I was flying from Nice, France on 30th June via Dubai and I had very little time to prepare (only 2-3 days) for the trip as I had spent the complete previous week in Stevenage, UK for a work related training. I wasn't sure until the last moment that I had not forgotten something very important.
as I was supposed to be at very high altitude and cold conditions (4000m-5000m height and less than 0 degree C temp) I had to pack my best winter gear not only for me but also for Parth.
The journey started pretty well with Nice-Dubai leg of the flight was upgraded to business class with some lottery scheme and it was so coool .. :) I tasted champagne and tried my best to behave like a business class sophisticated person. lol. ;-)
I happily arrived in Delhi on 1st morning unaware of the drama which was about to unfold. I was supposed to stay with Parth but he was also traveling and was supposed to return before my arrival but due to some unavoidable work he missed the scheduled train and then took alternative routes (car+train) and told me that he wouldn't make it before evening.
ooopsss!! adventures has already started.. this meant that I would have to find a hotel to spend my day somewhere and we wouldn't be able to meet until late evening.
I had company of a nice guy Rudresh during the whole flight whom I had met at Nice airport and he suggested that I could stay near New delhi railway station in Pahadganj area. He had lived in Delhi for some time and knew about the place well.. although somehow his suggestions didnt work so well for me.. for example wherever he said that auto will charge 30/-, I ended up paying 70-80/- or timewise wherever it was supposed to take 10 mins, the auto took 30-40 mins... so it became more challenging than I had imagined in the beginning.
so I had the chance to enjoy staying in a hotel near New delhi station and there I tasted local food for the first time in trip.. somehow in my previous trips I always had 'upset stomach' within few days so I was really cautious about place to eat but here I didn't have any choice than going to a kind of roadside hotel... fortunately my stomach didn't cry this time.. :)
since it was my first day of the trip in India, everything looked and felt so different ... everything is so insanely different from France... and seeing those (extremely) poor people really hurts.. I wanted to buy a memory card and visited nearby electronics market ... (photo below)
while coming back I rode in a rikshaw (pulled manually by a man) and that person was looking too weak to pull it, I literally felt like getting down many times and walk beside the risksaw rather than simply sitting and seeing him sweating and struggling to pull... I was so much confused if I did a good thing by taking that rikshaw instead of a motor-driven auto.. I was wondering if his efforts are justified with the money he was going to get ...
I later convinced myself that this is his 'profession' somehow, and I did a good thing by making is go ... I must have helped him in fulfilling his 'daily target'.. even though it left a sad feeling within me after seeing it closely.
and it was so hot and humid in Delhi.. I instantly missed the nice weather of Antibes... I sometimes wonder if all our feelings are 'relative' ... we feel it hot is the previous (or reference) weather was less hot... we find food tasty depending on how the previous meal was... we find places beautiful depending upon where we live and what we have seen previously...
The day didnt finish quite there.. Parth arrived in the evening and I met him at the railway station platform as we planned on mobile and we both walked down to my hotel which was located about 400-500m from there it was on a street inside the main road. now we needed a taxi to get back to his place in Noida so he headed to find one. one important fact was that his mobile battery was about the die which he had mentioned to me as well and second point was that I had taken a new mobile number on the same day which was saved in his mobile.
now the drama began, he couldnt find a taxi from that place so he moved to near the railway station and there also he could found one only after 30-45 mins.. I called him couple of times to check what is going on but I was instructed to stay at hotel and wait.. finally he called and said that he has found one and is coming to hotel and started asking the name of hotel as he wasnt sure of the street... and boom !!! his mobile battery decided to go to deep-sleep at this particular moment ...
now it was a complete mess... he didnt know how to reach me and I didnt know how could I locate him, as he could be on any nearby road with autoricksaw ... he would be looking for a hotel which he had seen just once hidden in a maze of Delhi's streets... I waited to 10-15 mins and got desperate with the deadlock... I thought he must be on streets so I must come out and also look out .. may be it will be easier for him to locate me with my heave bags.. so I started walking towards railway station... but what... I found no one and I was at railway station in 10mins.. and there was no sign of him ... omg !! mobile is such a life-supporting item in such cases.. (in our case it was mobile battery) and our link was broken. I seem to have lost him forever..
Finally, after some time, I saw him coming over towards station and we shouted each other's name in full voice in great excitement... it was a great moment ... like we have located a niddle in a haystack..
later on he told me that he was successful in locating the hotel but was completely lost after learning that I had left the place in search of him .. later on he understood from some other risksawalah that I was heading towards station..
It was quite a situation... ;-)
Finally we reached at his place in Noida at 11:30PM ... which was too late to have dinner and proper rest for next day as our flight was at 5:30am and we had to leave for airport at 4:00am... I cooked dinner (read dal-chawal) for both of us (yeah, there was no time to go out and eat and we both had to (re)pack our bags for the next days big journey).
I managed to sleep for 1:30 hrs and Parth didnt sleep at all.. for me it became more difficult as the previous night was spent in transit at Dubai so it was straight 2 nights without sleep... next day we were going to Leh which has an altitude difference of near about 3500m with respect to Delhi in one of our worst physical condition ... but was there any option........... !?
adventure had begun at full steam !!!
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