We have arrived in India and I can honestly say the country is unlike anywhere else in the world I have travelled.
We are at the end of our second week in Northern India and it feels like we have been here far longer!
I haven’t caught up completely with the blog, so below is my summary of week one.
Entry into India
We landed in New Delhi late at night. The hotel gave us very specific instructions on which exit to use in order to avoid scammers pretending to be from the hotel. They even provided a password to exchange with the driver to make sure he was the real deal!
On our flight over to India we realised that the outward flight we had booked to Mauritius was 1 day past our 30 day India e-tourist visa. It was a silly and expensive rookie mistake that we won’t make again! After experiencing huge delays getting through customs in Thailand (over 2 hours of chaos) we were pleasantly surprised with the short queues and friendly Immigration staff in India.
After agonizing over how to approach the visa issue with Immigration, Matt bravely broached the topic as the officer was stamping our passports. The Immigration Officer was very helpful and even suggested waiting to enter until after midnight.
However we were in a no-win situation as we were entering India on the last day our visa entry was valid.. Matt suggested he might give us an extra 2 days on our visa, but unfortunately it was not to be. So we would have to change our flights to Mauritius.
First stop – New Delhi
As we left the airport, the city descended on us. The only way I can describe it is gritty, dusty, chaotic and wildly noisy. Small run down mini vans, trucks and auto rickshaws hurtled down the road surrounded by an eerie orange haze.
Our hotel for the night was Hotel Amax, tucked away in the Paharganj area of Old Delhi off Arakashan Road. Our driver weaved his van through tiny little alleyways littered with rubbish and the occasional cow that were thankfully uncongested due to the lateness of our arrival. We fell into bed after 1am and lay listening to the horns tooting, the dogs howling and wondered what we would wake up to in the morning!
The country really is an assault on the senses. Noisier than any country I have visited. Stunning colours everywhere – the red earth, the women dressed in sarees every colour of the rainbow. Smells ranging from the foul to the gorgeous scent of aniseed and sugar offered after a meal. The food is amazing.
We have so far stuck to vegetarian fare and have eaten everywhere from highway shacks to street vendors to restaurants and hotels. The country is hot, dusty, dirty and busy day and night.
The people are very friendly, but in a week we are already more suspicious of the friendliness. It is too often the precursor to a request for something – money, a visit to their shop, guiding services.
I am trying to keep an open mind but the hustling is relentless and draining. It is very difficult to separate the scammers from the genuine article and I am quickly becoming disenchanted.
The good news is the kids are extremely popular with adults and kids alike. We haven’t come across many other families travelling so they are a bit of a novelty to the locals! Everyone wants to shake our son’s hand and many people have asked for their photo with them. The kids are learning that everything is up for negotiation (unfortunately with us as well as the locals!) and they are getting better at haggling down the prices in the bazaar.
Orcha Homestay
After a quick look around the sights of New Delhi we decided to leave the city. There are a lot of different options for travel in India, but we decided to hire a driver to get us to Orcha as the trains were fully booked and we weren’t keen on the bus.
In Orcha we had arranged a 3 night stay through Orcha Homestay. This is a great initiative where visitors stay with local families in the small village of Ganj just outside Orcha. The host family receives all money from the meals purchased and a portion of the accommodation fee. It provides the local villagers with some much needed income and the visitors with a unique experience in India.
The family we stayed with had three children, aged 15, 12 and 8. The kids were over the moon to have some other kids to play with and our son quickly suggested a game of cricket!
Each day the grandmother cooked breakfast for us, we would venture off to explore the town and the temples then we were back for some backyard cricket with the boys and the cow. The kids got good at rescuing the ball from under the cow and tried hard to work out the rules of the local game of tiggy!
We ate dinner with the family each night and slept in a cozy mud hut in the family compound. It was a fantastic experience and we were really glad to have had the opportunity to go.