First days

Aaaah... so much to say, and no time... But for sure: India is GREAT!!!

I was a little bit sad when leaving Belgium, because I had to miss you all for a long time; but this is really compensating it. I'm only here for 3 days and so much has happened already:

First: getting there. My first flight was 15 minutes late, making me almost miss my next flight - Heathrow really is BIG! But after running hard I was happy to have a window seat, next to a really friendly Indian girl. Not very unusual sitting next to an Indian, because I think I was about the only tourist on the flight :) Also here in India, it's definitely low season: only today we met our first other tourist, Jacquee from Australia, with whom we visited the caves of Ellora.

Those are really impressive, but after the 15th or 16th cave, you kind of get fed up. But it was definitely worth the 18 rupees busdrive going and 20 rupees (more or less 40 eurocent) jeep drive back. Those alone actually were already amazing: guess how many people fit in a usual jeep? We ended up with 22 :) so funny.

After arriving at Mumbai airport, I had to find Els. Luckily that wasn't too hard and around 2:00 am we could go off to the hotel. Finding out our taxi (number 5502 whereas they were not sorted at all) took some time, and driving to the Victoria Terminus too. It was a little bit shocking seeing all those people just lying on the street, and at the Railway station I didn't feel at ease: it was 2:30 at night and everybody - mostly men - was staring at us. But luckily the hotel was near and we could finally go to sleep.

Next day, we soon learned being stared at is part of being a white tourist - the only white tourist it seemed - and paying more money than needed is too. But still India is very cheap, and people are really nice and friendly. However, we were glad to leave the crowdiness of Mumbai in the afternoon, taking the train to Aurangabad, where we are now. The train journey was another experience, and we can now say it is really like they say: everyone IS asking where you come from, what you are doing here, where you're going, whether you are married or not etc. And the riksha drivers are always trying to bring you somewhere, anywhere, even if it is only 50 meters furhter. But we have to admit it is a very handy way of moving around.

The hotels we stayed in are also as we could have expected when we heard everyone's stories: dirty, no toilet paper (only seen toilet paper once since arrival), and really funny: the water from the sink is running down a plastic tube, to come out in the thing where the water from the shower is going. We have been sleeping under the mosquito nets, but couldn't avoid having a few itches already. But for the rest, our health condition is perfect.

Today we also ate Indian food, the Indian way: that means without fork, knife or spoon and only using your right hand; pretty difficult when there's something like a little bread/pancake you have to rip :)

About the weather: it is monsoon: so most of the time cloudy, but only raining for 10min. to half an hour per day. The temperatures are mostly really comfortable and never unbearable. Lots of water is a must however.

We've had many nice experiences, and I haven't told nearly half of them, but time is running out... So more news in the future!