Countdown ends, travelling begins. First impression of India

by onceuponmytravel | Nov 20, 2013 | India

Big news first, I ended up travelling with a friend who was brave enough to jump onboard with me! Welcome to colourful world of adventure Giedre!

We left yesterday, 19th of November 2013 route London- Kuwait- Delhi and finally happy to announce that we successfully reached  our destination the following day at 5am local time. The stopover in Kuwait was a soft introduction to all the different cultures we gonna soon to discover.

As soon as we stepped out of the plane we were attacked with prepaid taxi offers and generous directions how to get from point A to B but with all due respect unable to understand or speak hindi, decided to take a challenge and reach our couchsurfing place with a public transport. Took the first available bus to the city centre and discovered that dollars are not accepted here, ta-dah! So ended up getting a free ride. So far impression I’ve got is that people are happy to help especially if you’re blond! 🙂 Everyone is staring continuously, streets are very dirty with lots of poo everywhere and men urinate wherever they decide to. Cars are aware of the cows and stop whenever they see one, however no such awareness is spared for human beings. Maybe that’s why you can’t really find crossings! Fauna is booming with shoestring dogs  and wild monkeys, and streets are used for everything you can imagine, starting from trading and ending with taking showers and brushing your teeth right there and then.

A few days before arriving I arranged a souchsurfing with Dhawans family who live in Vaishali, East Delhi. Finding their place wasn’t difficult as asking directions local people proved to be a right move. Again, guessing it might be my blond hair influence. Took metro, local bus and used ability to still function with both legs (after sitting in a plane for 14hours). Altho they live in a nice block of secured flats, everything around them is covered with what lower class call ‘home’. Extremely big contrast and shocking poverty…

First time couchsurfing experience was lovely. Family provided us with separate room, ‘auntie’ cooked tasteful traditional dishes and didn’t let us suffer from hunger:) Didn’t expect such a pleasant stay but what can I predict when main source of knowledge of India is coming from ‘slumdog millionaire’ movie! Important fact noted from day one- guidebooks don’t lie about indians not using toilet paper. No matter what class you’re coming from, bucket with water next to the toilet is going to be your best friend behind the closed door of your loo.

All in all, the massive contrast fulfilled my expectations and I’m looking forward to what is going to surprise me next.

And by the way, so far didn’t have a chance to see any tourists outside the airport teritory, so it might be the reason why locals are staring at us like we are dinosaurs that got extinct million ears ago.

Wellcome to India!

To be continued…