Third Week

We safely arrived in Germany after a long journey on Sunday. Finally we found the time to update you on the last week of our trip and of course show you all the remaining pictures.

Once again a summary of what has happened:

Tuesday: After a crazy taxi ride from Satna we arrived in Khajuraho around noon. We got a great deal on a hotel (3,68 € [5 $]). We saw the famous erotic temples, which seemed to be more than just erotic to us. But see for yourself on the pics.
Wednesday: Very early we got a great deal on another taxi ride to Jhansi. From Jhansi we tried to book tickets to Agra, the city of the Taj Mahal. We only got tickets for the second class. It's quite adventurous to ride on second class. Hundreds of Indians in a train car that is meant to be for maybe a maximum of hundred passengers. In the afternoon we arrived in Agra and found a nice hotel with Taj Mahal view.
Thursday: We got up early and saw the incredible Taj Mahal. It really is the most beautiful thing you can see in India. After that we visited the Agra Fort which seemed quite boring after seeing the Taj Mahal.
Friday: Once again we got up early to see Fatehpur Sikri, the ghost city. Later that day we left Agra and arrived in Delhi.
Saturday: We did some last shopping and went to the airport. Even though we were at the airport 1 1/2 hours before departure we were told that we are too late. Surprisingly we left 45 minutes earlier. But everything went well, and now we are back.

So this will be my last blog entry about my time in India. I had an incredible time and learned so much. The internship was great and meeting so many people from so many cultures and backgrounds was one of the best experiences of my life.

I hope you enjoyed following my blog and getting to know more about life in India.

Thank for reading my blog.

Namasté!
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Second Week



Third Week



These pictures are from the time between Thea's arrival and our departure to our round trip

We are leaving!

We arrived safely in Delhi yesterday. Our round trip was incredible as you can already see from some of the pictures.

We were not able to upload the rest of the pictures yet. I will do that when we reach home. So in about 45 minutes we leave the apartment in Kalkaji and drive to the airport. We will reach Germany on Sunday morning.

Bye bye India, off to Germany :).

Second Week

Greetings from the crazy Varanasi. We arrived here three days ago and we are moving on to Khajuraho tonight.

Once again a short summary of our last week (we don't have much time for details and we are lazy, too :)

Monday: Once again it rained a lot and we stayed in bed until noon. After that we walked to the temple and did one kora (we walked clockwise around the Tsuglagkhang complex).
Tuesday: Since the shops were closed on Monday (weekly holiday), we did a lot of shopping and were surprised how much money you can spend in one hour. Late at night we left McLeodGanj and went on to Shimla.
Wednesday: After a surprisingly comfortable bus ride (in something called a "semi deluxe bus") we arrived at Shimla in the morning. We checked into a YMCA hostel, slept again for a few hours and already booked the train tickets to Kalka for the next night. Afterwards we visited the Monkey temple. Thea had a little fight with some monkeys there that wanted to steal her nice looking glasses. Later that day we got lost while looking for a restaurant. We finally found a nice restaurant (we now avoid those open street restaurants since our stomachs didn't like it) and saw a beautiful sunset.
Thursday: Once again we slept late and after breakfast we got into the Shimla-Kalka toy train. This train track is carved right into the mountains and the train needs 6 hours for the 95 km. It was an amazing train ride with a fantastic view of the mountains between Shimla and Kalka. After arriving in Kalka around 8:30 pm we had dinner and got into the train to Varanasi which left at midnight.
Friday: We were in the train for the whole day. After traveling for 33 hours we finally arrived in Varanasi late at night.
Saturday: We changed our hostel (we wanted to be closer to the old city) and walked up and down the Ganges river. Once again we saw an incredible sunset from a terrace of a restaurant. Later that night we went out for a beer and met a girl from Spain.
Sunday: We woke up at 5 in the morning to see Varanasi getting up from a boat on the Ganges river. It was very interesting to see such a diverse crowd of people doing something like bathing, washing clothes, meditating etc. at the Ganges. Unfortunately we couldn't see the sunrise since it was very cloudy. After that we visited four temples and a silk factory. During dinner we met two girl from Germany. We went to the sunset ceremony together with them. After a really long day we fell into bed.
Monday: The day started with a lot of rain and it is still raining now. We are not sure how we will spend the day but it's sure that our train to Satna will leave at 11:30 pm. From Satna we will take a bus to Khajuraho which is our next destination.

After one day in Khajuraho we will already head to our last destination: Agra. There we will visit the incredible Taj Mahal.

Sorry we are not able to show you any pictures right now but we will upload them as soon as possible!

First Week of Round Trip

I was not able to write another entry before Thea and me left Delhi but now we finally have some time to drop a couple of lines about our trip.

We are in Dharamsala (Mc Leod Ganj to be correct) now, the place I've already been to in June. The place is just as beautiful as last time but unfortunately it has been raining yesterday and also the past 14 hours. But we make the best out of it and we still enjoy the peacefulness and easy going way of Dharamsala, the place where the Dalai Lama lives. After our last week it feels very good to have some time to relax.

Here is a summary of what has happened last week:

Monday: We arrived in Udaipur. Beautiful place with a lot of nice roof top restaurants and some nice lakes. We visited the city palace and some temples
Tuesday: Day 2 in Udaipur: We walked around the lakes and wanted to climb up to the Monsoon Palace. On our way a guy with a tractor gave us a ride. We enjoyed an amazing view.
Wednesday: We arrived early in Jodhpur and watched the city getting alive. After checking into a hostel we visited the impressing Mehrangarh Fort.
Thursday: We enjoyed a one day camel safari through some villages around Jodhpur. We visited a family and had lunch there.
Friday: After a 14 hour train ride to Makhu and another bus ride we arrived in Amritsar in the afternoon. I felt a little sick so we didn't do much the rest of the day.
Saturday: We visited the Golden Temple and later went to the Indian - Pakistan border which is only 30 km [19 miles] from Amritsar. We watched the daily border closing ceremony, which is a huge spectacle.
Sunday: After three crazy bus rides we arrived in Dharamsala in the morning. Since we didn't get a lot of sleep during the bus rides we relaxed and walked around the town a little bit.

