Julia's 1997 World Cup India Diary...Pt 1
Day 1 & 2 - December 2 and 3 1997
Organising clothes, equipment, toiletries and most importantly snacks for 4 weeks for a cricket tour to India and an excess baggage limit of 32kg, proved to be too much for most of the team. A much-appreciated 12kg coffin supplied by Coca-Cola probably didn’t help our cause. Karen Rolton, Charlie Mason and Cathryn Fitzpatrick, who all tipped the scales over the 50kg mark, had to quickly find friends where they could drop off unnecessary things.
The 9 ½ hour flight to Bangkok was uneventful with 3 of the worst movies ever made being played along with the obligatory Candid Camera footage. Our coach John Harmer, however was the only one on the plane to enjoy every movie and laugh the loudest at the "sticky piece of paper at the bottom of the escalator" trick on Candid Camera.
Bangkok gave the team a taste of things to come when we stepped out of our rooms and into the streets to find hairless dogs, rotting food, polluted water and a stench that made your stomach churn. Welcome to Asia! After purchasing face masks (a la Michael Jackson), Lisa Keightly and Charlie Mason seemed to cope much better.
Of course on these trips there has to be a daily award for either stupid behaviour, spitting the dummy or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Zoe Goss was our first recipient of the Wally Award - a kangaroo that has been with the team since 1984. The winner of the Wally Award must carry the kangaroo everywhere with her - even if it was by the tail.
The flight to Delhi was made slightly more enjoyable by the fact that none of us could see the move due to half a dozen turbans scattered randomly in front of us. The only incident that was worth mentioning would be Michelle Goszko’s blood nose on the plane on our decent into Delhi. As Gozzy is the youngest I put it down to growing pains.
Bye Bye Barbaras until tomorrow.
Day 3 - December 4 1997
"Don’t get angry and hurt people - just stay cool" - Thomas Cook Foreign Exchange Poster.
This just about summed up our first day in Dehli. After arriving in Dehli at 2am and realising we had no water, we were woken up with the delivery of it after just starting to drift off. At least we could clean our teeth. That morning we were up for 8.30 breakfast and meeting. It was then that we discovered that mine and Avril’s shower didn’t work. Well it did but you had to cup your hands underneath the nozzle and throw it on yourself. To make things worse, there was no hot water. Certainly woke us up anyway. At our team meeting, half the team were sent to a College to do some coaching to school girls while the rest of the team just hung around the hotel, caught up on some washing, and wandered down to Janpath, one of the best shopping streets in Dehli. Our hotel just happened to also be on Janpath. You beauty!
The afternoon was spent rehearsing for the opening ceremony of the World Cup to be held at the National Hockey Stadium. Surprisingly, everything was running late so as to fill in some time we decided to see if we could sustain an injury before the first game and play Aussie Rules. The rest of the afternoon was spent flying around Dehli in Rickshaws to the nearest Benetton which had been penned into everyone’s itinerary at some time. Just the trip in the Rickshaw is an adventure in itself as this lawn mower with seats tries to get you where you want in the shortest amount of time even if that means driving in the gutter - on the wrong side of the road. If an accident does happen and it did - no licence plate numbers are taken, no phone numbers, just a verbal exchange of "You are a madman". It was then accompanied by the Rickshaw driver looking at his passengers and saying "I am a madman" and laughing heartily at this suggestion. I think we all took it quite well.
That evening we were to have attended two functions, one at the Australian High Commission and a dinner for all the World Cup teams. The girls who had been on the 1994 Youth Tour insisted we go to the High Commission first due to the hospitality received there last time. At 6 o’clock we went to catch the bus to the High Commission. The main road out the front of the Hotel had turned into a one-way street (not legaly) as people tried to get to where they were going faster than anyone else. A Sikh Festival Parade was apparently the cause. Personally I think it was just another cow in the middle of the road. An hour and a half later we arrived at our destination. After getting our first beers we decided the traffic to be too bad to go to the other function. Oh well - Go the Foster’s, Go the Pizza. We drove home later that night in 10 minutes.
