Getting the project started

30th May

So Laura came and we spent a day hanging out together and then took the metro to Gurgaon, a big town 1h south of Delhi. There, Vinod, the founder of End Poverty, the NGO for which we are making our reports, got us from the station and brought us to our new home for the next 4 weeks. We are staying in a nice and airy appartment together with Rachna's sister (Rachna is the 2nd boss of EP) and three other young Indian women.
After lunch, we had a welcome meeting where we shared our visions to realise that we are quite on the same way concerning our plans. Both, Rachna and Vinod are very competent, enthusiatic and heartly people and we really look forward to work with them!





























Yesterday, we went straight to the 'field' and visited a small and remote village with which EP potentially will work together in future (and we could try to smoke a shisha!), a temple, a market and one of the villages they support and we will write our reports about. In that village, we spent a couple of hours drinking rose water, tea and getting to know one of the families. The woman of the family is also the teacher of the girls of this village and she insisted that we stay at their house when we stay in a village in about 3 weeks time. We thankfully agreed as we felt very comfortable around these friendly smiling family members. Also we already fell in love with the children there who did not hide their curiosity about these funny looking visitors who seem to be a very sweaty kind of species.

Nothing beats the Taj

26th May

Yesterday, on the way to Agra, I did not only have the chance to see a few more beautiful temples but also a marble-souvenir-production site. Here one could see how busy workers produced souvenirs out of the same marble as the Taj Mahal decorated with the same design as the famous building. It was amazing to see with which precision those objects where formed and they were all gorgeous. Some of you might already guess – yes, I was stupid enough to buy a plate of marble which weights around 2 kg (don’t ask me about the price). BUT, it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen! I swear. And it is just perfect to use it as a pad for my notebook… Anyways, it’s me who needs to carry it around now for another 2 ½ month.









So today I went to see the Taj Mahal in early daylight, at around 6h30 (sunrise it was not, don’t ask me why, longer story). The atmosphere was just stunning, the tourists little and the temperature perfect. I guess every one of you has seen pictures of the Taj, so you know about its beauty. But, the closer you get, the more you see all the little details, like the semiprecious stones (Halbedelsteine) carved into the marble, (just like my beautiful plate has it got!) – one can see how 20 000 people have worked on it for 22 years.
Anyways, I spent quite a while in this peaceful setting until we headed back to Delhi where I got my internet connection (after two, not one hour). So, now I can be constantly online, theoretically. In practice, the connection is very S-L-O-W… Well, I urgently need to work on my patience now, otherwise I will have turned nuts when coming back home after spending so many hours (or days) waiting. Yep, that will be a challenge. But, when the internet is stuck again, at least I can admire my astonishing beautiful marble plate!

And tomorow comes THE LAURA! :)

Hard-core-sightseeing in slow mode

24th May

On the list of today’s sights was Delhi’s Nr. one attraction, the Red Fort; The India Gate, which is about 5 times bigger then the Triumpfpforte in Innsbruck; the astonishing beautiful Humayun’s Tomb which resembles the Taj Mahal; The lotus-like Bahai’s Temple which was designed by the same architect as the Opera House in Sydney and is open for prayers to all religions in a very peaceful atmosphere; Mahatma Gandhi’s grave, his living house and the Gandhi-Smriti-Museum. This sounds quite a lot (it IS), and the only way to be able to enjoy it (which I did) with now 40°C, was to move very slowly and, of course, drink lots of water. The funny bit of this tour was the understanding that for the Indian tourists visiting these sites, I myself was a tiny attraction as well. Those Indians, who often come from areas where hardly any tourists ever go, made it their hobby to take pictures from western visitors. So I ended up being on at least 30 pictures with shy smiling men, children, women or whole families.

From the sad side of this country, today I have seen one man begging with a deep open wound in his lower leg and a couple of kids trying to sell stuff at the traffic lights. One of them I gave a Tyrolean bio-apple that I still had in my backpack which he happily took over.
At the end of the day, Sanjay, my friendly driver, helped me to get a sim card for my mobile phone and internet connection. This took about 1 ½ hours, as the photos needed had to have a white background, the pen a black colour and, well, because everything just takes longer here in Asia. So now I am sorted with an Indian phone number but the internet does not work and I have to go back tomorrow (which probably will take another hour). But that’s ok as I haven’t really expected it to be working straight away anyways.

Smooth Welcome

23rd May 2011

When I arrived at Delhi airport at 7h10 after a 7h direct flight from Munich, a driver from my guesthouse found me (or I found him after a little while of an hour) and brought me into town. As I have only slept for about an hour, I took a shower and went straight to bed. I woke up at 4h30 local time (which is only 3 ½ h before Austrian time) and went downstairs to ask a few questions about where to get a sim card for my phone and stuff and to get a map of the area to walk around. The owner called his partner who took me to the office of his tour operator close by. There, he informed me about the main sights of Delhi and 1h later, I’ve booked a personal driver for sightseeing the next day ( 15€ for 8h), a tour to Taj Mahal and three more nights, including one for Laura who I will be meeting on Friday…

I was aware to have paid a higher price than I could have, but having just arrived and still being a bit sleepy, this sounded to me like a nice start, a smooth and easy way to get used to all. ‘India Light’. And as I will be spending most of the following weeks working on my final report, it seems just logical to try and get a bit of sightseeing out of the first days! Anyways, now I was hungry and the boss of the tour operator offered me to send one of his boys to guide me to the market close by and a restaurant. Again, I liked this idea about not needing to think on my first day and took the (free) offer. So Maoj walked me around and I was very happy and exited to finally BE in India, being able to watch/smell/hear all those things I’ve heard so much about: The beautiful saris of the women; the mixture of delicious exotic smells; the old fashioned tailors, blacksmith and hairdressers in their tiny open shops; the dogs; the busy bargaining in the market; the casual hanging around and chatting of the rickshaw drivers… To my surprise, I have not seen any other tourist, probably because it is the hottest season of the year right now. (Still I m lucky as the temperature today is not higher than 35°C as it has been raining the last days and consequently the town has cooled down from its 44°C last week) Neither did I see any beggar or homeless, nor was it as dirty and chaotic as I expected it to be. Well, that must be the area, I thought, I guess tomorrow on my sightseeing tour, I’ll get the ‘full package’ and won’t escape it.
So, after a little misunderstanding with my guide (‘no, please, no western food! I want some Indian food’ when he understood ‘Indian fruit’ and brought me to a couple of food stalls only to be surprised that I don’t want bananas or watermelons), I found myself eating my first proper vegetarian masala, chatting with Maoj about his love-marriage (compared to arranged marriage)and was wishless.