First contact with planet India

You don’t need to book a special tour to see the essence of India; it hits you right in the face as soon as you leave the airport. It’s everywhere and it’s overwhelming to ones senses. My eyes marvel at the incredible sights around me as we drive into the city. Each face I see shines with character, with a story to tell. The behavior of locals sometimes causes shock and sometimes amuse in disbelief. Men are urinating on the walls right next to the road, barbers are carrying out their trade on the sidewalks, chicken are being slaughtered right there on the street in front of the restaurant where it’s going to be served in a tasty medley of spices.

While the eyes enjoy this feast of colors, both visual and that of many characters of Delhi, the ears are tortured by a noisy symphony of Indian traffic. The horn on the moped or a car seems to play the most important part of the transport. For a driver in Delhi, losing the ability to warn everybody of his coming with constant honking would probably be more of an issue than a flat tire. The rules of the road do not seem to exist and I held my breath while our bicycle rickshaw driver crossed 6 lanes of speeding traffic to make a right turn and everybody on the road just synched with him and fell back into their flow like there was no interruption at all.

My sense of smell alternates between the two extremes – the smell of freshly baked bread and Indian spices is often rudely interrupted by the smell of urine and then, a few steps further down the street I walk into a cloud of strong incense bringing yet another pungent aroma to my nostrils.




All that in just the first few hours and eight months to go!

Delhi seems like an incredible place, far from beautiful but enchanting in it’s own special way. It will have to wait for a more thorough examination though – we weren’t even supposed to be here right now but because of the airline pilots strike we couldn’t make it to our connecting flight. We only spent one rainy afternoon strolling around the city but we’ll be back. We’re off to Srinagar in a few hours where our adventure was originally set to begin.