India on a Shoestring - Part One

I opted to go travelling with a friend from work, Emma, to India. Starting in January and ending at the beginning of February. We decided to do a tour as India is a difficult place to navigate around, going with a company called "G Adventures" due to their low prices and high amount of activities provided.

Emma and I arrived in Delhi on the 12th of January after a long flight from Heathrow, we collected our backpacks and found a man holding a sign for G adventure tours where he sat us down in the airport with another girl until more of our group arrived. The girl was called Dominique who would later become one of my closest friends on the tour, she was Canadian but had travelled from London, we talked about travelling a little bit and two other girls arrived: Ella and a girl for one of the other tours with G adventures who had both been on the same flight as us and were from England. We then got into a taxi with "women on wheels" a company run by and for women, then having our first experience of the mad traffic of India, cars everywhere, loud honking of horns and large traffic jams.

Arriving at the Hotel, ironically named "Hotel Perfect" we were greeted by our tour guide, Manu, who gave us our room keys and told us a time to meet him for a pep talk. The hotel was freezing, having evidently been designed for an Indian summer with tiled floors and electric fans, apart from that it was pleasant enough, but far from 'perfect'. Emma and I had a nap having been tired out from our journey, we later walked down for our talk with Manu who introduced himself and explained a little about the company and the tour. I also got to meet most of the rest of my tour group: Becci from Wales but who was studying in Australia, Suzanne from England, Victoria from America and Mili from Argentina. Manu invited us out for an optional meal, which we all said yes to, and Ella and I shared a vegetarian platter and I had the first of many piña coladas.

The next day we got up to go to Jama Masjid, a large Mosque in Old Delhi. Also meeting the remainder of the tour group, a girl from Australia called Jacqui and an older man from America named Edward. At the entrance of the Mosque we were instructed to put on not the most flattering of robes, mine looking slightly like a hospital gown. We wondered around the site taking in the marvellous surroundings, and paying to go up to the tallest tower of the mosque, a sign telling us that women weren't allowed to go up unaccompanied by a man! (thank god for Edward).

Ella, me and Emma sat outside Jama Masjid

View from the top of the tower

After the Mosque Manu took us on an orientation walk of Old Delhi, stopping to talk about different sites, we stopped at a Sikh Gurdwara where they give out free lunches for anyone who attends and ate food there in a hall, that afternoon we went to visit Salaam Baalak Trust, a non-profit organisation based in Delhi to help street kids. They take in children and give them a home and an education, it was inspiring to hear about and lovely to have the chance to talk to and interact with the children there.

That evening we had an overnight train with compact three tier bunks to sleep in to take us to Bikaner, a vibrant desert town, where the trip would continue.