India stories

Although it's very difficult to judge a country after only spending a week there, I will certainly try my best. We went to New Delhi; if you are planning to do the same, quickly change your plans!!! 

Delhi has nothing that India supposedly offers!
Forget about magic, mystic, friendliness and atmosphere: Delhi is dirty, dusty, smelly, crowded, sticky, polluted and need we go on? 
Luckily amongst the filth and the stench Delhi was still able to show us some hidden treasures such as the Humayun's tomb, the Old Red Fort, India gate and outside of Delhi the magical Taj Mahal and Agra Fort. 
As the first destination of our Round The World budget travel we stayed in a five star hotel which turned out to be an absolute lifesaver (thanks a million times Scott!). Our 6-day stay was filled by long rickshaw rides through both old and New Delhi walks in the narrowest of streets, and visits to temples, memorials and tourist sites. 

Old Delhi: 
The first day we went to see old Delhi on advice of Scott. 
Old Delhi can be described with everything we wrote above and more. We have never ever seen such a pile up of filth anywhere. Being a westerner you are rundown by beggars, traders, rickshaw drivers, make believe guides, fruit salesmen, mothers with crippled kids, shop owners, beggamon merchants, chess-board-for-very-cheap sellers and the likes. 
Although horrible to admit, the sadness and compassion you might feel at first is quickly replaced with a sense of claustrophobia and extreme annoyance. Every time someone even as much as smiles in your direction you expect it to cost money. 
In old Delhi we started at the Red Fort, which is not really very special. We then decided to give in to the insistence and pushiness of Kumar and take his rickshaw to go around the narrow streets of the various bazar areas. These appear as coming straight from the Middle Ages, buzzing, crowded, noisy, mixing the overwhelming perfumes of the Spice Market (Naya Bazar) and the repulsive bloody views and pungent smells of the Poultry and Fish Markets... all making you want to run back to more civilized areas and....to a shower. After a short visit to the Jami Masjid Mosque, we went home in an auto rickshaw, which was another great show of rip off. Thankfully we had already asked Scott's Indian driver how much we should pay, ad we were told in the area of 70 or 80 rupees. Of course they immediately tried for 150 rupees, but we eventually ended on 100. Later on it was quite easy to go to 80, as it seems like they noticed we had been there somewhat longer and know the prices. 
After another 3 days roaming around Delhi's chaotic streets, bazars, left-over- sites and memorials (tip: before visiting the Indira Ghandi memorial, make sure you read a bit about her life as the memorial, although beautiful, does not give a historical overview of events and left us guessing most of the times...) we were most looking forward to take the train to Agra and see the Taj Mahal. 

