Bright Lights Bigger City and The Delhi Induction

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We've been gone one week! Five weeks sounds like a long time but when you get to the end of it you wonder where it went and hopefully how we fitted in everything we plan to.

We started the trip with the obligitory bottle of champaigne (Yes spelt incorrectly but we don't have spell check). It wasn't quite midday and we rationalised it was somewhere in the world (So yes Hayden we were drinking that morning).

Hong Kong.... one massive concrete Jungle. The first thing that amazed me was the signage. There are signs everywhere extended as far across the road as the frame will support. Clearly there are no council by-lAWS to contend with.

The second was the colour. If it can be made bright, the brighter the better! They even do Christmas and it was awesome. I'd rather see this in Auckland than the seedy santa with a paedophile finger calling children. They even have a sound and light show which we saw on a harbour cruise. For the bits we could see it was awesome and it was a bit hard to distinguish between the Christmas lights. They call HK The million dollar sky line becasue they estimate it costs this to light the skyline up every night.

There was a distinct lack of OSH presence. Was this bad? Check out the bamboo scafolding lashed together on this 20 odd story building. It's hard to describe but they had set up a net and bamboo outreach every three stories in case you fell. I think the best solution is not to fall. Here's the thing though... this is a developed country. It's not even developing let alone 3rd world and there is a distinct lack of safety by comparisson to NZ standards. I don't think this is bad I think this highlights the PC sugar coated world we are living in.

The only other thing of significance we did was go to 'The Peak', the highest point in Hong Kong. For the bits you could see through the smog the view was amazing. This was like the Mount Eden of Auckland only however many times higher. Here's the thing though.... there was a mall up the top!

Random fact - Hong Kong was under British Administration until 2007 when the Prince of Wales eventually gave it up.

We landed in Delhi at 1am Hong Kong Time so we were tired. After clearing customs in the slowest possible fashion we jumped a taxi and this is where the induction started. We were both tired and care factors were low so most things would have gone and despite that the
taxi driver (In a beat up old small suzuki van) managed to scare the crap out of us. We've been in countries with no road rules but this went to a new level. The difference was everywhere else we've been operated with a little common sense. These guys drive with a goal to get there quicker than everybody else and someone in the way is an inconvinience.

They drive in the middle of two lanes to prevent overtaking, cross onto the other side of the road or even off the road to overtake and do what they can to stop others overtaking.

We were staying out of the CBD and as we drove out the deserted streets looked a bit like Otara so we were both questioning what we were walking into.

The driver couldn't find our hostel (Which admitadly no-one during our stay could) even though he was on the phone taking directions. It had been a pre paid taxi and he had a different view at the end ours being we had just paid him to do a job badly his being that the had to work harder to do the job and so wanted a tip.

The hostel we had booked was full despite our booking so we were put accross the road for the night to a roach infested room once we eventually arrived at 3am.

Mission number one the next day was to start sorting out our train tickets, which was somewhat problematic when we found out it is fog season and all trains are getting delayed so everything is overbooked. We also got subjected to our first train station scam and were
sent to the "official" tourist stations (yep plural for more than one) - which we even had to pay to get to.

After dealing with a couple of different sets of scammers we tried to go to the museum to have some quite time and collect ourselves. Bear in mind this is Saturday so to find school kids there in uniform did suprise us. But not just one school... I don't know how many but
in the hour and a half we were there, there was a consistent progression of children making more noise than humanly possible being herded through like sheep in single file.

This whole experience so far has been a sensory assault... mostly in noise. There is no such thing as quite and everybody is competing to be heard over the rest of the noise. It is scary insane.

Due to availability of trains we've had to change our plans and cut Varanassi. We've got a bit longer in Agra and have managed to add in Ranthambore National Park. The solution to the train availability has been to hire a car and a driver for 17 days. By nZ standards it's
cheap -$50NZ per day although was an expense we didn't want. I've just found out that you can buy a motorbike here cheaper than we paid for the car hire.

The people are something else. The best way I can think to describe them is that they are driven by personal gain - at the expense of anyone they can get past. This is a rough generalisation as there have been some very genuine people who are trying to be honest and
help. The trouble has become distinguishing them apart from those who want to deceive us. The best solution we have come up with is never to be indecisive. If you know what you want or where you're going it's generally ok and the moment you don't someone is happy to help you make up you're mind.Normally with their's or a friends services.

The food is incredible. The flavours are awesome and the best bit is the variety between breakfast, lunch and dinner. i've never had the same thing twice mostly because I never know what i just ordered and it has all been great. It's not just the food it's the drinks
and the sweets as well.

So we have a car booked, re-arranged accom for the next few days and have a train ticket to Agra. Journey on.

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Photos

Airport Drinks
A given to start any good trip

Scafolding Asia stye
Lashed Bamboo Scafolding on 20+ stories

View From The Peak
Yep it's smog - like pollution smog

Hong Kong Skyline
Million dollar skyline - power used to charge this baby each night.

Local Sweets
Good times with street stall sweets. Milk based we think.

Comments

[Abhi]

Some help
Hi I am from Akl and known to your mom Jan.I have given her some contacts for Delhi in case you need some help.I know its a different world and just having some local contacts might help.As time passes you will know what and whom you are dealing with. My Brother in law's name is Sujit-9810174541 and my brother sarabjit-9811743959.You can call them anytime if you need anything or want to ask anything.Take and don't trust anyone straight away.Rest I have explained everything to Jan as well.All the best.