India - A Whole New Level of Travel

India: where to begin?

So far, India is the most intense place we have ever been. Ever. Delhi and Calcutta make Bangkok seem like a sweet little kitten, and put Khao San Road to shame. It is busy - everywhere. Crossing a main street is like playing Russian Roulette - every time. The roads are filled with people, children, cows, dogs, goats, scooters, cycle rickshaws, auto rickshaws (tuk tuks), people rickshaws, buses, and cars. Often streetlights don't matter. There is no such thing as "pedestrian crossings". The sidewalks are nonexistant, or filled with stalls or urinals (yes, actual urinals) or piles of bricks and sand or makeshift shacks (although we haven't yet figured out how they sometimes have power), so you walk on the street - somehow.

We landed in comfortable, 18-degree Delhi and spent three nights there. First we stayed in Majnu-ka-Tilla (a Tibetan colony) and then moved to the Paharaganj area. We braved the underground metro (crowded, clean, easy to navigate) to explore Old Delhi, where we visited the Red Fort. This giant sandstone fort was built in the 1600s, with walls 2 km long and up to 33 m high. It houses many beautiful buildings, from royal baths to halls of audiences to a mosque, which feature marble inlays and intricate carvings. We also walked around Connaught Place and window shopped in "expensive" stores (where the clothes were all still well under $100 CAD).

Two nights ago we took the overnight 17-hour train to Calcutta. What a great experience! For $38 CAD each, our train ticket included a sleeping bunk with bedding and four yummy meals (evening tea, dinner, morning tea, and breakfast). It was clean and comfortable. Our bunks were not full, but we shared with a wonderful Indian man in his 70s who loved to look at our Lonely Planet and tried to teach us Hindi, and a young Indian woman with her playful one-year-old son.

Last night we stayed at a real dive of a hotel, which was still a good value by Calcutta standards. Yestearday we walked around for hours, exploring Chowringhee and BBD Bagh areas. Today we went to the Birla Planetarium, and for $0.75 CAD each we saw a stars and planets show. Then we sat on a stoop drinking mango juice and watched Calcutta pass us by.

The poverty here is much more apparent than in Delhi, with beggars and homeless people on every street. We watched people bathing in the Hooghly River at Babu Ghat, which is a river filled with garbage (but took no pictures out of respect). We walked past many "homes" on sidewalks and in parking lots made of ramshackle bricks or tarps. We watched people whose entire day's work consists of smashing large rocks and bricks into smaller rocks to make gravel. India sure puts our first-world, Western-style "problems" into an entirely new perspective.

The food is incredible. Andrea was on the "Delhi Belly" diet plan for a few days, where nothing agreed with her stomach, but luckily that passed. Indian cuisine is so much more than what we call "curries" back home. Vegetarian restaurants are prevalant and for us two meat-eaters, it's some of the best food we've ever had. A sample of the food we've tried thus far: chai (which is just the general name for tea), dhal (curried lentils), uttapam (thick, savoury South Indian rice pancakes with finely chopped onions, green chillies, coriander and coconut), naan and chapati (breads), paneer tikka (spiced chunks of unfermented soft cheese), masala dosa (savoury crepe with spiced potato inside), and barfi (sweet fudge). And that is just the beginning!

Our friend Sami warned us about this, but it's very difficult to get used to: Andrea gets stared at. A lot. On the metro, train, or the streets, most of the men stare at her like she is a celebrity. This is with her wearing no make-up and dressing conservatively. Twice we have been asked by Indians to have our picture taken by or with them, although we've noticed others just taking our picture without asking. We're more than happy to oblige, and stop and pose with them - then we just take their picture too!

Another thing we'd read about and been warned about are scammers and touts. Within a minute of getting to the arrivals hall of the Delhi airport, when we obviously couldn't find our pre-booked taxi driver, a taxi tout offered to "call" our hotel for us to see where the driver was. Well, he called his friend who pretended to be our hotel saying we had no reservation. Luckily we knew about this scam to try and get us into a taxi that would take us to an overpriced hotel that drivers get kickbacks from - we just wanted to see the scam in action. A nice lady told us about the other arrivals hall (two arrivals halls??) where we found our real driver, no problem. In Delhi there are also lots of young men who walk beside you for a few minutes ignoring you, then eventually strike up a conversation about where you are from, then try to take you to their shop (overpriced travel agency or fake government agency, sari shop, suit shop, etc). Now we usually talk to no one and ignore all the stall owners who shout as us as we walk by - you either get hardened quickly, or get really tired. That said, we've also met some very helpful, genuine people when we've needed help - but unfortunately they seem to be the great minority.

Tonight we are taking another overnight train to Siliguri, and then catching a transfer tomorrow to Darjeeling. We are looking forward to exploring a smaller city - Darjeeling's population is 110,000, while Delhi's is 18 million and Calcutta's is 15 million. Darjeeling is surrounded by tea plantations and the Himalayas, so it sounds just about perfect.