Arrival and first days

berg_alex — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 03:56:00 GMT

7^th-8^th of Jan

Arrive in Delhi, the flight was two hours delayed because of the fog. I had red that I was supposed to get a prepaid taxi, and was looking for where I could get one but couldn’t see any stand. I saw something like “authorized air port taxi” with uniformed men and thought that looked legal enough… and from then the shit hit the fan. I did everything wrong: didn’t pay in advance, two men were in the car with me, they drove me to a “tourist office” where they told me the train was delayed. It was a very clever scam, I even spoke on the phone with what I thought was the train people, and I even asked them to call my hotel and saw how they punched the number in… but the phone was probably not even connected! In the end I just wanted to get out of there and agreed to a ridiculously overpriced taxi.

As I arrived to my accommodation, the host Shiron got very very angry with the taxi driver and called the police, and managed to get some money back for me. Shiron and his mother were the loveliest host I ever could wish for, so warm and welcoming.

I met another swede and her 15 year old daughter, and they quickly became like an extra family too, with them I saw most of Agra and had a lovely time. In the second evening we had dinner at the homestay, and a girl from a family Shirons mother wanted to help out, came over to decorate our hands with henna. We talked to Shiron about his marriage plans, as he is 29, he needs to marry this year before he turns 30, because then he can only get “old girls”. He had 19 candidates, they all had very elaborate profiles with pictures and information about height, weight, education, family, occupation, skin type etc etc…. When he likes someones picture, his mother then goes over to them to visit and watch the girl and her mother. If his mother approves, they are then invited over to his house and they meet, and the other family also get to see how they live and what their income is like. Shiron also told us how his mother loved dimples, and once she took him to a doctor so that he could make operations to get them… but he refused as it would be impossible to eat for a month! He also told us about his personal astrologist, and how it was in his stars that he was going to start a new business at the end of this year, and own a bmw series 7 within 3 years.

Preparations

berg_alex — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:26:00 GMT

So, it's less than a month to go before I leave for India. I still haven't quite decided where to go. The plans keep on changing, so I feel like I might as well not make any plans at all. Trying to get all the practical details sorted, so that I can start enjoying the pre-travel excitment. Right now my m ind is just clogged with things like insurance, visa, sending stuff oversees, what bag to buy, etc. The to do list is long, and no matter how much i cross out it never seem to end. Just bought insurances, one less to go.

The vague plan includes a few weeks in Rajasthan, maybe a trip to Varanasi, some visit to mumbo jumbu sacred places, as this trip should be a little bit spiritual, I hope, then some time down south with some beaches and some djungle. There should be some train travels, some elephant or tiger watching, all the usual stuff, but I figured those things will sort of stand out and screem to tourists anyway, so I should focus on finding stuff that might not be so obvious to foreigners.

More planning on that then.

Out and about

Arrival and first days

Preparations