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Maria's Big Adventure!
After a frantic rush to Heathrow airport thanks to my sister being late I eventually made my plane and landed safely in Delhi. The transfer from the airport to the hotel was more like a white knuckle ride and I got my first taste of the crazy roads in India. It was chaos, there were people sleeping by the side of the road, tents made of bits of material that were home to whole families, cows walking down the middle of the road. People don’t use brakes or road markings they just accelerate and use their horn and the biggest vehicle wins!Safely at my hotel I spent most of the day sleeping trying to adjust to the tome difference and catch up on the night of sleep I’d missed. The furthest I ventured was to the bank to get money but even that was scary. There was a man stood outside the ATM with a huge gun, then I had to walk down the street with the biggest wedge of money I’d ever seen and try to navigate my way back to the hotel without being run over by tuk-tuks, motorbikes of cows!The following day I got up and went to the hotel where the tour started. The first meeting wasn’t until 6pm so I had a few hours to spare. I decided to venture out into the min market street for a wonder. As a Westerner everyone stares at you and tries to get you get you into their shop or to look at what they’re selling, it’s very daunting to begin with.As I wasn’t feeling too adventurous at that point I opted for a McDonalds, deciding it was safer to stick with what I knew. But there were no Big Macs on the menu!That evening I met up with the rest of the group for our first group meeting. It was a group of 12, 9 females, 3 boys, most were English with the exception of one Aussie, a Mexican, a Canadian and a girl from Finland. It seemed like a good mix of people.The following day we met up and got the bus to Jama Masjid a mosque, and then got cycle rickshaws to the Sikh Temple. Typically the rickshaw driver I had didn’t listen to the tour leaded and decided to take us somewhere completely different! After waiting for everyone else for about 10 minutes we realized that we were in the wrong place. Trying to explain where we were meant to be when we weren’t entirely sure ourselves, to a driver who didn’t understand a word we were saying was quite difficult to say the least!! But eventually we managed tr get back to the rest of the group.
We had the rest of the afternoon free so me and one of the other girls decided to go shopping. We headed to Connaught Place where men asking us where we were going, what we were looking for and saying that they wanted to practice their English constantly approached us. We eventually decided that we would go to a shop with one of the men thinking he was genuine but in hindsight I’m sure he must have been on commission to get people in. after a few hours we couldn’t take anymore of it and headed back to the hotel.
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