Agra, Delhi and the list of likely things

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The bus Agra was quite nice. I was locked into the front seat, which was a bit weird. But the door to the aisle has to be open during the drive, which means they locked it in place, blocking my way out. But it did mean I had two seats to myself, cause no one dared to enter this white girls little fortress. From the bus station in Agra I had to get a rickshaw to the hostel. The guy charged me to much, so I got him so share his cookies with me. He thought it was funny, so he just gave me the packet :p

When I got to the hostel, I found out that I had booked a bed for the next day instead of that night. Luckily, the guy at the reception was really nice and offered me a bed in the staff room. There was a little cafe on the property where I had a great veggie burger and then the same guy joined me with a bottle of old munk. 😊 Just when I thought it couldn't get better than this, we were invited to join a meal at the wedding party that was going on at the hostels garden! The food was amazing and the father of the bride was a philosophy teacher, so he started sharing all these motivational one liners with us.

The next morning I got up real early, to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise. There were some more people with the same plan, so we all walked to the ticket office together. They open the gates for the Taj Mahal at sunrise, and we were too far back in line to actually see it. But when we got there, it still had that amazing morning glow, so it was worth getting up early for. Me and a guy from South Africa named Theo spend about three hours there. We slowly walked over, took a look inside and then found a nice spot to just sit and look at it for a while. It was a truly amazing experience to see this impressive piece of architecture. 😊

After that we walked back to our hostel, took a shower and then decided to go to one of the big bazaars in Agra. I dropped of my backpack at the train station first, and from there we started walking. In the two hours we walked around there, we only saw two other white people. Which explains why everyone was looking at us. :p It was a really big and very crowded bazaar. We had some fun walking around and I bought a sari. At one point we got stuck in this big traffic jam, but even that was fun. After that we found a quiet spot near the Agra Fort, to just relax for a bit. There, we befriended some monkeys, cause I had a little bag of sweets they really seemed to like. At first we just threw the sweets at them, but then one monkey was brave enough to come closer. So I put some in my hand and he slowly walked over, took them from my hand and shoved them all in his face. It was really funny.

Then it was time to head over to the train station to catch my train to Delhi. The guy from the reception had told me this train has major delayes every day. It was supposed to leave at 15:30, but before we left the hostel it was already scheduled to arrive in Agra at 17:00. When I got there at 16:30, the time had already changed to 18:00. So I just sat down and started reading a little. The time kept on changing and it ended up leaving at 20:30.

Due to this delay I got to Delhi way later than planned and didn't really get to see any of it. I took a taxi to the hostel, got there around 2:00, slept, had breakfast and then took a taxi to the airport. That was my time in Delhi. So much fun. :p

To give some closure to my time in India, i decided to make a list of things that are likely to happen to someone traveling through this amazing country. It isn't in any specific order and solely based on my own experiences, so bare with me. 😉

1. You will be called friend by someone you barely know. And to show how great of a friend this person is, he will give you a special price.
1.2. You will also call people you barely know your friend, just to explain that this person is not your boyfriend or husband.

2. Your eating habits will change. You'll prefer eating with you hands over using cutlery, and before you know it you'll be eating curries for breakfast.

3. You'll feel like a pop star. Especially in the north people are very excited to see white people, and they'll want to say hello, namaste, shake your hand or take a picture with you.
3.2. You'll be swarmed by people who want to take a picture with you. Once you say yes to one person, within no time there will be twenty people who want a picture as well.

4. Your concept of reasonable travel time will change. If a city is only four hours by bus or train, you'll consider it to be close by. While in Europe a four hour bus of train ride can take you across three different countries.
4.2. Your concept of acceptable waiting time will change as well. You know how in Holland we freak out if the train is five minutes late? Try five hours.

5. You'll get hooked on chai. Back home I never put sugar or milk in my tea, but here I just can't get enough of these sweet little cups of 10 rupee chai. Traveler tip: The smaller the cup, the better the chai 😉

6. You'll feel like you've visited six different counties. While in Chennai I didn't see any other white people outside of the hostel, in Kochi half of the population consist of tourists. And while Goa is all about wearing very little clothes and drinking lots of alcohol, in Rajasthan it's the other way around. India is so diverse, there is something here for everyone.

7. You'll bargain for anything. Fares for rickshaws, money paid for clothes and prices of accessories, it's all negotiable. Whenever someone names a price, you won't rest until you pay about half of that.

8. Your new catch phrase will become: No thank you. Everywhere and at any given time people will be offering goods, rides and food. And because of this constant presence, you're initial response will be to decline. And if a couple of seconds later you realize you did actually want it, there will probably be a shop within the next five minutes offering the exact same thing.

9. You get used to honking horns. In Holland people rarely honk their horns, so when someone does people look around to see what's happening. But here, because there are so many horns all the time, you only respond to it if it's really close and you're in the middle of the street. And even then, you can just look at the driver and keep walking in a steady pace.

10. You'll get used to having animals around all the time. Lots of hostels and restaurants have adopted a stray dog or cat, there's packs of goats everywhere and seeing a cow laying down in the middle of the street is just not surprising anymore.

11. You'll spend money differently. If a meal costs more than 200 rupee, it's an expensive fucking meal. Even though that's the equivalent of about €3,-. And paying more than 10 rupee for a cup of chai is just out of the question.

12. You'll meet so many nice and generous people. They'll want to share everything with you: their knowledge, their food and their love for India. 😊

I really hope you guys enjoyed my stories about India. Also I hope I have changed some of your views of India for the better and maybe even triggered some of you to visit this amazing country!

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