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.