travel journal: part 3

In the span of a couple of days, a lot of things have happened. Michael Jackson's sudden death was one of the most talked. It's really too bad that he couldn't have finished his last tour beforehand... Being the fan that I am, I'm sad to see him go; though at the same time, it's good he finally found some sort of peace from this unforgiving world. His music will always rock my world and his dancing will always be off the wall. Thanks for changing the world the way you did.

Speaking of change, I should get back to trying to finish the travel journal. This next bit changed the way I view my life quite a bit. India really opened my eyes as to how good I have it in North America.

Day 6: The real adventure begins.
We arrived at Bangkok Airport from Guang Zhou at 2:30am. We had to wait for the Air India booth to open at 8:30am, so we decided to save ourselves some money and crash at the airport. It felt a little nomadic and bummish with our backpacks, chilling and sleeping at the airport. The hours passed by slowly but we tried to pass our time joking around and sleeping. I had a hard time sleeping though. We would've hung out at the internet station if it wasn't so damn expensive. It was 100 Thai Baht for 20 minutes or 300 Baht for an hour. That's about $9 USD/hour. To use the internet... Rip off.

We originally wanted to fly to Kolkata but then there were cheap seats available to New Delhi for 12:55pm. So we bought the tickets and boarded the flight. I found the stewardesses' on Air India weren't as pleasant, but we got service nonetheless, so I can't complain.

We got off the plane to 39°C heat... It was HAWT as shit! But at least it was dry heat as opposed to Hong Kong's humid heat. We went through security fine, but then it went downhill from there... We lost a chunk of money due to currency exchange fees, and we went on a prepaid taxi service with a driver who didn't know how to get to our hotel. At that point in our day, we were still feeling somewhat adventurous and feeling that ounce of excitement of something so new, different, and unknown. Until the driver dropped us off in the middle of a busy intersection in Old Delhi. He told us to make a left and walk for 5 minutes and that the hotel should be there. We argued with him to drop us off in front of the hotel, but he would have none of it. He insisted taxis weren't allowed on that road. We got frustrated and stepped out of the vehicle to grab our backpacks.

The stupid cabbie had the nerve to ask for tip. We left him and kept walking. Before today, I had never seen this kind of poverty. Kids running around the streets, rickshaw taxis everywhere, motorcycles, tuc-tuc taxis, lots of stray dogs and men, and many many more shameless stares and leers at us. It made it really uncomfortable to walk through the area. Kids would run by and yell something at us, street vendors would try to get our attention and sell us shit. All senses were overstimulated by the sights, sounds, smell. That sense of excitement quickly turned to fear.

We eventually ran into a couple of police officers after walking 10 minutes down that street. They informed us that Hotel Broadway was a 15 to 20 minutes walk back the way we came. So basically, the taxi driver should've told us to turn right and walk for 5 minutes... We were not pleased. After some heckling and such from people as they drove/walked by, we found the hotel. Oh, there was also a security guard who took a photo of my female cousin with his cellphone camera as we walked by. Creep.

It's a hell of an experience so far, I must say... I'm really starting to miss home now. We've only been in India for a few hours now and I find it quite mentally stressful already.

Day 7: Indian Summer.
We woke up fairly early to pack a few things and plan our day. It was decided that we would walk to Connaught Place since there are a lot more tourists in that area. My cousin also decided to wear a nice dress with a thin sweater overtop to be less revealing. But instead, she built quite a fanbase for herself. Men and boys of all ages looked her up and down (mainly down)... The women and girls also stared. Unlike North America though, if you make eye-contact, they don't look away. Since we were Chinese and pale skinned, we obviously stood out from the crowd. We got got many stares, but my cousin got the most. It was so bad it made all four of us uncomfortable.

We got lost a few times on the way but we reached the New Delhi train station. Among the mostly dirty-civilians we saw everywhere, a strange clean and well-dressed man approached us and spoke to my brother. We decided to go with him as he told us he works in Block N of Connaught Place and that Block P, where we were headed to, was on the way. He lead us into the metro and got us to Block P. What's funny was that he was on the phone quite frequently in the metro ride. After he dropped us off and headed back to work, another man approached us almost immediately and started talking to us. He was just as friendly as the other man. We told him what we were looking for and he lead us to the tourism centre. I'm 85% to 90% sure that those two men worked together to get us there and they probably collect commission from that tourism centre...

Anyway, after much inquiries and bartering, we ended up with a complete 8 day tour of India. This included a flight to Kashmir, then seeing the "Golden Triangle Tour" from Delhi to Jaipur to Agra. Then it's an overnight train to Varanasi to see the Ganges and ride elephants, then another overnight train to Kolkata to catch our flight to Bangkok. The price of the tour probably could've been cheaper, but us being from North America, it was cheap in our standards. In Indian standards, however, we most likely got ripped off pretty damn good. But still, thanks to my brother, the price was lowered significantly from the original.

This deal also included a day tour of Old and New Delhi for the rest of today. We saw Humayans Tomb, Gandhi's Smirt, and ate at a touristy restaurant (more expensive in Indian standards). We then went to see Red Fort, and walked through the park where Gandhi was cremated, saw India Gate, and then drove by the President's Palace. Of course, our day was filled with shameless stares and heckling from beggars and vendors.

The sites were pretty nice. The structures were historic and great and unlike anything I've seen before. The heat was pretty insane. Our driver told us that it was a really hot time of the year. Even him, being a local, was struggling to keep cool. Things I've noticed was that the men pissed anywhere in public, there were stray dogs everywhere, the traffic was chaotic, the men to women ratio was pretty ridiculous, many of the locals thought we were Japanese and would yell "konichiwa" at us. We feared for my cousin quite a bit as we walked down the streets and we were still so uncomfortable everywhere we walked. Everytime I would see a foreign white person at some of the touristy areas, a part of me wanted to run up to them and latch on to them...