You are just another one of those murderers from the moon colony.
Hello to all once again!
i would like to report that Bettina and i are now safely in Thailand after 10 days in India, an wow it was quite the experience.
Before i left LA Jill one of my friends who had lived in India,told me "You will feel like you are on a 24 hour acid trip, I felt this way even though I had never tried the drug. There will be so many people, so many different smells and sounds, and so many bright beautiful colors from the womens' saris. You will love it"
Well Jill was absolutely right. The first few days were a little overwhelming! It was crowed everywhere!!! The streets were crazy anyone or anything can go on them. On our taxi ride from the airport i was terrified we were going to kill a cyclist,a pedestrian or a cow. It all seemed so crazy.
Our first few days in Bombay B and i laid low, because the 4 1/2 hour time change from Capetown was killing us. (i still have not figured out why India is 1/2 hour different from the rest of the world!) Our hotel was right off the main shopping street, so to go anywhere we had to walk by the hundreds of little shops. After the first few days we got use to people shoving merchandise in our face and learned to ignore the yells and request to BUY BUY BUY. We also both got really good at bargaining. (non-confrontational Bettina really surprised me)
The one thing that was really hard to ignore were all the beggars, not because there were so many, but because most of them were children. Many of the locals told us not to give them money, because it encourages them to beg. This was really had for us, so we carried massive amounts of candy in our purses and handed it out to the kids.
At night we would escape back to our hotel room and fall asleep to bad American movies that never hit the big screen. We definitely gleaned a lot of good quotes from these films, hence the title of my email. :o)
Before we knew it it was time to head to Delhi. We had to fight at the airport to cary our own bags because everyone wanted a tip. We learned the louder we got the more people stayed away.
Delhi seemed very different from Bombay. Defiantly a lot more random cows and a lot fewer homeless. Once again our hotel was off the main bizarre so we had to walk through the markets to go anywhere. On our first day we made friends with a kid name Bahti, who was an English major at the local university. He taught us to very important words "bas" (enough) and "chello" (go) this made walking through the markets much easier. No matter how hard i tried not to, i still bought way too much stuff.
Another thing we learned right away is it is impossible to walk any where, with out getting pushed shoved or hit by a vehicle. So you have to hop in an auto rickshaw (weird little scooter thing) to get where you want to go. Once again we used our stellar bargaining skills to get the right price. We also learned we could get free rides if we let the driver take us to shops. It was a win win situation. The driver would either get free petrol or gifts from the shop and we would get a free ride. We were never obligated to buy anything and we learned it was a great way to see the city.
We took a few days break from shopping and did some sight seeing too. We hopped a bus to Agora one day to see the Taj Mahal. It was amazing and we were rushing around to see as much as possible. Then all of the sudden an Indian man stopped us and said "My wife and baby would like a picture, please." We said sure thinking he wanted us to TAKE the picture. Boy, where we wrong they wanted us in their professional picture in front of the Taj Mahal. All of the sudden we became the attraction, forget the amazing historic architecture behind us! 5 different tour groups asked for pictures with us. We posed for hundreds of pictures it was hilarious!
Another amazing thing we did was head to the Bahi temple. We made it just before sunset and i got tons of amazing pictures. Inside the temple there was a quote that i just loved "Men and women are like the wings of a bird. If one is repressed the bird cannot fly"
My favorite stop in all of India was the Mahatma Gandhi museum. The lonely planet book said there was not much there, but i was thoroughly impressed. The whole place was photos all in chronological order telling the story of his life. i think that is the first time i have read every plaque in a museum.
So in the end India was wonderful and completely different from what i consider normal. i was stressed in the beginning, but very sad to leave in the end. i totally want to go back and spend more time there!
B and i are about to head off for a massage, we fell we deserve one after all the pushing and shoving of India!
Miss you all!
~meg
i would like to report that Bettina and i are now safely in Thailand after 10 days in India, an wow it was quite the experience.
Before i left LA Jill one of my friends who had lived in India,told me "You will feel like you are on a 24 hour acid trip, I felt this way even though I had never tried the drug. There will be so many people, so many different smells and sounds, and so many bright beautiful colors from the womens' saris. You will love it"
Well Jill was absolutely right. The first few days were a little overwhelming! It was crowed everywhere!!! The streets were crazy anyone or anything can go on them. On our taxi ride from the airport i was terrified we were going to kill a cyclist,a pedestrian or a cow. It all seemed so crazy.
Our first few days in Bombay B and i laid low, because the 4 1/2 hour time change from Capetown was killing us. (i still have not figured out why India is 1/2 hour different from the rest of the world!) Our hotel was right off the main shopping street, so to go anywhere we had to walk by the hundreds of little shops. After the first few days we got use to people shoving merchandise in our face and learned to ignore the yells and request to BUY BUY BUY. We also both got really good at bargaining. (non-confrontational Bettina really surprised me)
The one thing that was really hard to ignore were all the beggars, not because there were so many, but because most of them were children. Many of the locals told us not to give them money, because it encourages them to beg. This was really had for us, so we carried massive amounts of candy in our purses and handed it out to the kids.
At night we would escape back to our hotel room and fall asleep to bad American movies that never hit the big screen. We definitely gleaned a lot of good quotes from these films, hence the title of my email. :o)
Before we knew it it was time to head to Delhi. We had to fight at the airport to cary our own bags because everyone wanted a tip. We learned the louder we got the more people stayed away.
Delhi seemed very different from Bombay. Defiantly a lot more random cows and a lot fewer homeless. Once again our hotel was off the main bizarre so we had to walk through the markets to go anywhere. On our first day we made friends with a kid name Bahti, who was an English major at the local university. He taught us to very important words "bas" (enough) and "chello" (go) this made walking through the markets much easier. No matter how hard i tried not to, i still bought way too much stuff.
Another thing we learned right away is it is impossible to walk any where, with out getting pushed shoved or hit by a vehicle. So you have to hop in an auto rickshaw (weird little scooter thing) to get where you want to go. Once again we used our stellar bargaining skills to get the right price. We also learned we could get free rides if we let the driver take us to shops. It was a win win situation. The driver would either get free petrol or gifts from the shop and we would get a free ride. We were never obligated to buy anything and we learned it was a great way to see the city.
We took a few days break from shopping and did some sight seeing too. We hopped a bus to Agora one day to see the Taj Mahal. It was amazing and we were rushing around to see as much as possible. Then all of the sudden an Indian man stopped us and said "My wife and baby would like a picture, please." We said sure thinking he wanted us to TAKE the picture. Boy, where we wrong they wanted us in their professional picture in front of the Taj Mahal. All of the sudden we became the attraction, forget the amazing historic architecture behind us! 5 different tour groups asked for pictures with us. We posed for hundreds of pictures it was hilarious!
Another amazing thing we did was head to the Bahi temple. We made it just before sunset and i got tons of amazing pictures. Inside the temple there was a quote that i just loved "Men and women are like the wings of a bird. If one is repressed the bird cannot fly"
My favorite stop in all of India was the Mahatma Gandhi museum. The lonely planet book said there was not much there, but i was thoroughly impressed. The whole place was photos all in chronological order telling the story of his life. i think that is the first time i have read every plaque in a museum.
So in the end India was wonderful and completely different from what i consider normal. i was stressed in the beginning, but very sad to leave in the end. i totally want to go back and spend more time there!
B and i are about to head off for a massage, we fell we deserve one after all the pushing and shoving of India!
Miss you all!
~meg