Namaste from India. We have been here for 5 days now and it is definately living up to its crazy reputation. Here is our top 6 list of crazy things:
1: DELHI AIRPORT: Being told that all luggage is on conveyor belt but we hadnt seen ours. 10 mins later, being told that there were 2 more pieces of luggage. Thankfully they were ours...
2: PAHARGANJ'S MAIN BAZAAR: We went for our first walk here and within 10 minutes we had been offered drugs, greeted by numerous travel agent touts (one clever one with Kia Ora), and literally every auto and cycle ricksshaw driver wanted our rupees - "I take you to Red Fort? Red Fort???"
3: OLD DELHI AT NIGHT: On our first night in Delhi, we caught a cycle rickshaw to watch the sound and light show at the Red Fort. Little did we know, we were taken through the busiest and dodgiest street in Old Delhi and harrassed and spat at. We think that we would have felt safer at midnight in Otara South Auckland with a bucket of KFC. After all that, the Red Fort was closed due to security concerns for Independence Day (the bomb detection van was fair proof of this).
4: NOTHING IS FREE IN INDIA: Regardless of whether you want a service / item or not, nothing is free. Eg: constant expectation for us to tip porters to carry our bags (sometimes not even very far) even after we have told them that we are happy to carry them ourselves.
5: DRIVERS IN INDIA: Nuts, absolutely nuts!!!! Horns in constant use, the road is only a rough guide of where to drive, white lines are purely for decoration and pedestrians and cyclists are just targets. Keep moving or be hit seems to be the motto.
6: INDIAN'S KNOWLEDGE OF NEW ZEALAND: Cricket. Daniel Vettori is a good captain, Stephen Flemming is a good batsman and Chris Cairns is apparently a "lady killer". This is always followed by reference to Sachin Tendulkar being the best ever Indian Cricketer.
Anyway, we are having a great but very eye opening time and we are very stoked to have avoided Delhi Belly so far. Our highlights so far have been during our car trips from Delhi through rural Rajastan. We were welcomed into an isolated rural village and despite immense poverty we were given a special meal and treated like royalty. Kirsty even received a henna tattoo. One of the most interesting things was that the village people are lucky to see white people at all in a year.
Another highlight was being taken to a non-tourist Hindu Temle in Rajastan.
Until next time, Namaste,
Rodney and Kirsty.
