My travel tales

My journal will soon be no more...

curtis — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:52:00 GMT

Hey sorry but i have decided to end my journal. Thanks for reading and enjoying but this will be my last entry. I find myself to be more of a story teller not a story writer and will be happy to share my stories when i get home. As for now i only wish to enjoy what i am experiencing as it is happening and only remember it once i leave.

Okay, please go to http://journal.worldnomads.com/cbyanasak as i will write on that. Once again my personal email is Stealyourface66@aol.com

Now i am going out to walk the streets of Varanasi and take in the sweet scent of burning corpses and cow shiz!!! Bye

Agra

curtis — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:25:00 GMT

First off I would like to stress that nothing that anyone could ever have told me and nothing I could have ever read could have prepared me for what India is really like. It is hard to believe that this is truely the way people live here.

So we left Delhi and headed towards Agra for our first of what will be many train rides. As the train slows, the hundreds of people start cramming themselves into any cart they can find ignoring any prearranged seat tickets. We spent that four hour train ride standing smashed up against dozens of Indians who couldnt believe that we went the cheap way to ride second class, many of them warning us before we boarded that this was no place for foreiners.

Arriving in Agra we bought our train ticket for the following night to head to Varanasi which turned out to be a nightmare. Anyway, we got to our hotel in downtown Agra and had lunch at one of the many rooftop restaurants with an unbelievable view of the Taj Mahal only two blocks away. The next day we got an early start to get into the Taj Mahal which was an amzing thing to see. we spent a couple hours there and then visited the Agra Red Fort which is supposed to be the greatest of Red Forts in all of India...not that great. We spent the rest of the day in a complete nightmare. Basically the train station is the biggest s$*t show of a scam that anyone could imagine. Us, along with a dozen other tourist ended up not getting on the train and only get a percentage of our money back for our tickets.

After 6 hours at the station we bit the bullet, got some of our money back and left with four new stressed out friends to a hotel and to start the search for a way out of Agra. Us, along with two people for Australia, and two from the UK will finally arrive in Varanasi tomorow and hopoefully end our nightmares in the big cities. Anyway, sorry i suck at writing...later.

Delhi

curtis — Thu, 9 Oct 2008 22:17:00 GMT

Craziness!

After only arriving this morning here in New Delhi I am already overwhelmed and exhausted by the pure insanity of this place. I was lucky enough to have Chris and Charisse waiting for me at the airport with a taxi driver garaunteed to bring us to the correct place after they spent hours the night before being drug all around the city by the unavoidable scam artist.

The entire city is basically wall to wall traffic between the insane amount of people and the vehicles, cows, and dogs in between. It was our plan to see the Red Fort and visit a spice market today but wasnt able to do any. After wandering around thinking were in the right area numerous times only to find out that we are nowhere close, and that the locals have as much of a clue as to where we are as we do, we dicided to just not have a plan and keep walking through the hundreds of shops and markets all over the city. We were told to expect the chaos of the city but nothing could have prepared me for what it is truely like.

Besides the dozens of scam artist trying to trick tourist, the people are very friendly. You get pleny of people just wanting to shake your hand, tons of smiles that grow twice as big when you smile back, and children and adults alike begging you to take their photos! The unfortunate thing is that they are almost too helpful to where you ask for directions and even if they have no idea where you want to go they will happily point you in some direction knowing that they helped you in some way, even if its the wrong way.

Well early tomorow we leave Delhi as we are eager to get out of the big city and we head to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal! I'm not much of a writer and apparently my brother is some sort of goddamn journalist so if you wanna read and see more with what were up to over here you can check out http://journals.worldnomads.com/cbyanasak

Gallery: Delhi

curtis — Thu, 9 Oct 2008 22:05:00 GMT