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Published: February 28th 2013
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My new mates
Pakistanian tourists , just talked about cricket all the time. Well thanks to a nail biting wait , I got my visa for India 2 days before I was due to leave . Bad planning on my behalf ? Maybe but I though 3 weeks was ample time to arrange such a simple thing as a visa , but thanks to the Indian embassy in Berlin it was a total nightmare .
It was 4 am in the morning as the taxi came to take me to the train station , my son who said he woiuld miss me like crazy apparantly not enough to get out of bed that early to give me a lift to the station . I did not know how long I was going to be travelling for but reconed with approx 3 months. I was very nervous going to the station and thouight I could cut my journey to 6 weeks if need be . It was new for me to travel alone into an badly planned excursion , well not planned at all really , and this gave me a bad gut feelling but also made me excited at the thought of al the adventures that lie ahead of me .
So
A really important ruin
Just dont ask me the name I though nothing could go wrong , no to book a flight from Germany through a German agent is very very expensive , so I booked via a UK agent but had to fly to London to fly to India , a simple flight compared to the flights that awaited me the next few months.
So I arrived at Düsseldorf airport , e ticket in hand only to be told my ticket had been cancelled ! This was due to my CC being scammed in Dubai 3 months before , however the plane ticket price had been paid but BA policay states that a bill paid with a CC that has been scammed , even after the ticket had been paid results in cancellation of the ticket ! Ok fair enough but why oh why did they not tell me ! They e mail there shitty offers every 10 mins , so why not e mail me to tell me my ticket has been cancelled ?
Anyway Ihad to buy a new ticket with a 75€ surcharge and the ticket was 100€ more expensive then my original ticket .Big row with the " customer services " in Düs
Siesta
Not only in Mexico do they have a siesta! , but to no avail . However after many e mails a few weeks later my extra costs were refunded ,but what a great start to this journey !!
So from London Heathrow to Delhi !
Big oh big culture shock ! Plus of course after leaving behind minus20° Germany to arrive in high 30´s ° New Delhi . But what a great feeling .
The taxi of course never arrived as planned , thanks to Trivago ! So i had to get ripüped off with an airport taxi , the dvr kept asking for a tip , so this is India
Found the " Hotel " Whcih turned out to be a little dump in a back street next to building works , fighting and barking dogs everywhere ! The smell of the people cooking around me is a smell I wil never forget , absoloutly amazing I could not wait to sample the deliughts of street foods here in India .
The horrible slimy man who claimed to be Hotel Director was really horrible , not a typical Indian but just horrlible and slimey , something I told him via e mail when
On the way to work
Just another day in paradise I was 5 thousand Km´s away .
The room was large and very hot , no air con which is no big deal and the heater needed 30 moins warm up time before the delights of hot running water could be reached .
I Managed to sleep ( with one eye open ) for an hour or so , then went downstairs to the lobby , which in fact was his front room to enquire where the Vietnamese embassy was in order to get my visa for the next month . He promptly got some guy to take me miles away to a travel agent who insisted on selling my various tours aroiund the city and to the Taj Mahal ! All I wanted to know was where the bloody Vietnamese embassy was !So this really peed me off .
I managed to find a cab driver to take me to the Taj at about 30 % of the travel agents cost .
My first night was special , the dogs in this street really were mad untill about 4 am they were fighting and barking , so I got to sleep about then , 4am
Suburbs
Suburbs of Delhi are horrible ,only to be woken by the fruit man wandering the street selling his goods , shouting at the top of voice what he had to offer , he was promtly followed by the news paper man , followed by some guy flogging corn or wheat or something , again all shouting at the top of thier voices ! Was it annoying ? Nah it was a good expiereince , the " hotel " was crap , the bed uncomfy , very hot , people everywhere chanting and shouting , car horns , bike bells .. this was truly a marvellous experience .. just the rip of hotel manager that annoyed me ,but I didnt care , I was in India , alone , no plan and very happy.
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Have a excellant trip
Wish you a very happy and pleasent trip to India! Be safe and enjoy