Blogs from National Capital Territory, India, Asia - page 158

Today is Sunday so alot of places are closed. We set off to visit the Bahai'i Temple in Southern Delhi. It's a Temple that's devoted to all religions and all are welcome to come and pray or meditate according to their own faith. It's a beautiful place and families come from all over India to visit. It was great to see everyone dressed up for a day out; some of the saris the Indian women wear are exquisite. Obviously some had never seen white folk before as we were asked to pose for photographs with 3 different families!!!!! When we first arrived in India we made a point of wearing our oldest scruffiest stuff to blend in and not look to fresh. This being day 3 and us feeling more confident we risked wearing new white ... read more

"Oshi, please. Uncle is waiting for us." I am sitting in a renovated immigration hall with too much time on my hands. "Oshi, please!" To continue reading please visit: Cameron Karsten's Travel Writing... read more

Hello everyone ! So here we are.... Delhi appears to be a city of extreme contradictions. We got off the plane to be greeted by a troop of women, all in brightly coloured beautiful saris with pick axes and shovels and carrying mountains of broken concrete on their heads. They were carrying out major road works whilst carring their offspring - from there on it has gotten steadily wierder! Cows just dander up streets, street vendors sell everything from roasted peanuts to ear cleaning services... and don't even ask about the roads. Traffic in Delhi is completely mad, no lanes and no law. From what we can gather the rules of the game are to drive as quickly and creatively as possible in the general direction of all other vehicles, constantly bumping your horn. Drivers only ... read more

29/11/05 Summary: Not much really happened here and we spent most of our time adjusting to indian life. It's not been a culture shock as such because I had already been told what this place is like but what suprised me was that nothing i had heard had been an understatement. Nothing. Everything: Having been delayed a day from a late flight and having to stay overnight in Dubai (all expenses paid - very nice) i arrived at a hotel at about 6.am with three other guys (Rupert, Paul and Tony) i met on the plane. We all decided to have a couple of quick beers (remember the time difference) and some food. After that they all went to bed and i decided to push through to try and sort out my body clock so i ... read more

Another first was achieved today, in that I purchased a train ticket to Nawalgarh at New Delhi railway station. There's a special section of the station just for foreigners, which is an oasis of calm compared with the madness at the main booking section. It's not the most efficient of systems - you have to fill in a reservation form before you can go to the counter to book the ticket, but half the information that's needed on the form (e.g. train name and number) isn't available until you've been to the counter. My mood darkened after this early success, when my new phone refused to work. Back at the shop, the owner said that he didn't know what was wrong with it, but he had figured out how to unlock my UK phone. Since this ... read more