three Days, a million Impressions

Ok, so I am in India, about 7000 km away from home. And in these past 2 days I have seen and experienced so many wonderful, strange, new and extreme things that it is hard to organize everything in my head and put it on digital paper. The best thing is probably to start at the beginning and just go from there…

After a full week of partying, preparing, saying goodbye and not to forget, New Year’s Eve (which ended at around 6.30 in the morning instead of 1 AM which was the original plan), I was saying goodbye to my family at Schiphol Airport  on a Sunday morning, too tired to even realize what I was about to do. My first flight (11.40 AM) was to Helsinki in which I slept almost the entire time. There I had to spend about 5 hours, walking around a bit and eating way too expensive airport sandwiches, before I could board on my connecting flight to Delhi. After having dinner on the plane and watching Dinner for Schmucks, a baby on the plane decided it was afraid of flying just when I was ready to catch some sleep. It was then when I decided I hate babies. Finally, after a 7 or 8 hour flight (including 2 hours of sleep) I arrived at Delhi International Airport at Monday 7 AM, (2.30 at night Dutchy Time). A bit afraid of going outside where about 100 taxi drivers were eagerly waiting for Mr. Tourist, I had some Indian airport food first which was of course spicy, but no steam was coming out of my ears like I expected. Feeling rich after taking 5000 rupees out of the ATM, I looked for a taxi to bring me to New Delhi Railway Station, where my Lonely Planet travel guide (my bible for the next 3 months) advised me to go the International Tourist Bureau to buy a train ticket to my destination for that day: Chandigarh. That’s because in unofficial ticket offices they would overcharge me or sell me fake tickets. The first Indian guy I met said the Bureau was closed that day. Such bad luck! But he knew another Tourist Bureau that happened to be open and he was happy to bring me there. “Ok man, nice to meet you but you’re full of shit”, is what I thought but of course didn’t say. Finally I got into another taxi. The driver didn’t try to fool me but I was still very cautious. First things I noticed on the road: Army guy with a machine gun aiming on the traffic apparently looking for terrorists of some sort, people just standing on the side of the road doing absolutely nothing, a lot of honking and... ULTIMATE CHAOS! Bikes, cars, buses, bicycle rikshaws, taxis, tuk-tuk’s, all on the same highway passing each other left or right, cutting each other off, and suddenly in a matter of seconds: traffic jam. So my taxi driver obviously used the sidewalk and after a while decided to go into a shop to buy something and leave me behind for about 20 minutes. Makes perfect sense right?

Ok, so finally arrived at the station with literally thousands of people roaming around. Knowing that the Tourist Bureau was somewhere in the station, but not knowing where exactly, made me the perfect target. Suddenly a lot of people wanted to help me(!). I got send to many different directions and saw different (tourist) ticket offices but none of them seemed very official. I entered one so I could sit down and take a quick look in my travel Bible. It said that the Tourist Bureau I had to go to is situated in the main building of the station. Apparently I had already been close but the closer I got the more ‘helpful Indians’ send me in a wrong direction. That’s when I marched down to the main building, ignoring the people following me and wanting to ‘help’ me and eventually found what I was looking for. It was around 11 AM and I got a ticket for the train of 5.15 PM. So I had a lot of time to kill. With the help of my Bible I decided to go to a restaurant downtown. I took a bicycle rikshaw operated by an old skinny man with the leg power of a horse. He was very friendly and working incredibly hard to get me to my restaurant. The ride itself was crazy and chaotic. Some of the streets were so incredibly crowded! Almost impossible to go through and so many people all around us! Hundreds of Indians were constantly staring at me which made me feel quite uncomfortable and I decided not to use my camera yet, afraid of insulting people. The friendly old man dropped me off and after having my second Indian meal without any problems I decided to go back to the station as soon as possible, the streets were just too hectic for me and my luggage. Once on the platform in the station, so away from all the annoying people I met before, I met the real Indian people as I hoped they would be. I had some great conversations with just random Indians. One of them was an air force commander in the Indian army who was carrying a little baby girl in his arms. She blew a kiss in my direction. Very sweet! So now I love babies again(!) Another conversation was with an older Indian guy, around 50 years I think, and we talked about Indian politics. He also asked for my age. When I told him I was 23 years old, he started smiling in a funny way and said his daughter is of the same age. His facial expressions suggested an arranged marriage and I was very flattered. Our ways separated once the train came but immediately another super friendly guy started talking to me, Yogen, who became my travel buddy for the 4 hour trip to Chandigarh. We talked about a lot of different things and also met a very intelligent 10 year old girl who was reading a book about Anne Frank. When I told her I was Dutch she couldn’t be happier! She also loved languages so when I arrived at my destination we said goodbye in Hindi, Dutch, Spanish and French. Amazing!

Once in Chandigarh, I was picked up by my AIESEC contact Harmeet together with his brother Jasmeet, two proud Punjabi’s. Being really tired from travelling, all these new impressions and the lack of sleep, the only thing I was looking for was a bed. But they gave me such a warm welcome and such a nice meal cooked by their equally friendly mother that they pulled me through the evening. After dinner I touched the bed and got into a small coma. After a good night sleep, me and Harmeet had a big day planned and I also met his father. Guess what, also very friendly!  After a good breakfast Harmeet took me on the scooter to visit some of Chandigarh’s finest spots: Rock Garden (Artwork made from industrial and urban waste, beautiful!) and the Lake. During the day we met some of his (AIESEC) friends and everybody was really nice to me. This was a good start. However, we also passed some slums which was quite a shock. Makes you think about this sometimes unfair world… Still, Chandigarh is a good city to live in, much more organized than Delhi for instance. And deep down inside I’m still Dutch; the more organized the better!

Back ‘home’ at my host family I went to check Facebook for a minute and saw a whole lot of messages from friends around the world wishing me all the best and a bunch of friendship requests from the Indian people I met earlier. That really made my day. And then it became even better; Harmeet made me wear an orange turban! The best Dutch-Indian combination there is! In my opinion I look pretty good with a turban… We made some family pics followed by yet another delicious dinner. We had some nice conversations about the difference between Indian and Dutch culture followed by some Punjabi history. Another good day had ended.

I’m actually writing this late in the evening on the next day (Wednesday), of which I also have a lot to tell about. But I realize this story is already quite long and only covers 3 days so let’s stop here for the moment. And the real reason is that I’m tired and want to go to bed. I will try to update you guys again in the weekend, ok?

Houdoe

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard