India, Incredible India - the beginning

It was one of those easy beginnings. The day of departure arrived, Airport, check-in, and then passport check at the gate and with 3 Indian visas in my passport, the third one checked was the right one. Heading to boarding, I heard the magic sound and a print out of an upgrade, meaning more comfortable business class.

Arrival, again, easy – passport control and then another person checking your passport. He asked how I was and as expected I said tired although this was not the case exactly and he replied: “no, you are not tired, you don’t look tired, you are happy” so I laughed sincerely thinking that I am while without stomach issues. Luggage on time, and then the sign of Intrepid outside – the guy was surprised that I was out like 20-30min after landing but this is not the first time I hear such a comment. Next step was to wait for the driver and then walk like 5 min to the taxi in a cool fog. I was pleasantly surprised by the road from the airport to the hotel because it was really good.. Of course, sometimes you don’t know who’s driving in which lane, lanes are not exactly identified and even in the middle of the night at 1, honking is always present.

Hotel, noisy and alarm went off at 7 because apparently someone in the lift pushed a button or got stuck in. At breakfast – oh, boy… I asked for an egg and was told, that the restaurant is purely vegetarian and no eggs..

Next step was the group meeting and the starting the Intrepid trip. The group was of 11 – a South African couple, a couple British-German-Brazilian living in Brussels, 2 friends from Switzerland, 2 Australian female solo travelers, a Finish lady (who was my first room mate because they change us every 2 hotels) and a South African – Dutch guy, our Indian guy or 4 men and 8 female.

Right away we started exploring Delhi and especially old Delhi to where we went by metro and not just public transport metro, but we even had to change once. Quite an experience, crowded, trains for women only, quite acceptable I would say.

We visited Delhi Gurudwara Bangla Sahib Sikh temple where we had to be bare feet and had to even walk outside on the pavement with people in shoes, getting nicely dirty before reaching the temple. There was a service in and a lots of people visiting. The highlight for me was also a visit to the public kitchen next to the temple where mainly volunteers cook every day for thousands of people in need – very interesting scene to see those people cooking, sitting on the floor, preparing the things.. we didn’t enter the dining room where people eat from breakfast till dinner and thousands are fed daily.

The walk to the Delhi mosque was along the market streets – narrow, noisy, dirty, hanging wires, rickshaws, bikes, people, ambulances, honking, etc. – you have the chance to see the life of Delhi and realize that there are hardly women working there.

The day finished with a nice dinner after a metro trip back to the hotel which was totally insane. Early night sleep was needed after the limited hours the night before and the expected day 2, at 5 am.

After our return to Delhi and it appeared that I have to spend another day, I had the great opportunity to visit Qutab Minar complex where the minaret is the center maser piece and have to say that it is a brilliant place to see. 

The traffic in Delhi (and most India) looks like chaos and you pray that you survive; the areas where the governmental buildings are located, you can feel the British influence, most of the cases it is well maintained and clean. Old Delhi is mystery and even if you don’t suffer from claustrophobia, you could develop. However, I would say that it is all anticipated considering that this is a city with 17mln or so in a developing country.