India 2

So hello from Bangkok again. Let's rewind back to India for awhile. I'm sitting at an Internet Terminal by the Hotel while Mel gets her 1 hour Thai Massage for 300bhat ~ 8Cdn Loonies. Also, my second toe on the right foot got infected on one of the blisters (scabs) I had from my climb, my guess is it happened in India.. anyway..the story involves extreme pain, a needle between the toes to get a local anesthetic..and some other gross stuff, so I'll spare you the details, I have some pics..but I think I'll spare you that as well.

Anyway, it looks like my toe is not going to fall off and the infection is receding..cause hey I can walk again, and Mel has helped nurse it back to health and is being stringent so it doesn't get infected again...anyway..

Sooo India.

Well first of all, of all our destinations it is the one that we spent the least amount of time in. Mostly because I really wanted to do a full India trip in the future and knew that is a 4-6 week kinda thing. We ended up with 4 days in India mostly because it was a stop over anyway, so we decided to get a bit of a taste. So we chose to stay in the Delhi area, mostly because of it's close proximity to Agra and it's famous Taj Mahal.

Fist of I think we can now crown (although it's still a bit early) the worst Airline we've ever flown....drum roll please.....AIR INDIA!!!!!!!! although American Airlines (or maybe Air Zimbabwe because of the unpredictable fuel shortages) is a close second :). Air India.. the staff are cranky, plane is smelly, bathrooms are not clean (we think since the plane was inaugurated), always delayed, counters never open on time, same food on all 3 flights we took, etc...

So our trip to India started off with delays.. although the plane was on time by Indian Standard Time standards. Basically we had a long travel day from the start. We flew from Kilimajaro Airport to Nairobi, Nairobi to Mumbai and then Mumbai to Delhi. The flight leaving Nairobi was delayed 4 hours (Air India said there were problems leaving Mumbai and so the plane was late), that made us miss the connector from Mumbai to Delhi which almost half the aircraft was on. So we were stuck in Mumbai from 3am to 1:30pm. But just before boarding time, after we were at the gate there were some "Mechanical Troubles"..which delayed us further. So we can shake stuff like that off no problem. But it became quickly apparent that in India your guard has to be way up all the time, everyone we interacted with tried to scam us..fake politley..but scam none the less. I think our guide from the Taj Mahal summed it up perfectly. He said "In india we can and do do everything that the west does, we just don't do anything 100%, everything is about 60%..SOMETIMES WE GET CLOSE TO 80%..BUT NEVER A 100%"..that's about right. We never encountered anything in India that made us say..wow that was amazing...although the Taj was amazing...Agra and the experience of getting to the Taj was a mini adventure.

We hired a car for 3 days to take us from Delhi, to Jaipur and then to Agra and finally back to the Airport. We had a portly quiet driver named Deepak who spoke very little, but a nice man regardless who came alive with conversation near the airport as he realized he should probably start working the tip :)

Some things we observed
-India is the dirtiest place we've ever been to (OK 1.2 billion people can't all be made to use garbages, especially since 700 million or so are utterly poor)
-The povery in India is in your face, and you sadly start blocking it out, it's also amazingly sad, although the poor are fairly adept at the scams here..I guess you have to be
-Monkeys and Cows roam the streets freely(They are considered Holy) and play a central role in the government sponsored garbage cleanup program (by eating/ playing with/ sleeping in the garbage)
-Everyone tries to bud in line..EVERYONE! Lines are the most chaotic things in India. Old ladies are the worst, they act as if nothing is going on and then get mad at you when you point it out. In Jaipur we witnessed a large older lady try to bud in front of the line and got heckled to the back..she moved 1 spot back :) At the Delhi Airport, people were RUNNING to get in front of other people when counters started to open up. It was funny yet at the same time, maddening. If you would like a taste of this in Toronto, visit the Indian Consulate, there where all the tourists take a number a good number of people keep budding and pleading their case for why they should bud. I was even approached by a budder to give up my number since his aunt (who was eating an Ice Cream cone 2 seats up) was very sick..yah..
-Public Urination is very common. The first time I saw this a man in a crowded street in Jaipur started peeing on the city palace..we were in a car 5 feet away from him on a busy street, no one batted an eye. Since that point I started counting, I saw over 25 men from the city to the country peeing within 20 feet of a road. I also (unfortunately) saw 5 instances of people going #2..nuts hunh! Notice Picture below with highlighted rectangle.
-The Taj Mahal is a diamond in the rough..Agra is one of the dirtiest places ever..and then there is the Taj with it's magnificent beauty. I'm surprised with the number of tourists (over 5000-6000 per day) that visit because of the Taj there aren't enough funds to clean up at least the areas around the Taj?!

Anyway, not sure if maybe it was us or India..but we walked away from India thinking we should probably see some other parts of the world first...India has moved down the must-see countries sadly..I dunno, I'll ponder this longer, let you know what I come up with!

OK so the pics
1)Man peeing in Delhi
2)Delhi
3)View from our Delhi hotel room
4)A group of buffalo budding into line at the entrance of the Taj, one Bull actually chased a tourist who ran off screaming..wish I had a pic of that!
5)Us at the Taj in Agra
6)Open Engine farm trucks carrying various grains and produce
7)The floating palace in Jaipur