AMRITSAR Population: 1.1 million PUNJAB Population: 27.7 million Area: 50,000 sq km Our goal in getting out of Delhi as quickly as possible was to find a smaller, less chaotic place in which to calm down and find our bearing as we adjusted to the life of a foreign traveller in India. Upon arriving in Amritsar, we soon realized that we'd jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. With a population of merely 1 million people, Amritsar has 1/16th the population of Delhi. Nevertheless, it is every bit as crowded, congested and hectic to travel in as Delhi, with comparable air pollution - it's just tinier in size. Coming off the bus, we were immediately set on upon by a group of men crying, "Rickshaw! Rickshaw! Taxi! Taxi! Golden Temple! Golden Temple!" Even ... read more

Our first morning in India found us taking refuge in our hotel room by 11 AM, exhausted and scared off the streets of New Delhi.The night before, we had a relatively uneventful trip from the airport to the hotel. After over 24 hours of travel from JFK Airport in NYC to Ghandi International Airport in New Delhi, with a 4 hour layover in Vienna, we arrived in India. The first thing I noticed stepping off the airplane into the airport terminal was the smell - it smelled a bit like a campfire that's primary fuel was trash. The smell lingered through the entire airport. When we walked outside, we saw why.The campfire smell here was much stronger, and everything I looked at was through a thin haze of smoke/smog. At this point we were walking with ... read more