India was a country that I had wanted to go to for some time. I thought it would be one of the highlights on our long round the world adventure but I was sadly mistaken.
We arrived into Delhi on the 26th of September 2008 after an overnight flight from Luxor, Egypt. We had been tossing up for sometime before whether we should do India on a tour or give it a crack independently. But after working out the figures we decided that the money saved far overshadowed the scam artists, dodgyness and all round shit we had read about India. We had organised 2 nights accommodation at a hotel called Rak International in the drug and suspect area known as Parhaganj. The hotel was barely a 1 star but it did only cost $16 a night so what do you expect. We were told we had the best room in the place so I am a little worried what the rest of them were like. Our room had a big round bed, cold water 24 hours a day and an overpowering smell of mothballs.
India is everything you read plus a lot more. The noise, the chaos, the smells and sights. It's in your face and if your not ready then it's too bad. The streets are crowded with cars, buses, trucks, bicycle rickshaws, auto rickshaws, donkeys, elephants, dogs, children, Sari clad women and dirt stained men. The poverty is quite apparent as you pass slums set up in every spare crevasse the city has to offer. Any stop at an intersection brings the constant knock, knock, knock on your window by someone begging for help. The thing that we instantly didn't connect with was that we have been travelling for some time and we are kind of ready to wind down. India probably was the smartest choice. We should of taken the hint from the hassel we had trying to get the visa.
The first night we decided to go and get some food from the Lonely Planet recommended restaurant "Sam's Cafe". We thought we would stick to the recommended cafes as this was India and we didn't want to get sick. With in hours of eating a quite good chicken curry I was sick. What a prick! Mel was fine but for me the Indian experience was not looking good.
The next day we headed for the New Delhi train station to buy our tickets for the next days journey to Agra. After deciphering the process of how to buy our tickets we were headed out the door with a 3AC ticket to Agra and a 2Ac ticket to Jaipur (the gateway of Rajasthan). That afternoon we went to check out our first Indian sight, the Red Fort. At this stage I was on so many pills to try and keep everything in that I just didn't find it that impressive. Maybe it's because we had just come from Egypt & Europe or maybe, it just wasn't. That evening we went to a dance show called "Dances of India). It was actually quite a good night and made me forget about being sick. After the show we got ourselves a Auto Rickshaw home and then hit the hay to get up early for our trip to Agra.