Beijing to India-April 21-24/2011

Alrighty..so I survived my first flight over 5 hours, not going to lie..the jump from 5 to 11 hours is a big one, especially when you are the only person on a full flight of over 100 people with a broken tv!  At about hour 9 I started to panic pretty badly and did some yoga in the isle of the plane while bewildered Indian elders looked on..

At hours 10 through 11 I had my head between my legs throwing up a LOT of chana masala while a wonderful Chinese stewardess who spoke about 7 words in English took care of me.  The most memorable part of that last bit was when the wonderful stewardess took my hand in hers and sqeezed the crap out of a pressure point between my fingers.  I asked her if that was a way of reducing nausea and she said, "No, distract from belly with more pain"  haha awesome. And it worked!

Once in Beijing, China myself and two girls I met going on to Thailand went through customs together so we could leave for awhile as we all had a full day of layover ahead of us...might as well forget the plane ride with some amazing Chinese beer!  At customs I told the woman she could throw my water bottle out because I knew I couldn't take it, she said, "No no, it's ok" and threw it into my backpack as it went through the scanner.  On the otherside a man grabbed my water bottle and screamed at me, "NO WATER" and threw it half way across the room into a trash bin!  I looked back at the security woman who was smiling...I'll be back for her!

Once at a "restaurant" called, "Beer, burger, speghetti cafe" we ordered a round of beers and chilled out..it was wonderful!

After wandering around a little bit of Beijing for the day I went back to await my flight to Delhi praying that I would have better luck with my stomach and maybe sleep away the 7 hour flight!  I did pretty good, I slept about 5 hours and didn't throw up on anyone!!!

Once in Delhi a wonderful driver from Intrepid tours named Raj Singh picked me up and showed me some of the sites on the way to my hotel.  He showed me his house where his two little boys and wife were asleep (it was 4:30am) and the school where his 9 year old attends school.  We chatted lots about Bollywood films and he was surpised at my knowledge of all the actors and films but had a good laugh at my Hindi :-(  Apparently all the Indians in Vancouver are either lying to me about how well spoken I am or they have never been to India and heard locals speak! 

At the hotel Raj gave me his phone number so I could call him at the end of the trip and tell him if I still had strong feelings for India and it's culture after experiencing it first hand, he thinks I will fall more in love with it, I agree!

At the hotel, I learned that my friend Sarah, who was suppose to meet me in India from her travels in Nepal, had gone to the airport to find me...whoops!  The airport is a solid hour from our hotel and a VERY scary ride!  Lots of driving all over the roads, no real rules and lots of honking!  I was so worried about her and had no way of calling her to get her to come back.  One of the tours that was just ending took me out for breakfast while I was waiting and told me about the adventures I'll soon have...they could not tell me enough how beautiful, terrifying and life changing the trip was for them...I can't wait!!!!

Finally Sarah found me having breakfast with my new friends, we both screamed and ran for each other, the whole tour cheered that Sarah came back in one piece (I wouldn't stop talking about how worried I was or stop starring at the door)...I found it very cute of them and Sarah found it very confusing..lol.

Sarah and I took a walk through the streets of Delhi because our tour isn't meeting until 6pm tonight and she was bored.  I was content to sit around in my underwear watching Oprah with subtitles but Sarah has a much more adventursome spirit so off we went!  HOLY SHIT..pardon my french.  Mass chaos!  Men everywhere screaming to us to take their rickshaw into downtown square, men and children starring at us like they have never seen anything quite so bizarre as us before (I like to think they were starring at Sarah's insane rash from the spider that slept with her two nights ago but...;-)  We worked our way through some of the most broken, dirty, old streets and building I have ever seen, you can't truly understand this world until you see it.  Finally we stopped for a glass bottle of coke at a street vendor who made us sit on the bench beside him before he will give us the cokes, this is because he wants the bottles back afterward! ha!  In return he provides some respite from the non stop harrassment we are getting from rickshaws by telling them to go away while we are drinking his pop..the minute we are done I dragged Sarah back through the streets to our hotel, sweaty and a little stressed out.  Once inside, the people from the tour that just ended have a laugh at my face when we get back in, "How was that little taste of India for you? hahaha"  Very funny, I'm sure!

I'm happily back to being almost naked in my hotel room after enjoying curry and paneer with a mango lassi, nap time!!

Peace!