Days 80_to_90

We’ll take the train to Agra at the afternoon, so we have the morning to buy supplies for the journey and… a haircut! After more than two months Tià starts to need one desperately!

Some pics from the journey…

Next day is the day! we are excited because we’ll see the Taj Mahal! our expectations are high, so we hope it’ll fulfill them! We have to awake really early in the morning; We took the first tickets available to avoid the crowd, and maybe see the sunrise.

Our hotel is just 10 minutes walking from the Taj Mahal, so we arrive before they open the doors. And then, it’s there, just in front of us! It is a marvelous building, that can’t be denied. But for us it’s not as impressive as we thought… Maybe it’s because we are sleepy, or our expectations were to high, or due to the “silly tourists” posing dressed like locals and fighting for having the best selfie ever.

After visiting the Taj Mahal, we have breakfast and we go back to the room. Then, during the day we can’t go out… the monsoon is here and it’s raining heavily! At night we decide to go out to eat something, so we just go to grab some chicken in a fast food restaurant. Our Rickshaw driver waits for us while we have dinner. Then, we return to the hotel. On our way back a motorbike hits us. We were riding on the right lane. The motorbike appears and comes direct to us from the front; when the driver tries to avoid it, it hits my side of the rickshaw. Luckily we are fine, no injuries at all, it happens at low speed.

We hop off of the rickshaw to see how are the others (the driver and the pillion on the motorbike). They are fine too. Lots of people is coming and surrounds us, one of the guys on the motorbike starts threatening our driver. He is blaming him!!! Tià says that is not his fault, and the guy confronts him. He is totally drunk. We ask to the locals to call the police, and nobody does a thing. Then, we cannot believe what we see… The guy has a razor blade and starts threatening our driver with it near his eyes and throat!!!! What the hell is going on?!?!? We have to hide in a hotel and we try to call the police there. Everybody disappears. We spend like 15 eternal minutes trying to reach the police, NOTHING. Meanwhile the guy continues the threatening while our driver is begging, literally begging for his life. The drunk guy just stops when our driver gives him all the money that he has. That’s it. Here, a drunk rich guy hits your rickshaw, he threatens your life, nobody helps you (because you are poor), and he robs your day income (which probably menas that your family will not eat today).

The rickshaw driver fleets after paying, we still are at a hotel reception, and the drunken can’t leave because they are not capable to stand on the motorbike. We call another rickshaw and we go to the hotel. We feel like shit again, the situation was shitty, and we never paid our driver… What the FU+** just happened?! It’s hard to digest…

When we arrive to our hotel, the previous rickshaw driver comes. He is fine, and we are glad to see him. We have the opportunity to pay him. He says almost crying that the other took all his money… we give him what this disgusting “human being” robbed. At least his family will eat today.

After what happened yesterday today we are not in a good mood. We slept bad, so we decide just to stay at the hotel until the train to New Delhi departs.

We have just another quiet train journey and a lot of time to think about what to do next on our journey… do we continue with the motorbike? or we ship it from Kathmandu to home? It seems really difficult to cross Myanmar and Thailand.

We want to visit what we missed the last time in Delhi, but this time we are not doing the same mistake… we will sleep in the new part of the city.

First we want to visit Akshardam, a spiritual-cultural campus (it’s relatively new, from 2005), we’ve been told to be impressive, so there we go! It’s a long way from our hotel, and when we arrive we see the big walls and signs saying that phones and cams are forbidden. When we try to enter they don’t allow us. We MUST leave the phone and the camera in a crazy opened deposit and (that’s the best part) under your own responsability!!! ah! but don’t forget to bring your wallet so you can buy your photos on the inside… come on! we are leaving from here! I don’t like this kind of spirituality.

Our next stop will be the Lotus Temple, this temple is built in the shape of a lotus flower and is the last of seven Major Bahai’s temples built around the world. The lotus is a symbol common to Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Islam. People from any faith are free to visit the temple and pray or meditate, is open to all, regardless of religion or any other qualification. While we wait to enter we are treated like soldiers; we are shouted like 100 times “STRAIGHT ONE LINEEEEE!!!”, “NOW TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES!”, “NO PHOTOS FROM HERE”, “DON’T STAY THERE!!!”, “WALK!!!”… For being a peaceful and meditation area maybe the “guardians” should be a little more quiet and educated.

To go back to the hotel we have to literally fight with the rickshaw drivers… all of them want to trick us and take us to some market. Even we have to jump from one because he was taking us somewhere where we didn’t want to go! Finally after walking for a while, we find a nice rickshaw driver and we go back to our hotel.

Next day we leave New Delhi! I have to say that we are happy to move from the cities… New Delhi it’s really difficult to enjoy. This days was way to hot, and our patience was challenged every single second. It’s crowded everywhere, the noise is so high that hurts your ears (to honk seems to be the national sport), the smell at some areas it’s unbearable, the dirtyness everywhere, dogs with scabies fighting on the streets, people trying to trick you because you are a silly rich tourist, the silly rich tourist everywhere, the crazy traffic (there is a permanent jam!)… For sure, New Delhi is too much city for us, we belong to the land!

We are happy to come back to Chandigarh! We’ll take the Bonnie! We are excited to go for the Bonnie, so we can continue our journey to Nepal!

When we arrive to the Triumph Workshop, again we cannot recognize the Bonnie! she is shinning! We start to pack to leave when we notice something it’s going on. Tià’s jacket is ruined…we left it a bit wet and now it’s covered with mold everywhere! The guys from the workshop try to help us, and finally we leave the jacket at a dry cleaning shop. We’ll see how it works, but now we have to stay in Chandigarh 4 or 5 more days!

We spend this lazy days just resting and visiting a bit the city.

As usual with selfies

We are nervous, after some days we’ll see how is the jacket. We cannot believe it, for less than 5€ it seems brand new again! the man even repaired the old “scars” from the accident in Albany! We are happy and ready to go now! Tonight we meet with Eloy and Lucy to have dinner. We exchange impressions about our last days; at the end of the supper both couples are convinced… We want to go to the mountains where they were, and they don’t want to go to the cities that we visited!

As it’s a last hour decision we arrange everything with Chaman (their guide in the Spiti Valley) next day; we had already everything packed to go with the motorbike and now we’ll be backpackers again for a week! We have to unpack and pack our things… and we park again the motorbike at the Triumph Workshop. They are our lifesavers! We will take a car with driver to go to the Spiti Valley on the Indian Himalaya!