Look away kids. Holy shit. Literally. Five minutes into my exploration this morning I stepped in cow poo. I then bought the offending cow some food to reboost my karma as that seemed the done thing.
My 16 hours here have been absolutely mental. Fairly lonely despite the 20 million people but really really amazing. I've made a friend, great guy called Deepak who speaks very little English but is a good laugh and so far hasn't asked me for any money, he's even paid his share of the bills. We're off to Dharavi slum tomorrow which will beat anything I've seen so far. Then I'm on the train up to Delhi, 25 hours in third class is not my prefered way of travel but apparently it was the only option left so I took the, well it'll be an experience view and went for it. I'll let you know how it goes.
After a quick cat nap in the hotel I hit the streets, met the cow, nearly got run over thousands of times, admired the architecture, and then as I was loosing momentum met Deepak. We chatted a bit, ran out of words and then he offered to accompany me to the Gateway of India. As we went I realised he seemed to know just about everyone and despite the language barrier he was really useful. So we communicated some more, his English wasn't that bad, he knew a lot about the 2008 terrorist attacks although from what I can gather they took out half the city, as on every second street he says 'terrorist' and mimes shooting an AK-47 off the hip.
He's now taken it upon himself to teach me Hindi which would be immensely useful apart from the lack of English translation. Anyway he helped me sort my train ticket, showed me around all day, paid for taxi fares, bought me a beer and has generally been exceptionally friendly.
Tomorrow may end up costing a bit in 'fixer fees' but it'll have been worth it.
I'll try and get photos up after dinner and then I'm off for a drink at Leopold's (the one from Shantaram).
Any tips or hints very welcome.
Cheers
Max
My 16 hours here have been absolutely mental. Fairly lonely despite the 20 million people but really really amazing. I've made a friend, great guy called Deepak who speaks very little English but is a good laugh and so far hasn't asked me for any money, he's even paid his share of the bills. We're off to Dharavi slum tomorrow which will beat anything I've seen so far. Then I'm on the train up to Delhi, 25 hours in third class is not my prefered way of travel but apparently it was the only option left so I took the, well it'll be an experience view and went for it. I'll let you know how it goes.
After a quick cat nap in the hotel I hit the streets, met the cow, nearly got run over thousands of times, admired the architecture, and then as I was loosing momentum met Deepak. We chatted a bit, ran out of words and then he offered to accompany me to the Gateway of India. As we went I realised he seemed to know just about everyone and despite the language barrier he was really useful. So we communicated some more, his English wasn't that bad, he knew a lot about the 2008 terrorist attacks although from what I can gather they took out half the city, as on every second street he says 'terrorist' and mimes shooting an AK-47 off the hip.
He's now taken it upon himself to teach me Hindi which would be immensely useful apart from the lack of English translation. Anyway he helped me sort my train ticket, showed me around all day, paid for taxi fares, bought me a beer and has generally been exceptionally friendly.
Tomorrow may end up costing a bit in 'fixer fees' but it'll have been worth it.
I'll try and get photos up after dinner and then I'm off for a drink at Leopold's (the one from Shantaram).
Any tips or hints very welcome.
Cheers
Max
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