First Steps

Nothing can really prepare you for what your senses experience when you hop off the plane at Gandhi airport, Delhi, and make your way in to the centre. All the pre-conceptions you had of the Indian megacity; the expectations; the pictures in your head... Completely wiped away and replaced with something real and right there in front of you. Something you could see, smell, hear, touch and eventually taste.

As we pull away from the arrivals hall in our classic Ambassador taxi cab, stereotypical, talkative and chubby driver included, I turn to Lise: “We’re here! We’re in India.” I can’t help but smile. The experience had begun.

There was however, no time for dwelling on this divine moment of delight – my life was about to end, right here, in the back of this Ambassador! My thoughts over the next 19 second were roughly as follows;

Man on a bike there! Watch that other taxi! Brake! The bus is going to squeeze us in to the wall and crush us! Steer right dammit! Another taxi! There’s too many motorbikes! Jesus, there’s a cow on the road! Moto-rickshaw! B rake you idiot! Shit, the old lady, lookout! There’s too many cars! You’re in two lanes! Another bicycle! Watch the...

...Is that a monkey!?

Repeat the above several times, and you have my first 20 minutes in the city of New Delhi.

It dawned on me – we were not in Kansas anymore (and Toto was that wild dog scavenging through a pile of rubbish with a goat on the side of the road). This was the big wide world you hear about!
It’s fair to say that our clinically insane (all be it normal by Indian standards) friend behind the wheel of the black and yellow saloon, did take us for a ride in more ways than one that evening. You see, despite reading up on all the scams and dodgy dealings beforehand in the Lonely Planet, it’s a different kettle of fish once you’re out there at their mercy. Without going in to details as to how it came to be (it was a long process of lying and scamming, almost impressive), in the end the hotel we slept at differed to the one we had booked online several weeks prior. A combination of rookie mistakes (like admitting it was our first time in India) and jet lag/tiredness, made resistance not worth the effort.
Luckily, it’s all part of the learning process when understanding local customs and how things work.

Delhi was our introduction to India, and unintentionally it became a sort of 2 day training course on the essential elements. I can’t say that I enjoyed my two days in the capital, but there is no denying that it was necessary to allow us to enjoy the rest of India as “Travellers in India”, not “Western Travellers in India”. I couldn’t wait to get in to Rajasthan.