Day 4 - December 5 1997
Today was a long and tiring say. The compulsory half hour fitness work came and went, as did breakfast. We filled in a bit of time dodging traffic trying to get to a phone that worked and being cheered by the locals when we made it across unscathed. I think they were running a book at some stage. I nearly won one man a lot of money as after I crossed one side of the road I thought I was home and hosed because there was no oncoming traffic. However I did forget about people overtaking on the other side of the road. I’m only walking with a slight limp now. 11am we headed to the National Hocket Stadium for the Opening Ceremony. 11 countries are now competing in the World Cup due to Canada withdrawing at the last minute. The whole thing was very long and was very typical of the Indians. Entertainment was plentiful and some of it very interesting with school children dancing and singing, folk dancers and a marching band that would put even John Paul College to shame ( a Brisbane joke). It was also discovered that our physio was once in a band and we were lucky enough to witness her in action when she was giving the band a few tips on how to twirl those drum sticks. Very impressive. Always handy to have a skill like that! We had the World Cup photograph taken in the stadium and were told by the photographer that he
was going to expose himself to us. I don’t think that was quite what he meant but anyway.
Lunch was held at Le Meridien Hotel and was fantastic. Now we know what we are missing out on. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. We’ve discovered Coke, Limca and Mirinda and the only way to get a drink is to ask for it at least six times. A light training session finished the afternoon for us.
As usual the Australian High Commission put on a blinder of a night. Pizza, spring rolls, pool, musicbox and free Crown Lagers. What more could you ask for? God Bless Australia.
Day 5 - December 6 1997
"Wake up, wake up. Your team is on the bus and leaving without you."
Not a good start to the day. At 4am, reception decided to ring our room because they though we were with the Irish team. Luckily however we did have to get up anyway to catch a 6.30am flight to Chennai. Zoe is also celebrating her 29th birthday today.
The flight to Chennai was an interesting one with some turbulence (or the pilots falling asleep at the steering column) and a delicious breakfast of either egg and something brown with green bits or something that could have been pasta with orange bits in it. Needless to say most people hoed into their lolly supplies.
Our new Hotel is exceptional and we are quite content to stay here for the next 5 days. Unfortunately it is raining and has been for the past 3 weeks. To pass the time most of us decided to do our half hour of fitness. This consisted of sit-ups in Fitzy’s room, push-ups in Erica Sainsbury’s room (our scorer), dips in Brog’s room, and running up and down the corridors in between stations. Needless to say we kept the guard on out floor very amused for the half hour. A special thank you must go to Chris Matthews who was official timekeeper after pulling out after two circuits.
The food is excellent and we even had a birthday cake for Zeddy. Everyone did forget to tell me after I’d hogged into my third piece that we couldn’t eat the icing. I’d just like to apologise to my room mate now. For the rest of the evening we amused ourselves with card games, sledging each other and lolly teeth. It doesn’ttake much any more. We decided we weren’t up to the disco that had been organised. Maybe another night.
Day 6 - December 7 1997
Today we had our first casualties. Mel Jones was the first to be struck down by the dreaded Delhi Belly and Belinda Clark followed soon after. Coincidentally they are rooming together for the Chennai stretch of our trip. Their room has now been officially named "Sick Bay". I actually had Mel at pretty good odds for lasting longer than she did but luckily no one took me up on the book for first to vomit.
There has been an aftermath in Chennai. In fact in our hotel. It was horrible but most of the girls are learning to deal with it. We all received our first bill for phone calls home. Mine was comparable with pay outs received by the families of the dead in a recent train bomb blast. And that was only a ten minute phone call. My writing abilities have improved dramatically since.
We have also learnt to deal with the elevators. If you want to go to Floor 8 you push Floor 9, if you want to go to Floor 9 push Floor 8. Simple really.
This morning we were pleased to discover a leather sale on about 5 minutes walk from our hotel. A couple of guides came with us and we were soon at home buying every wallet, bag, mobile phone case and soft briefcase in sight.
Because of the inclement weather for the past 3 weeks, training was called off again today. A sightseeing tour was organised for the afternoon. Our two patients and a couple of sympathetic buddies stayed behind while the rest of us piled onto a bus and saw the sights of Chennai. The Port of Madras, Houses of Parliament and the Department of Forensic Science (a very busy place) were all passed and noted with interest. We were fortunate enough though to be able to visit "The Snake Pit" which had the biggest tortoise in the world there. Fascinating stuff! I can't believe we didn't have to queue. From here we went to a temple which was closed but we could look at the beautiful decorations on the outside. Beggars, cows and a few peddlers were the only things around the temple so we left soon after for the hotel.
We attended a function later that evening sponsored by the Association for Hospitality of Chennai. The function included a High Tea, some cultural Tamil Nadu dancing and some interesting commentary by an Indian version of Bob Down. On the way home in the bus one of our guides was asked where our other guide was. She replied "She could not attend as a close friend's mother has expired". There was much muffled laughter until we realised that Belinda Clark had absolutely no idea what the girl was talking about which unfortunately made us break into uncontrollable laughter while Mel explained to Belinda what was meant and also to the girl that we were sadists. That reminds me - I better check my expiry date. Wouldn't want to go off on a tour.
