Adventures in India 1: Intro & Getting There

The big adventure for us for this year, beyond hopefully finishing our PhD's in the near future, was a roughly three-week trip to India.  We went with friends of ours from undergrad, one of whom did almost all the planning for this trip (thanks!) and speaks Hindi, which was extremely helpful. Overall, this trip was a little less predictable and a little less mentally and physically comfortable than maybe we had expected, but there were also some amazing elements and experiences. We'll be sharing the good and the bad here in the coming days and weeks, along with selections from the large quantity of pictures taken on the trip, which can all be found now on Flickr. The set ended up being more than a thousand pictures even after removing half in the editing process, and it should be noted that many of them were taken by our friends - we didn't shoot everything in there and credit should be given where due.

Also, as we saw a large number of things we are not experts on, we will link to Wikipedia or similar for history and things we'd otherwise be speaking as completely uninformed people about. We journaled the trip pretty thoroughly, but we'll be giving own impressions and sharing the things we found most notable. This entry is just about getting to India - lots to come.

We emphasized inexpensive over convenient, which gave longer layovers, but that turned out to be something of a benefit. We flew out of Chicago, had a short layover in the US, and then flew to Amsterdam to connect with the flight to New Dehli.

Airport breakfast of champions, or at least champions on vacation

We had an almost eight hour layover in Amsterdam, and had entertained thoughts of leaving the airport and seeing something in the city. However, the timing did not quite work out as the layover spanned the local hours of very late to very early, and by the time most things opened we'd have to be heading back to the airport. This being December, we'd also need to be heading back to the airport before the sun was really up. Instead, we went to a short-term airport hotel, which turned out to be a fantastic choice. In the middle of our ~36 hour transit between our front door and the hotel in New Dehli, we got to get away from the general public, get clean, and get some real sleep. I think we may consider targeting longer layovers on similarly long trips in the future, they're a great chance to feel not so trapped and scungy. We also recommend the croissants in the Amsterdam airport - pretty incredible.

The room lights in the airport hotel were color controllable and are seen here in very purple mode.  The bed folds down, which takes up the whole room, to make the room take less space.

Flying into New Dehli, we arrived after midnight. In the airport, we noticed that the air was not pleasant - smelled like cigarettes and burning tires and was enough to make our eyes water and throat sting a little bit. This turned out not to be the airport, but the city itself. We later learned that conditions that would faze residents of Beijing are normal in New Dehli, and nobody wears respirators or filters their air either. After getting through Immigration (not too bad) and Customs (they waved us through without checking anything) we got a pre-paid taxi at a police booth. This was recommended to us, as you pay more but you don't have to haggle or worry about the taxi diverting you to his uncle's shop. The airport is a significant ride into the city, and our driver had a little trouble finding the hostel as it was by the train station along with at least a hundred other small hotels. Finally finding it, we met up with our friends (staying up late to make sure we made it - they came to India before us) and collapsed into sleep. Even with the break in Amsterdam, it was really good to arrive.

Meeting up in the middle of the night halfway around the world in our hostel room

The first thing we noticed in the morning was the enormous quantity of traffic noise - a penetrating symphony of horns and motors. With the hostel having open windows in the hallways and vents above the doors, the street made its way into the room pretty strongly. It then turned out that we'd gotten up on the late side and missed the morning availability of hot water in the showers, so getting ready to go was bracing. Since the plan was to spend the first five days or so of the trip in New Dehli, we would pay more attention to the time of day with respect to hot water in the future. This particular hotel targeted value, and though it was a hostel it was actually pretty well in the middle of the pack in terms of creature comforts, as the rest of the trip will show. We had a pretty good breakfast (mix of local and international items) at another hotel on the same street that our friends knew about that actually reminded me most of a breakfast we had at a hotel in Singapore. Our Hindi-speaking friend hired us a car for the day (about $15) and we headed off into New Delhi.

Street outside the hostel in daylight