Name: Derek MacLean Age: 21 From: Inverness Previous experience of foreign travel: In 2003 I went over to Thailand with 35000 other scouts for 3 weeks where we built walls for the school children, as well as taking part in various other activities and living in a tent, and we also went to Taiwan for some Home Hospitality.  My friend and I were staying with a woman for a week.  I have also been to places like Spain and France.

6.30am and we are boarding the plane in Glasgow! The team are all knackered given the time of day! We flew into Schiphol in Holland and my goodness it’s a huge airport!

Deirdre thought it would be funny to give me herbal sleeping pills, and I didn’t really know how many I should take, so I took four of them! Half an hour later, I was sleeping and ko’d for the rest of the flight!

It was nearly 11pm by the time we had arrived at Delhi airport in India, which was 5 hours ahead of Britain. The first thing I noticed was the amount of people around, the intense heat and also the amount of dust that was in the air.

We got a taxi to our hotel “Hotel Perfect”. I have to admit that in the car I was very scared of the driving as it was mental the driving over by! They were forever blasting their horns, and jumping from lane to lane without even looking in their mirrors, very frightening I tell you!

When we arrived at our hotel there were cows sitting basically on the doorstep which was very strange!

At the airport we had bought some sandwiches and Deirdre and I went in my room to eat them, I kept mine in the packet until Deirdre had tried hers as I was afraid they might be disgusting by the smell of them, she took a huge bite, as she did I noticed the blue mould on the piece and nearly spewed when I noticed so said to DDG about it, poor girl ran to the toilet and had the boke!!

The next morning we were acclimatising to the heat and food and went down the street for a wander and stopped for food in a place called PiccaDelhi – very nice indeed!!

In the afternoon we met our group that we were going to be working with for the next fortnight! Exciting times!! We set off on our first trip together to the famous Taj Mahal.

The Taj was magnificent, beautiful and it was hard to appreciate that we were at such an amazing and sacred place in the world! We got a tour round the Taj, but I have to say that our guide was a bit annoying, quite strict on a group of adults!! After that we went down to the beach on front of the Taj Mahal and it great some of the locals were down with us, we had to be on our guard though as we had been told that some of them were pickpockets and to be very careful! Their was a camel down on the beach and it was amazing to finally meet a huge beast like this, huge and beautiful!

That evening we went on a train which lasted about 3 hours and arrived at our next hotel – as soon as we got into the dining room we saw a huge cockroach which was utterly disgusting, from the very beginning you are doubting the place!!

The next morning we just sat around and got the “Craic” with the group, getting to know one another. It sure has to be said that some of them were….interesting! That evening we  got a taxi and got on an overnight train – 12 hours long! What a polava – cockroaches, the heat – dogs die in hot cars isn’t that the saying!! Air conditioning? Yeah you got that if you went to the trains door!!!

After our train journey we had a three hour taxi journey but to camp but en-route we stopped at “The Twenty Mile Stop” but unfortunately I wasn’t feeling the best that day, I had a sore stomach and I was feeling sick! Yes I was sick and we had to stop several times!! Nightmare basically!!

When we arrived at camp we met the rest of the team again, after some lunch we went into Himchal which was great but the amount of poverty was quite scary to be honest!! People begging for money was quite hard to deal with as we couldn’t really just hand money over unfortunately. It was heartbreaking at times as some people were so poor!

For breakfast the next morning we had curry, for lunch .. curry and yes, for tea we had curry!! Id say I was fairly curry’d out now!! The next morning we went for a spin in the cars and vans and went to the building we were going to be decorating which was very exciting! It was really nice as we met some of the local children and took their pictures and showed them thereafter and they were in their element seeing themselves on camera. It was amazing!

We went home for lunch and yes we had curry and Indian tea  called Chai, it was lovely, really sweet, great as I don’t really drink tea back home! Had I the opportunity again, I would definitely love to try it again!

The next morning we woke up early approximately 6am, I tell you that’s early when you jump into the shower and the water is freezing cold.

We had Yoga this morning and I thoroughly enjoyed it having never tried it before! Stretching and trying to get into fairly awkward positions, safe to say I wasn’t very good at them!! I was almost full of the cold when the class was over, dust off the yoga mats was chronic and it was floating everywhere – nasty! It was weird trying something like this as I've never tried it before, but it was very entertaining!!

We later went out to see other buildings that had been done up before we had arrived to get an idea of what was ahead of us. It scared me a bit to see the condition of the building on which we were going to be doing “Beautification”, as they say in India. The “Walls” were made up of “cement” and hardened mud – if you could call them walls and cement, they don’t resemble the sort of stuff we use over here in Scotland at all! Some of the holes and cracks in the walls were the size of my fist – not a word of a lie either! There were also spiders in the building that were almost the size of my palm.. pretty massive anyway, and they could run/scuttle as fast as I can when I'm hungry!!!