Day 7 - December 8 1997
Well what a surprise, it's raining today. Our practice game was scheduled for today but obviously has been called off and the way things are going, it is pretty unlikely that we will play on the 10th either. The girls are starting to get a bit edgy and are keen to have a bat and a bowl. We've already tried doing fitness up and down the stairs in the hotel but have now been banned because we are disturbing the other guests. We've now started hitting catches in the corridors without breaking anything of any importance to date. The only problem is the other guests and security wanting to join in.
Shopping as usual was next on the agenda. However due to the severe rain we have been having, everything was flooded, traffic was four times as bad as usual (if that is possible) and in 2 and a half hours in our bus we visited one place. I've decided the way to make money in Chennai is to open a store that sells umbrellas and blue thongs. Not just your everyday blue thong but your electric blue number.
Over the past few days, our rooms have started to look like Mrs Woo's Laundry with underpants, socks and various other articles strewn over lamps, windows, curtain rails and basically anything that might give the article a slim chance of drying. Unfortunately it's not working. Everything is as damp if not damper (is that a word?) than before we hung it up. We are beginning to become desperate so we have had to refer to the Guest Laundry Price List. Underpants are at 20 rupees each, Socks at 10 rupees each and Turbans at 65 rupees. Talk about cornering the market. That's the cheapest I've seen for a washed and pressed Turban.
This afternoon we have been practising our team song. We have one which was written for us by Leslie Grieff while we were in Sydney and the other song is a version of "I am woman" reworded by our scorer, Erica Sainsbury. Both, once we have had a bit of practice, will start to sound semi decent but until then I think we should go the Milli Vanilli, for the other guests' sakes.
Sick Bay today has moved to about three other rooms with Jodi Dannatt, Charlie Mason, Joanne Broadbent, Olivia Magno and Belinda Clark all getting the runs without even picking up a bat. Olivia actually incoroporated her fitness work with a quick sprint up the hall everytime she felt the rumble.
Chris Matthews, our Manager, feels the need to constantly be using an Indian accent. For example, when we were on the bus today, Chris was told that we would be going back to our Hotel so she turns to us and says "We go back Hotel now" in her Indian accent (which actually sounds Chinese) and at 3 decibels louder than it needs to be. I'm starting to grow concerned about Chris as we are only a week into the tour.
Dinner was moved upstairs tonight due to a wedding being held in our usual dining hall. The dinner was starting to resemble the Last Supper complete with Biscuit Tin Lids for plates, the Holy Grail (24 of them) for glasses and naan bread galore. In fact it had been a very religious day with one of our security guards telling us that he was a Christian and that Jesus was coming and that he was perfecting himself for that day. (I hope they weren't expecting Jesus for dinnner because otherwise I was in his seat) and also Avril mishearing Belinda at fitness this morning when Belinda said "We'll go back to push-ups" and Avril thought she said "We'll do Baptist push-ups". There is probably enough water lying around to do those if we wanted to. Other than that a fairly uneventful day.
Day 8 - December 9 1997
Tonight I have succumbed to the dreaded Delhi Belly. Fortunately I had eaten dinner and was able to keep down the Maxolon. I tried to join in the team meeting from my room but when you know that if you move you may vomit it's best to just sit there. The team song sounded like it was coming along quite well. Maybe it was because it was muffled by my closed door and my chanting of "Don't be sick, don't be sick, don't be sick". I thought I'd give Lisa Keightley a bit of a scare and make her think she may have to take the gloves tomorrow. Lisa is one of two players left to have somehow remained unaffected by India. Bronwyn Calver is the other.
Speaking of tomorrow, it was looking like we may get on tomorrow except for about 2 hours ago when we had another downpour, the first for the day. We started the day off this morning with an Aerobics session which everyone had to do a 4 minute routine to. It was very amusing and people were soon sorted in the unco group. John, it must be said, did finish the day off with the best session to "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond. We were doing our warm down exercises to John's chants of 'Don't . listen . to . the . music . do . it in . time . with . me.', which just about sums up John's rhythm.
After breakfast this morning we all headed to the gym for a short session. The gym however had flooded in the last few days which made it very difficult to breathe. Not that it mattered because none of the gym equipment worked except perhaps the treadmill which after for 4 seconds would stop dead, a technique quite often used when crossing a road in Chennai.