Taj Mahal and Agra:
Getting to Agra was fabulous in Executive class on the Shatabdi Express, New Delhi style (which is about 3rd class standard in Europe) and we got there nice and early. Unfortunately because of the huge lack of tourism in India (Tension between India and Pak, Threatening war in Iraq, and an attack on a Hindu Temple in Gujarat just a day earlier...) we were almost physically attacked by the taxis, guides and rickshaw drivers which were trooping outside of the station in their hundreds. We eventually hopped into the first auto rickshaw just to get away from the crowd. 
This driver, a cheerful guy called Tahir promised to stay with us the entire day for 200 rupees, which seemed pretty good. We got to the Taj Mahal and immediately after we bought the tickets (an exorbitant Rs750 for foreigners, versus Rs20 for locals thanks to Bill Clinton!) the fun started again. We were searched top to bottom, and Chris was told he could not take his palm and keyboard into the place! Why? The guard hadn't the faintest idea what they were so we had to leave them, together with the mambo-Swiss knife and a tiny lighter, with a little Indian guy who put it on one of his dirty shelve, promising that we could collect it afterwards again. (We immediately kneeled, lit a candle and prayed to the little Jesus for 30 minutes before slaughtering 6 cows for Ganesh, 2 for Shiva and one for Parvathi, asking them to grant us their holly blessings and ensure that we find our stuff back...) In we went, and at the second physical check, were told we couldn't take a mini- tripod into the place! (While they had missed the Leatherman knife in Chris's back pocket, and a big size tripod in the rucksack!). By this stage we were so annoyed that the first view of the Taj was not as overwhelming as it should have been. 
But we eventually relaxed, and soon were able to admire the true beauty of this building which is undoubtedly one of the most marvelous we'd seen and, Oh God so photogenic! The site, the symmetry of the architecture, the colors and the greenery are all breathtaking, and almost made abstraction of the constant whistling and screaming of guards, policemen, army officers, gardeners or workers telling us we could not stand here, stay there for more than 30 seconds, photograph this, walk on that path, put our shoes on this shelve etc. We took plenty of pictures of ourselves, the site and Gamal, then headed to the Agra Fort. 
While the Fort apparently does not compare in size and beauty to the Fatehpur Sikri site just 40km outside Agra, we certainly enjoyed this monument, with large gardens, great views of the Taj, and plenty of squirrels and monkeys to keep you amused for hours. Tahir, our Rikshaw driver, insisted on taking us to Mughul Art Bazars, which is basically a collection of (work)shops producing carpets, cloth or beautiful marble using the exact same techniques as in the time of the Taj. Due to unrest in Agra (in solidarity for the Hindus who had been killed the day before in Gujarat), we were not able to see the baby Taj (Itmadud-daulah) nor the other sites we had scheduled to visit, and it was too late for Fatehpur Sikri - the abandoned city we had heard so many good things about. 
Annoyed tired, fed up, we could not bear the thought of having to wait another 5 hours till 8h30 for the Shatabdi Express train, so we decided to exchange our ticket, take the 50% only refund they gave us (having waited 15 minutes in line, we were 4 minutes late for a 100% refund!), and booked a local train back to new Delhi! 
Oooh--My--God!! No wonder the Shatabdi express costs RS800 in Executive Class, 400 in 2nd class Air-co, and only RS65 for the local train!... this should have rang a (loud) alarm bell. 
But no, not with these two fed-up tourists... we jumped on the train (literally), tried to find a seat, a place to stand, some air to breath... but nothing! For the next 3.5 hours we traveled in an overcrowded filthy train, with people sleeping in the luggage racks, others hanging half outside through the constantly open doors, boxes, bags and huge stacks of wet hay blocking the hall ways, and boys selling every thing from tea, peanuts, curry, fritters and Kashmiri apples screaming so loud to advertise their merchandise that we'd constantly think there was a fight, a riot or a major fire in our compartment! Halfway, after we finally found a "seat", we decided to play Yahtzee and became the center of all attention (at a certain time, up to 15 people were arguing on the total of my points... so we quickly interrupted the game to avoid the major fist-fight that was bound to take place...). Three and a half hours later, and a 30-minute rickshaw ride with the local Speedy-Gonzales- Michael-Shumacher-wannabe, we took a long and well-deserved shower, and had some decadent 5-star room service food! If we'd had to do it again (not that we ever will!), we'd cut short on the tourist-rip-off-shopping and lunch, and head to Fatepuhr Sikri right after the Agra Ford; and, budget permitting, stay overnight at the fabulous palace-like Oberoi hotel.

Delhi again:
During the next days, we visited the Islamic (and poorissimo) area of Nizamuddin, the Humayun's tomb, the lotus temple (with an interesting walk through the slums leading back to the hotel), Lodi Gardens which is a shot walk (NOT!) from Nizamuddin and has several tombs (Bara Gumbad) with beautifully painted interiors, the commercial Connaught Place, and had dinner in the roof top restaurant of the Hauz Khas Village (a bit overpriced and too quiet... but has a good view on the flood-lit Old Fort)
All in all Delhi was a very "interesting" experience to start the trip. Having the peace of mind of a great accommodation, and enjoying the warm hospitality of Mae and Scott made it absolutely worth it. There is nothing like having dinner and a drink with an old friend in the comfort of a hotel after a day in Delhi's crowded streets.

I guess we'll learn how to behave like real budget world travelers on the next stop. Nepal, here we come!!