Next Chapter: India - Delhi - Agra / Taj Mahal

Back again...the best blog in the world is about India and Sri Lanka this time.

3 weeks here, 3 weeks there, that's the plan.

One week has almost passed and I feel compelled to write a few words.

On Tuesday, 13.02.19, my flight from Berlin to New Delhi, with a layover in Kiev, took off. In Kiev, after a 3-hour wait for the connecting flight, there was another 2-hour wait on the plane because the wings had to be de-iced.

After that, everything went smoothly and I arrived in Delhi on Wednesday morning with a slight delay.

My plan of easily buying an Indian SIM card and navigating through the city like a local with mobile internet didn't quite work out.

I did manage to get a SIM card though (around 10 euros for 90 days with 1.5GB per day), but it took 24 hours to activate.

So, I was left without internet, feeling as helpless as any other tourist, and tried to find my way to my accommodation using public transport.

After asking around a lot, I eventually arrived at the right station and after a lot of pointless wandering, I found my accommodation.

The first impressions were quite intense. I've seen a few big cities before, but Delhi was something else...the traffic, the smog, people and animals everywhere, and dirt...definitely on another level. Compared to Bangkok or Saigon, it was even more intense.

Anyway, I spent my days in Delhi quite well, visiting all the tourist attractions in Delhi by taxi, tuk-tuks, or ordered taxis (Uber, Ola), and that was enough for me.

Regarding food, there were a few delicacies, although when ordering, I usually never know what I will end up with. I mostly avoided the street food stalls. Simply because most of them are located on the side of the road, and the food gets covered in dust and smog. But I did have a few kebabs, samosas, and momos from the street food stalls. Otherwise, the restaurants here are affordable and delicious. You can even get used to a vegetarian diet here because it's incredibly tasty (my current favorite: some paneer dish with veg biryani, which is something with cottage cheese and vegetable rice).

Delhi didn't become my favorite, and I quickly moved on to Agra by train to see the Taj Mahal (around 200km/3.5 hours by train).

There wasn't much going on there, but I had a top-notch accommodation with a rooftop for sports and great hosts (Indian Homestay).

I was mostly accompanied by Chinese people. I had already met Hui in the hostel in Delhi, and we traveled together on the train to Agra. Jack was my roommate in Agra, and the rest of the place was also full of Chinese people.

The Taj Mahal was okay...quite interesting and impressive, but unfortunately, it was already crowded with people at 7 in the morning, and almost everywhere where there were good spots for photography, they were closed off. I wasn't even allowed to bring my small tripod inside, so there are what feels like millions of other people jumping around in all my pictures.

In general, at every tourist attraction in India, you have to go through some pseudo-security checks. Mostly just waved through without anyone even looking at you, but sometimes you have to surrender your tripod, phone, camera, and so on. In Delhi, I even had to hand over my TAN generator for online banking and my camera battery...

Anyway... the Taj Mahal was nice, Agra was a bit more relaxed, so I ended up staying for two days.

After that, I was supposed to go east...but since my bus was delayed for 2 hours, then 3 hours, and ultimately even longer, I canceled it and took an overnight bus towards Jodhpur in Rajasthan, i.e., heading west.

More about that soon...bye!