Of course we all planned it so we would have plenty of time in between the gym session and our catching session to head to Benetton. Chants of 'Benetton, Benetton' drowned out our host as she tried to get us to go back to the Hotel for lunch. I still don't think she understands how we could possibly pass up lunch for Benetton. On our way to Benetton our bus stopped at an intersection for long enough to have beggars come up to the bus and start giving us the usual spiel of "Madam" while pointing to their mouth. Charlie Mason took it upon herself to help one poor little boy out by giving him her Le Snak. He obviously wasn't a fan of French Onion with the look he gave her. Belinda tried to assist another beggar by giving him a Mintie. He was not impressed and threw it away. He obviously hadn't heard about the $100,000 in gold bullion for the longest mintie wrapper. All this just leads me to believe that beggars can't be choosers!
With our clothes beginning to dry quite well, some did weaken and use the laundry service today. Belinda did have her own technique which had also worked quite well in my room. The theory is to hang your article of clothing over a light to obviously get the heat to dry the clothes. However once your clothes start to smoulder they probably should be removed. This was only noticed by Melanie Jones with the comment "Does something smell like marshmallows?" Because we weren't on School Camp we knew it couldn't have been marshmallows, which led us straight to Belinda's shirt. It is still soaking now.
The Irish team are doing a lot worse than us Iron Guts Aussies and have had a few go down in a big way. One of their girls was very boisterous about her iron constitution and a few followed her lead after she didn't get sick. About 8pm last night our Dr Guru Harinath (alias: Hoodoo for short) was summoned to give her an injection to stop her vomiting. We are just waiting for the rest of the ship to go down. Bon Voyage Ireland.
Day 9 - December 10 1997
Today was a day of ups and downs. When we woke this morning, the sun was shining brightly and that flared what little hope we had of playing. Everyone eagerly went for breakfast and generally there was a buzz around the hotel because finally our World Cup campaign had begun.
After packing the bus and kit truck we headed to the ground to the tune of our new team song set to "I am woman" by Helen Reddy. Belinda Clark did reveal after much coaxing that the tape was hers. If you thought that song was bad you should hear the rest of the tape. I'll give you the tip, she's giving Meg McIntyre (our physio) a run for her money with the worst tape on tour. Upon arrival at the ground we were a bit dismayed to find walking on the field a bit of a challenge but we didn't let that dampen our spirits. Another inspection of the pitch at 11am would happen, which allowed us to settle into a few different groups to try and pass the time. Backgammon, Gameboys, Whist and Black Bitch and a short game of football a bit later on, were played.
Basically, to cut a long story short, the Umpires decided to call the game off because they were concerned we may get injured whilst batting or fielding. This was of course after we had been told a 20 over game would probably ensue. We were also told at the time that Denmark and Pakistan's game had been washed out as well. We later found out that Denmark flogged Pakistan. Bit of a mix up in communication. Fortunately the ground dried out sufficiently for us to have an intensive fielding practice.
We returned to our Hotel to shower and get changed to go, yes you guessed it, shopping again. Not all of us went due to the fact that the South Africa vs England Women's round game was on TV. It gave us a bit of insight into what to expect.
That evening a few of us retired to the Bamboo Bar to share a few ales with some of the Irish, just to be polite of course, while others went to the Taj Coromandel Hotel and ate at the Golden Dragon Chinese Restaurant. This is the Hotel where the Aussie Men's Team usually stay when in Chennai. For us, it was a bit of a treat.
If you are wondering about the words for our team song, and I am sure you all are on the edge of your seats, well here they are: (to the tune of "I am Woman")
We are Aussies, hear us roar, for we've been down this road before And together we'll make sure our job is done For we bear our nation's pride, and we will not be satisfied Till we've earned the right to claim we're number one
Chorus: Oh yes we believe, in ourselves and in our team We'll pay any price to hold on to our dream If we have to, we can do anything To be strong, to be invincible We are AUSSIES!!
We are Aussies and you'll see, that we are bound for victory Eden Gardens in Calcutta is our goal But we'll take it as it comes, step by step and run by run For the honour and the pride of green and gold
Chorus
So we'll raise our heads up high, sisters of the southern sky With Australia held forever in our hearts Everywhere both far and near, we will always make it clear That we're proud to be the Aussie Southern Starz. Chorus
We salute you Helen Reddy.........well Belinda does anyway.
Julia's World Cup Diary Part 2 - the Saga Continues..
