With a Little Help from my Friend (Atul)

Saturday, 16 January 2010

You know that feeling when everything is going so well, and you are expecting everything to just starting falling apart completely? Well, that didn’t happen yet. Two days in India and two days of traveling, and I am amazed to find that everything is going perfectly smooth. I owe most of it to Atul.

Atul is the guy hired by Global Student Consultants to escort me around for my excursion in India. He met me at the airport in Delhi when we touched down. After a quick snack of chaana madura at the airport, we were immediately off to the bus stop, on our way to Agra. Agra, you say? What happened to Delhi?

So, the original itinerary for me was to go from Delhi to Mussoori, where I would spend two weeks learning some of the language and culture. Unfortunately, the language school is in the mountains, and when it snows there, the school automatically closes for two weeks. That puts a damper in my original plan. Instead, my Indian excursion, which was planned for later in the semester, got moved to the first thing to do. That way, I get to add another 6 or so days of travel to the first two. Yay!

In all seriousness, I don’t mind all this traveling at all. We got to Agra late at night, had a bite to eat again, and pretty much passed right out at a hotel, because both of us were feeling quite dead. Atul promised to show me something great in the morning. Can you guess? If you have heard of the city Agra, you know what it is already: the Taj Mahal, one of the wonders of the world. I must say, it was quite wonderful. Hard to see, because the city was covered in fog so early in the morning, but gorgeous nonetheless.

After the Taj Mahal, we caught another bus to Jaipur, from which I am writing right now. Atul is the most helpful guy I have ever met. He found me at the airport, got a taxi for us, bought our bus tickets, ordered our food, booked our hotels, and answered every question that I had, which was a lot. Without his help, I would probably still be lost in Delhi, carrying my bags. I don’t know what I would do without him.

So far, there have just been way too many cultural and living differences to count. I wouldn’t know where to start. I expect that after I get settled in Palampur in a few days, I will be able to take a little more time to update all of my readers on the fascinating differences here. I can say now that it is quite an experience that everybody should have. It really helps, however, to have a great guy like Atul helping you out. Check out his blog at trekkinghimachal.blogspot.com

Itinerary for the rest of the week, since I don’t know when I will be able to write again:
Monday – Amber Fort in the morning, go through the town in the afternoon
Tuesday – take a bus ride back to Delhi, where we pick up a train to Palampur