India - here and gone

"Can we please go on vacation to Ober St. Veit next year?", Roby wished for a while now. For all non-Viennese people: we live in a suburban district that consists of many former villages that were eventually incorporated into Vienna and grew together. Our "village" is Hietzing, two "villages" further is the upscale residential area Ober St. Veit, which can be reached in a good quarter of an hour on foot.

It was right and good that we went to India. We visited things that we liked, and we had other sights on the list that confirmed to us that we don't care much about many things that make up Indian architecture of the past. Based on photos, we had suspected this beforehand, but in reality, things sometimes look different. So it was good to get an impression. Of course, we know that it is only an extremely limited impression, India is so huge and therefore not homogeneous.

But what weighs more: too many things simply don't work here (ATMs, internet, SIM cards...), it's too dirty everywhere (streets, hotels, public toilets, restaurants...), it's insanely loud (this is how Indian guests in hotels around 6 o'clock in the morning start their loud conversations in the hallway with their well-functioning voices), and therefore traveling becomes really unpleasant. An example: our flight from Khajuraho to Delhi was canceled 48 hours before departure. Since the flight did not take place the day before either, we were stuck in a village ten hours by car from Delhi and still had to catch our connecting flight to Seychelles on time. The airline's employee literally laughed in our faces and said that was our problem. We could just fly a day later and spend a day less in the Seychelles. He didn't understand at all what we were upset about. So we wasted many hours driving to and from the airport, making phone calls in a bazaar shop, and trying to keep the internet running at our accommodation. Finally, another employee of the airline took pity on us (thank you, Mr. Rakesh!) and ensured that we got one of the last tickets for the night train to Delhi (without being completely cheated by travel agents). The night train was equipped with an air conditioning system that blew icy air directly onto me (I was lying on the top bunk), so after an hour and a half, despite a blanket, I felt completely frozen and noticed the first signs of a cold. So I climbed down, warmed up at the train door, and even got the conductor to turn up the heating. With a second blanket and a scarf over my face, it was bearable. In the morning, the whole compartment was coughing and sniffling - I seem to have just managed to ward off the cold, Roby had a fever.

This way, we gained an extra day in Delhi (at the price, of course, of spending two nights in means of transport, the first one on the freezing cold train, the second one on the plane towards Seychelles). We spent this extra day without any supervision - and still managed quite well. Driving with tuk-tuks and taxis worked very well and was significantly cheaper than our driver for the first two days. Nevertheless, the solution with a driver is really good for beginners.

What speaks for India: the friendliness of the people (even if they push themselves with passion and joy in the long queues) and especially the excellent food. The variety of (mainly) vegetarian dishes that are cooked here is a lot of fun. We didn't get the same dish twice during the whole time (quite different from Georgia and Uzbekistan). And the cleverly spiced curries are so different: some very spicy, others mild and fruity. We fell in love with the masala tea, which always lifted us up when our mood was about to change. It could also be helpful at home ;-)