Everybody was coughing and spluttering when we started dusting the room down with the amount of dust floating around the place. We had to split the tins of paint – put a little paint in a bucket and fill the remainder up with water?? A whitewash literally, I didn’t think it would cover the walls but the next morning I was completely wrong! It looked very different – it was covered slightly and looked a bit brighter!

It was amazing, every night when I went to my bed I was shattered! We were trying to get as much of the building covered in paint before the weekend's trip to Amritsar where the Golden Temple is, which meant long and tiring days. You could go to Yoga everyday if you wanted – I have to say I only made it the twice!

On the Friday a week before we left for home, we painted the building until midday then we got changed and left and I took pills to stop spewing etc… We had great fun on the bus but on the journey it fairly opened your eyes to different things especially the poverty in the country. We drove past a Wranglers store, the irony of this is incredible, a wealthy store that has been successful and what we saw was scary – a family begging on the street, you got used to that but a memory that will never leave me ever was one of their children, I'd say maybe a year old, was lying face down, naked in a ditch, it still makes me feel sad thinking about that moment – a life changing experience where you realise how much we take for granted over here, but also how much I appreciate things and value things so much more since that one moment. We literally passed this spot and if you weren’t looking out of the window as I was you probably would have missed this.

When we arrived at the hotel in Amritsar we went into our rooms – they were disgusting, dirty and smelly. Beasties everywhere, cockroaches, lizards and hair on our beds. It was thoroughly disgusting. We went to a restaurant that looked nice and clean and tidy where I thought it would be safe to have meat. After all the excitement it appeared around half an hour later!! We went back to the hotel and I must have looked like an Eskimo – my sleeping bag was wrapped so tightly around my face that all that could be seen was my nose – there was no way that any beasties were going into my mouth!!

We woke at 6am the next morning after about 3 hours sleep, correct - we were all shattered! We went with our driver Ràme to the Golden Temple. It was a horrible muggy day and it was pouring with rain and all I was wearing was a t-shirt and 3 quarter length trousers!! We had to take our  shoes and socks off and walk through holy water before we entered the grounds – I thought I was going to spew as their were people drinking the water we had just walked through! It was an incredible sight when we walked through the doors of the Temple as their were people praying and kissing the ground. An amazing sight, it was so peaceful and holy – hard to believe that we were actually there!! People were swimming in the water on front of the Temple – it was dirty and again they were drinking it! The Temple itself was amazing – huge and so sacred. We had to cover our heads with a bandana, interesting stuff!!

We spent the rest of the day en-route to the India / Pakistan border where we witnessed probably the most amazing/weird/strange feeling ever, thousands of people dancing like maniacs, singing and dancing and the army doing weird marching and stamping of feet. Slamming huge gates shut, a strange but incredible feeling that will never be forgotten! The next day we went for a walk around the town where it was probably around 37 deg C. Amazing but roasting. We then had to encounter the mental driving for another 7 hours as we headed back to camp!

The next morning – Monday, the last week in India we met as a group, discussed who was doing what and we got stuck right into work, time running out and so much to do!! On the Wednesday we went into town to buy toys, paper and pens as they literally have nothing at the school. We put in about five pounds each, that in their money though is a fortune and we treated the special little kids!

That evening after dinner, I received a head massage, what a feeling, it was amazing, so relaxing! If I get the chance again, I'd love it again!

Its Thursday, and I can’t wait to get home! We went into the school to see the kids and their faces, was amazing to see!! It was now time to take the plunge and get on the horrible 12 hour train journey, which I am dreading!! Cockroaches and reporting of rats- had I seen one I'd have jumped off the train and walked!! The train lasted 15 hours, delayed, couldn’t believe it! At Delhi train station we had major problems getting off – they find it funny to push onto the train, we weren’t so amused, I started to lose it with them, lets say there was a lot of moaning and pushing going on!!

We had about 8 hours stay in Delhi where we sat about and about 10pm we were en-route to the airport via taxi, heading home to Scotland!! What a feeling!

I have to say, I loved my experience but I missed a thing or two, proper food with meat and have to admit missed the girlfriend Sarah too!!

It was some experience and I met some people and did things that I will never forget in my life! Also what a laugh was had with Deirdre, or DDG as I like to call her. I'm fairly convinced we will be in touch for many a party that’s to be had!! I think Deirdre might have learnt a new vocabulary after this trip of a lifetime!!