Blogs from New Delhi, National Capital Territory, India, Asia - page 4

Welcome to the Festival of Colours as we celebrate the beginning of spring in India with the festival of Holi. This year was my first Holi Festival and already I'm looking forward to the years to come. I first came to India last July with the words: Ïndia, you either Love it...or Hate it" in my mind. Two weeks of temples, sightseeing, religious pilgrimages, cows in the streets, monkeys in the trees, crazy rickshaw drivers and now here I am in India to stay. Holi is celebrated with colors, paints, squirt guns, water balloons and a good sense of humour -or in my case utter paranoia as I roam the streets a prime target for any and all potential water balloon or paint attacks. I decided to keep indoors for the early morning Holi-fest, however the ... read more

Its common in India to find joint families. I myself have had the pleasure of staying with several families as a guest on various occasions. A joint family is when the entire family (mom, dad, uncle, brother, cousin, sister, nephew, grandma, brothers sisters aunts cousin twice removed...) all live together in the same home. WHOA. Wait a second...how is that even possible?!?! Usually in the Joint families the family owns an entire building dedicated to their family (each couple having their own room and sharing only a common kitchen, living space and bathroom). Now this concept might seem completely suicidal for us Americans who only deal with our family once a year on Thanksgiving...but here in India, anything less than daily interaction with your family is simply unheard of. The word 'family" here has a very ... read more

Geo: 28.6137, 77.1834Once again, we awake and plan to meet for breakfast early. We have to get to the Hoho bus station for Delhi City Sightseeing Tour. We were organised with a Ola cab (like Uber) and although it's only 6km away, with all the traffic, the bumps, the people, it all takes longer. The beeping of all the horns are now becoming drained into our heads, it's just a noise that happens all the time. Along the way, we see thousands and thousand of people commuting to work, to school, delivering fresh produce, furniture, steel lengths (6-8metres long), all in tuc tucs or motorbikes, cow and wagon, cars, overloaded buses, cows waddling along the side of the roads, dogs, some sleeping, some looking for food, it's so eye boggling to see the variety of transportation. ... read more

I’ve really forgotten how to blog. I have my old Ukraine one floating around there somewhere but I remembered how undisciplined I was in maintaining that, so I figured it’d be more realistic that I end up posting just this one.. Normally when I travel, I either have some idea of how things are going to be like, with some anticipation, or I am ready to embrace the unknown. India is a strange in-between. Having spent all my childhood here, it has left me with strong impressions and memories. I arrived in NZ when I was 11 though, which means that my teenage years and beyond were shaped by my time growing up in Auckland, a stark contract to life in India. Also my upbringing was largely Western anyhow, which got further distorted once I moved ... read more

Day fifteen started early, we only had one full day in Delhi and we wanted to see as much as we could so we hopped in a tuk tuk and headed towards the red fort. The area our hotel was in was not the most inviting and I was excited to see some more of India, though my first impressions were of crushing traffic and noise interspersed with flashes of bright fruit, dogs and carts pulled by humped white cows. Arriving at the red fort it looked an imposing sight, all crenelated red walls on the top of a hill but were then informed that it was closed on Mondays so that was all I saw of it. A man offered to show us where the markets were nearby and, like it or not, it seemed ... read more