Culture Shock!

That sums it up best I think. You see, I arrived in Delhi yesterday. Well, last night actually, at 3 am to be more precise. Some time ago, before making all my travelplans, I'd read a traveljournal of quite a while back, it was of a man who has visiting India for the first time in his life. A friend of his, an Indian, had said "once you arrive something will happen and you will know that you are in India". His friend was right.

Right in my situation too. Well not one event, but a series of them. So, there I was in the middle of the night: Delhi Airport. Our plane had touched down and we were making our way to our little plane parking spot. We came to a stop, doors opened, and there it was: a little bus... just big enough to carry what, 20 - 30 persons? This little bus had to shuttle everyone from our plane to the terminal; so some people could get out, enter the bus and then the others had to wait in the plane for the bus to come back again.

Not that I mattered whether you where in the first bus run or in the last, because it seems that the same bus was used to collect the luggage... or it was hand carried, I don't know.... but it was sloooowwwwww. One item on the belt, belt goes full circle, another item...

Then came to ride to the hotel, it was dark, no street lighting and there was a fog or a cloud of dust rather. Throughout the ride I saw people next to the road (the highway), some walking, some sitting down, some lighting a small fire. Entering the city you could see litter everywhere, it was dirty, real dirty, and as we turned the last corner to go to the hotel I could see a group of cows. Some where sleeping, others just wondering about.

As I lay my sleep weary head down to sleep I was really wondering what I had gotten myself into. I woke up at about 1 pm and I was still asking myself whether I should have bothered coming to this place I went outside and from my balcony I could see some huge bird of prey, some sort of modern pterodactyl, flying around over the rooftops, making its nest in the tree across from my balcony. I decided to go upstairs to the rooftop terrace. As I enjoyed my coffee, overlooking the city or rather the little street in front of me, I got view of a little bakery making naan bread. Next to that some people where drying red chili peppers. In the street there were backpackers looking lost, women where walking around in colourful garments, wearing bright sjawls, some men were transporting way too goods and packages on little bicycles and from time a huge cow walked by. It was something completely different then anything I'd seen so far. My worries started to go away, making place for excitement and a new urge to explore. I can sense some sort of love-hate relationship starting to form with this country...