My mum is about to fly all the way from Perth to London for my 30th birthday and I find out that there is an event in India, which needs hula hoopers, on my birthday weekend! I have always wanted to go to India and it’s with Marawa’s Majorettes so I know this is going to be the trip of a life time. I call my lovely, understanding mother and tell her the news. She says I should go; she can go visit her friend in Saffron Walden while I am away.
Then begins the mad rush helping Marawa The Amazing sorting out visas for all the girls, all 10 of us!! I cancel my party and move it forward to my local pub in Maida Vale. My mum arrives and we have to sort out how she is getting to Saffron Walden, which has worked out perfectly because it happens to be her friend’s 80th birthday that weekend, WIN!
Thursday night it’s my 30th Birthday and I have a lovely meal with my friends at The Elgin. It’s not the big party that I had planned but I have my favorite people there, balloons and the most amazing rainbow cake.
I pack that night and get up super early the next morning and fly to New Delhi. We get some time to sleep when we arrive and then it’s off to the event. I’m immediately in love with India, the craziness of it all, the contrast of beautiful rich colours against the absolute filth. Women dressed in hot pink saris doing hard labour, carrying bowls of stones on their heads. Every tuk-tuk is decorated so beautifully with bright paint and glitter tassels but all this is covered with an inch of dirt. The imperfections are what makes it so beautiful!
The event is on a whole other scale to what I have ever seen. The entire venue was built the week before and we have to be taken up to our stage in cherry pickers. There is no safety what so ever, someone stops by our change room, holding an object in her hand and says ‘These are flares, they are very dangerous and they seem to be everywhere. Do not touch them.’ The event is super fun and over before we know it.
Back to the hotel, I sleep for an hour and then up to go to the Taj Mahal! It’s a long drive and a hairy one too but I think all the years of being a passenger with my Dad and brother (both race cars) has made me more comfortable than most. We have a great driver and AMAZING COMPANY! The whole day was perfect but I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. We go home, sleep again for just an hour before we get up to go back to London. It was a whirlwind trip but one of the best experiences of my life and its only made me want to see more of India!!
