India

Sorry, due to super slow internet no pictures yet....

How do you describe your first impressions of India in a page, or even in a few..... impossible... but let me start by telling a few stories from the first few days....

It started all at the check in in Dubai airport where a large bo-ing needed to be boarded with a few hundred indians. Although we all are going to be on the same plane, it is extremely important that you board ahead of the others, trying to pass them in every possible way. I think it is still way of the indians to rebell their previous english possesors with their nice and tidy queues.

Then the traffic, without any rules. The only things you need: good horn, good brakes, good luck.... The big roads can contain up to 5 lanes if side mirrors just hit each other. Where the lanes exactly are, varies from moment to moment, as no-one drives straight. You can overtake on any side, at any speed, as long as you press your horn long and loud. At one moment my taxi driver got caught into a traffic jam, and in this five lane jam, he simply reversed out, a few hundred meters back on the wrong side of the road, into a different one. No-one will let you in if coming from a side street, so you simply just push forwards and the others will brake vigerously.... and probably use their horn....

I think in a country with so many people, they are just not used to personal space or privacy. Even in the train strangers come and sit on your bed ( preferable on your feet while you are asleep) while they must have booked their own. 

Delhi is overcasted in an immense veil of smog, which also give it a bit of a fairy tale experience, especially when a beautiful temple suddenly appears. 

After an hour of crazy driving, I reached Rohans parents house, where I met Rohans parents and his sister Ashima, and where Natalai, Andrei and Rohan already arrived a few days earlier. As I hadn't slept yet in the plane, I first needed to crash for a bit. After my sleep I ate the mjammiest parata, a potato pancake filled with spices and vegetables. Then Natalia and Andrei and me went to an extremely beautiful temple, with a name close to " Amsterdam" but with a lot of extra letters I forgat. You are not allowed to bring anything with you, except your wallet. The rest is ina cloakroom at your own risk. Andrei didn't want to take that risk with his cell phone, so he stayed behind. But the temple was absolutely amazing! The pillars were full of carved elephants and other signs of worshipped creatures. The temple was bright and full of hindu gods and goddesses. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take our camera's, so only mindpictures were taken....

The following day we slept in, before we went to Hauz Khaz, a complex of buildings made by Sultan Tughluq in 1352. The complex exsist if several tombs, situated around a very green small lake. There were some monkeys playing on the old walls, making it all a bit surrealistic. We wanted to take a shortcut by jumping of a wall, but unfortunately Natalia landed wrongly and badly hurt both feet. That restricted us from doing much more than having cocktails on a nice roof terras :) That evening, after a delicious dinner that made us want to kidnap Rohans mum, all the girls were treated with henna for the wedding.