Today we wanted to see more of the town but it has been raining for the last 14 hours and doesn't seem to stop. We don't have any rainwear so we will see what we will do.

Our next destination is Shimla. After that we will see Varanasi, Khajuraho and Agra.

Time to say Good Bye

The last month went by really fast and now I only have four days of work left. I'm going to pick up Thea from the airport on Thursday and in one week we are going to leave New Delhi for our trip around North India. Below you can see a map with the details of our travel plans.

This week was kind of tiring. There was a lot of work to do and we also celebrated a farewell on Wednesday and after 4 hours of sleep I didn't feel to energetic the next day. But still we had an amazing time! It was Anke's, Bruno's and Renata's farewell party and we went to a club called Urban Pint.

This weekend I didn't do much besides relaxing and sleeping. Today I'm already going to pack some stuff. After our three week trip we are only going to be back in New Delhi for 6 hours, so everything has to be prepared. Right now I can't imagine going back to Germany in about 4 weeks, but first of all I'm going to enjoy the vacation with Thea and then I might have think about the possibility of getting a reverse culture shock ;).

My farewell party is going to be on Saturday and I'm sure the party is going to be as good as all the other farewell parties we had.

PS just on last note: this week I just realized that I have met the whole world in India. It's amazing how so many people from so many different cultures can live, share, and party together in such a peaceful way. Here is a little (incomplete) list of people that I have met here:

Anke, Arjen, Terry, Michel - The Netherlands
Danu, Donna - Indonesia
Renata, Bruno, Eduardo - Brazil
Bea - Hungary
Max - Argentina
Martin - France
Nick - USA
Sam - Cameroon
Patricia - Peru
Karin, Raquel - Mexico
Esteban, Paulo - Columbia
Natsoumi - Japan
Kasia, Kasia, Janek, Gosia - Poland
Sherif - Egypt
Oussama - Morocco
Irene - China
Mark - Canada
Miriam - Germany ;)
A lot of people - India

and many more...



Show Our Roundtrip! on a larger map

Rishikesh

I have heard a lot about Rishikesh from trainees, that have been there
and I always felt like I would miss something if I don't go there. So
I tried to organize the trip to Rishikesh. We couldn't really book
tickets in advance (the buses would have left to early) so we decided
just to go to the bus terminal and take a bus. That worked out well,
we waited for 15 minutes and got on a bus for 136 Rs (about 2 EUR
[$2.80]). It took 6 hours for the 230 km to Rishikesh and as always
the ride was very bumpy and noisy. But by now I'm used to that, so at
5 in the morning when we arrived in Rishikesh, I didn't feel that bad.

Rishikesh is a very beautiful place. Surrounded by mountains and
split by the huge Ganges into two parts, the town itself creates a
very peaceful and calm atmosphere. It's still a perfect example of the
Indian culture though: cows everywhere, monkeys jumping around and a
lot of people that take a bath in the holy river.
We took it easy in Rishikesh and didn't plan to go to too many places.
We went to some rooftop restaurants, saw some temples, did some
shopping and visited a very beautiful waterfall on Sunday. When we
arrived at the waterfall we took a bath and were very happy about the
rain that we encountered there since we don't have much of that in
Delhi.

I enjoyed the trip to Rishikesh very much even though once again we
didn't get back to Delhi before 4 in the morning. Of course in the 136
Rupees bus where the driver makes sure that every bone in your body feels
every pothole on the road :).
So now I only have 7 days of work left! I'm still finishing a project
and I'll have my last training session next Wednesday.

This weekend we'll finally have a holiday! Friday it's Krishna's
Birthday and on Saturday India celebrates its Independence Day. So I'll have a lot of time to prepare for my farewell party next weekend and Thea's and my three week trip.

Three weeks

Just last week I realized that I have only three weeks left of work. In a way that's great because I'm really looking forward to my vacation with Thea. On the other hand I really have to think about what I want to do with the little time left. For example my boss told me that India would be the cheapest place in the world to get a taylor-made suit. So this week I went to a taylor and next week I'll be able to pick up my tailored suit and a taylored shirt for just a little more than 100 EUR [≈140$]. Actually, I'm not sure if I would really be able to pick up that suit because I accidentely washed the pickup receipt...but Indians are flexible and I think it will still work out.

Also I wanted to go on one more trip before Thea and me will have our three week vacation. So next weekend I will go to the nice Rishikesh, which is just next to Haridwar (the place where I took a bath in the Ganges). The weekend after we are planning a soccer tournament here in Kalkaj - the Kalkaji Cup ;). And after that weekend Thea will come and we'll leave on August 23rd. The details of our travel plans will follow in one of my next posts.

Instead of saying much, here is a brief overview what happened last week:

Saturday: We went to a bar called "The Living Room", really nice atmosphere, even though we almost got into a fight with some Indians
Sunday: Hard Rock Cafe - really nice, I had a Hamburger with real beef!
Monday: After not having any rain at all last week we suddenly had four hours of heavy rains - resulting in a flooded stairway and a little river in front of our house.
Tuesday - Thursday: despite heavy rains on Monday we did not have water for three days! - just imagine what it feels like to not have any water for the toilet, for taking a shower or doing the dishes!
Friday - I finally booked the train tickets for our trip
Saturday - we went to the other trainee house and had a couple of beers - and a bottle of rum.