INDIA BLOG 1!!! From the eyes of Roley.

July 27, 2008

Hello everyone!!!

I finally have access to a computer after 3 days! Turns out the hotel did have computer; we just assumed it was out of service since it was all covered up and off -_-;;.

Anyways!! Things have gone well soo far on this trip!

Let me begin with the plane ride. To get here, I took a ride from Winnipeg to Toronto, then Belgium, the to delhi. In Toronto, didn’t see much… except that they charged like3 bucks for a bottle of diet pepsi (Father creamer, if you don’t know him already, Is a big fan of diet pepsi/coke =P). Nothing special really happened here except that we went around for a bit looking for a cibc bank which was near impossible to find). When we got back to the airport for our flight and boarded “jet air ways,” man was I in for a surprise! In econiomy, we had like people giving us free candy, all te movies we could watch (saw 21, vantage point, and this funny comedy from hong kong called “Playboy Cop” (don’t get any ideas!). When I got bored, or needed a break, the videogame system was available.. sweet!! The food was good too; except that being at the back of the plane left me with the left overs. But! I’m still a big fan of airplane food =). The flight attendedants were very courteous and always had as mile on my face…and the jazz music playing in the bg was awesome =). Oh an not to mention complementary alcoholic beverages… ;). My only concern were the seat, they weren’t really confortable… ughhhhh. Sleeping was sooo difficult!

When we got to Belgium, I was blown away by to things: the amount of people in line, and the ridiculous prices on the chocolates. I know Belgium chocolates is good BUT when a box can cost you 50+ euros (almost 100 dollars Canadian) I almost cried! Maybe I’d buy these chocolates… if they cured cancer or something =). But then again… they are chocolate… and I liiike chocolate XD.

The transfer from Belgium to dehli was really smoothe; no problems here!

Once in dehli, holy crap, I felt like I was in a sauna. Having visited te Philippines, iknow that it gets humid upon exiting the airplane… but this was just toomuch! It was like… walking into a lockerroom with no ventilation with the thermostats placed at a thousand, elevendy-billion! XD. Wow.

The people we met were super friendly, but this guy kept fllowing me and want to carry my luggage. I kept telling him that I was fine but he kep insisiting; I don’t think I look “that” weak =/. Hahaha. The ride in our jeep was just ridiculous… you have to drive tooo close to one another. If the road is 3 lanes wide, you can fit 8.

Upon finally arriving to he hotel (with barely any sleep btw) we ended u sleeping our first day through… we got up at like4 in the afternoon. We decided to walk around and these are a few things I noticed:
- crossing traffic is like playing frogger
- when they honk at you, its not because their mad, but because they want to pass you… or that your going to get hit.
- Christian (my 6’6’’ tall friend) is really, REALLY TALL
- Almost everyone here wears western clothing and especially dresshirts for the guys.
- Watch your pockets because you don’t know who watching
- Oh, and that the servers constanly ask Christian, father creamer and I if we wanted beer… not that I didn’t want any XD.hehehe.

After walking around, we went for supper at this Chinese restaurant… although I did not see a single Chinese person at all! I don’t know if it was the water or the the food, but mannnn did I have a bad stomach ache (THANKS FOR THE TOILET PAPER MILCAH!).

When we got back, we decided to get back to sleep… again… hahaha talk about jetlag. Who knows, maybe I’ll get taller by the end of this trip XD.

That concluded day 1, pretty much.

The next day consisted of more exploring!! Still jet lagged, Christian and I got up at 5 in the morning to go exploring! The city is absolutely quiet!! In about 1 and a half hours, however, the honking, the yelling would resume. After breakfast, father creamer taught Christian and I how to tak the metro… ohhh yeah, I getting pro =P. we took the metro all the way to what looked like st peters square, except you’d have to replace all the statues with brand names shops.. I swear… wowwwwww. One of the most interexting set ups I have seen! =).

While we were wondering around, people kept walking up to us, wanting to give us advice and just talking. This is what I learned
- they keep following you and show you places where to buy things because they get a cut of whatever you buy
- if you don’t go where to buy things, they’ll keep talking to you.. then charge you for all te info they shared!

Ohhh man, this kind of ruined part of the adventure… until Christian came up wit the bright idea aobut talking French! It happened thus:
… while we were walking, this guy was trying to bring us to emporiums where we could buy lots of souvenirs; after 15 mins (which, I m sure, is underchanging how long he wasw walking with us) he said, do you speak French. Christians eyes began to glow a mischievous yellow colour and a smirk crept up his face (note: this is exaggerating for the sake of making this interesting XD). At that point, Christian began to speak his French. This guy then started to speak French… which consisted of two phrases of hello, and comme ci comme ca. At this point, no more engish was spoken. The guy then asked what language I spoke.. chrstian, told them I spoke Russian…. O_O. hahhaa oh dear… and with that, the guy left! From that moment on. We’ve bbeen able to minimize our encounters by a lot =).

Once the guy left, we went to te templeof “Hanuman: the monkey god.” The tasxi said: you know how America has superman, and spiderman? Well.. we have hanuman!!” XD. That was awesome. But I digress, this temple is defintley one of the most reverent places I’ve been too. We had to first take off our shoes and walk up the stairs to get the inned atrium. To our left, this man was kissing each step as he walke dup the stair case. Inside people prayed infront of any god they felt would help them the most. What I thought was interesting were te bells infront of each god; apparently, the diea is being seen by the god sooo to insue it, wake the god up!! In one of the rooms was a “shrine for shiva” with a linga under it. People at all sides were pouring water on it or placing flowers all around. I really wanted to take a picture… but it felt sooo rude to do soo… I really do think prayer is energy; in this case, this placed was fully charged.

After leaving the temple and hours of walking around in the heat… we learned a very important lesson: stroes don’t open until 11! Christian and I were soo excited that we had to wait more than an hour before we could check out the deals. We decided to wait at mc donalds until the sotres opened and this was what I saw andt thought:
- the mc chicken looks like a mutated chicken nugget
- there were no bigmacs… unless you want to try the “maharaja mac” which isn’t that bad XD.
- Mc d’s is sooooooo upscaled over here!
And with that we went home… and returned to the mall (connaught place) around 7 pm XD.

The next day consisted of pretty much the same thing. Except that we went to church. This is how I can describe mass:
- they have fans like in fillip[ino churches but instead of having multiple fans, you replace them 3 with 1 gigantic, airplace blade.
- The music is similar to that of st. ignatious at some points
- The building was in the form of a basilica! Absolutely beautiful
- Everyone was very reverent and very serious.. I liked it =)

After church, chrsitian and I did some more shopping…lol a t this market the taxi deriver showed us markets beneath connaught place. Its crazy because he said when you haggle, you can get them to remove up to 75% of the asking value.. woowwwww.

When we got home, we went to the airport to pick up the remaining adventurers… were up until2 waiting… tiiiired -_-;;.

Welps! This all that came to my mind this morning, at 8:25 am. Today we’re heading off to the “hindu Disney land.” Oh man, Im sooo stoked!! Anyways, sorry for SUCH a long entry!! I ahd to make up for lost time! Take care everyone!!! Namaste! (hello and goodbye in hindi).

-roley