, how’s that for being born under a bad sign. (sorry Ferris…)
The remainder of the flight was dull, over haze most of the way so not much to see. Landing in Patna was just on minumum viz, but it’s interesting because again straight down you can see the ground fine, so there is good sideways reference and with once below 3000’ was fine. It was a warm welcome with the all the old crew there, and they were ready to get in with refuelling immediately. Which meant everything was there about 2 hours later! But they brought everything needed and was good to catch up, especially with Prakash who I’ve stayed in touch with since my last visit, he even left a family function and drove 100 miles to see me at the end of the day. The welcome bag of Samosa was much appreciated!
Stayed closest hotel and then like we did last time, walked the street for some street food - Chana Bhakti was the highlight, something new, vegetarian, lots of sprouts looking beans, a squeeze of lemon - wonderful flavour and great crunchy texture.
Some more wandering, undertaking that other great adventurous activity of the intrepid solo pilot exploring the world - seeking out ATM’s that both work, and dispense more than the equivalent of $100... for street food might be cheap, the sustenance for Southern Sun must be procured, and often in cash...
After a long chat about Prakash’s ideas and plans for the future, including getting his pilots licence and a Marvel themed chain of Cafe’s, his best news was his wedding next year - would love to attend an Indian wedding!!! He also proudly handed over a cute little collection of Gandhi stamps for the commemorative mail mission. Nice...
Kolkata and beyond to Yangon...
An early start became an early delay due visibility, but was only an hour before departing. An easy two hour flight, followed by two hours of immigration, customs, paperwork and of course... multiple selfies by ground crew...
To be continued...