Three Years Ago Today...

...I left for India.

An excerpt from an email I wrote at the time:

I step out of the airport and get blasted with 32 degree heat...at 2 in the morning. I had saw in the vancouver airport that delhi was 46 during the day...islamabad in pakistan was 50. So the taxi I'm in decides to take me to some random place. The drive was insane. Luckily I had experienced chinese and mongolian driving, so this wasn't that harrowing. Eventually we get to this one hotel so the driver can ask directions. The guy says "go to the tourist office down the street...they'll help you."

At this tourist place, the guy is making some calls and telling me "there is a festival in delhi, so all the cheap rooms are booked. The least you can expect to pay for a room is 120 bucks US." He also calls the "train reservation office" and the "bus reservation office" to see if I can get a ticket to Chandigarh...nothing until the 20th, apparently.

So it's now about 3 AM and I'm not in the best of spirits. This tour guy is trying to offer me a minivan ride to chandigarh at a cost of 190 euros. This seemed absolutely ludicrous. Then I see these 3 japanese people walk in the door (they were on my flight). For some reason, the guy wouldn't let me talk to them. He said it was against "rules and regulations." No doubt you can see a pattern developing here.

 

How far I've come since those days...