India !!!! We've seen camels,bears, taken a ride on an elephant and a monkey sat on my head.....We've been chased around Agra by gangsters, rescued an English girl after she fainted into my arms and fought off about a thousand peddlers !! All in al...
Holy fucking shit !!! It was hot as hell, nothing could have prepared me for this heat. I'm from Ireland, the country closes down for the day if it gets above 25 degrees celsius. It wasn't just the heat though, the air was so thick with humidity, you could taste it ! The smells, OMG the smells...dirt and death and food and rubbish.
My first steps off the plane in Delhi had me doubting the smarts of two relatively naive small town Irish people starting a Round The World trip in India. I've been to New Orleans, that was hot and wet and smelly but this is like being hit in the face with a rotten fish ! The arrivals hall was not a culture shock, it was a culture tsunami. As we walked into the hall, we were bombarded from all sides by hawkers trying to get us into their Rickshaw, to stay at their hotel, to take their tour. There were more people in this one large room than live in my entire town.
All the travel books warned us to be suspicious, to be ultra careful of our belongings and to not trust anyone approaching you. So we bloody well were suspicious and careful and distrustful. Along with the slap in the face with a rotten fish, the heat and humidity of Satan's balls and the crazy cacophony of sound, we were ready to get back on the plane.
BUT, no-one can accuse us of not having balls so instead we picked the least deathtrap looking rickshaw and took off through the streets of Delhi.
Did you know that the red traffic lights in Delhi actually have the word "Relax" printed on them? Not STOP, relax ! The rules of the road seem to be,if it's faster or bigger, it goes first and always always always use your horn. For no reason, just drive along with your hand pressing on the horn. It's chaos, no sorry chaos does not begin to cover it. I don't think the word exists in the english language to describe the traffic situation. I closed my eyes and payed to Allah, Buddha, God and jebus to let us get to our hotel in one piece.
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We were so happy to be our room, a tiny tiled cube with no windows and a fan slowly pushing wet air around. It was quite and safe and we could gather our thoughts, wash off the grime of long haul travel and gird our loins for the days ahead.
After showers and rest we decided to head out again, see if we had made a major fuck up. Of course it wasn't as bad as it had seemed. We had been overtired and stressed. It was still smelly and hot and crowded and we were not used to seeing stray cows wandering in and out of shops !!!!!!!!
BUT, it was also exotic and colourful, full of energy and vitality. We ate wonderful food and looked at hundreds of tiny stalls selling everything you could ever want. We took a rickshaw through the crowded narrow streets and it was so exciting when we didn't have to worry about luggage and whether we were actually being driven to our hotel and not out into the wilds, to be robbed and abandoned !! ( Those travel books can make you a small bit too paranoid !!!) We went back to our tiny room a lot happier and more secure in our travel plans.
