Going to Thailand!

We decided to go to Thailand.
After using any free penny on enlarging the house and getting a bigger car (with a 100% financing) we decided that the most strategic thing to do is go East.
Noa is on a year of Momhood vacation, so February 2016 is a good time for this.

We set a budget (which we exceeded, of course) got tickets with Transero and we are planning what we'll do.

Transero went bankrupt so we had to buy tickets from the Uzbeks.

Every February at work is very quiet with not much work. But not in 2016. I slept 3 hours each night prior our flight in Thu 21th of Jan. And I didn't finish due to an ugly problem at Apple servers, grrr!!!

The flight went OK. We had a leg stop in Tashkent, which was funny. There is s small airport with such a mess that most of the two hours waiting we stood lines. And we didn't even enter the country...

So another night without sleeping, as Naomi slept on me most of the flight. "- What is the problem? we rented a beautiful flat in Bangkok, soon I'll sleep" I cheer myself up.

We got into Suvarnabhumi an hour early, around 4:15 AM.
There was a long line in the immigration booth, but Thais love kids, so they moved us to an empty booth!!! But we are Lowi... so we didn't fill all we had to in the immigration form...

Alright! We are now in Thailand! Let's get some Bahts and the luggage.
We found a food court in floor B of the airport (where all the busses) with real thai prices and taste!! What a happiness.

We stayed at the foodcourt till light started painting the skies.
I had figured out our route to the flat using the new skytrain from  Suvarnabhumi directly to BKK center, from there a connection to Ekammai station with other skytrain (MTS) line.

We got to Suvarnabhumi's skytrain station, go tickets (150 bhats for all of us) and the train was waiting there. A smiling thai, who waves the conductor of the train when it's clear to depart, held the train for us. Due to the gesture we jumped in without noticing there was no spot for us to seat or stand with all our luggage. Big mistake, huge...

The train started to fill up till it looked like this

We arrived to Phaia Thai station and walked to Ratchathewi station (short walk), got tickets and took a train till Ekkamai station. Around 10 stops and the train went full and empty during the ride.
We got off at Ekkamai, as the explanation of the place claims 5 mins walk from this station.
We booked a department at Zenith Place on Sukhumvit road (the longest road in thailand, from Bangkok to Cambodia border).

Ekammai station is in the top left and Zenith Place in the bottom right. As Google maps credibility is the same as for an Indian YES response, I assumed that Zenith Place is closer to the station (5 minutes, remember?)
Told my family to start walking.
This is the time to say we were carring:
1 85L backpack
4 smaller packs for daily use (ranging from 25L to 5L).
1 Huge suitcase (with wheels)
1 Big trolley
1 Baby Stroller
1 Baby that refuses to seat ON the stroller (or in it...)

1 Ukulele

1 Melodica

The walk was exactly as appears in the attached map!!!! Terribly hard for kids after 12 hours in airplanes and airports and trains. Around 750m with all the luggage on us.

The communication with our host was terrible.

Nobody was expecting us or knew about our arrival at Zenith Place.

We waited in the parking lot of Zenith Place:

The kids were sleeping in this parking lot while we try to either 

• get a sim card (the non english speaking guy wants our passport, so nono)
• get a decent wifi connection (what seven years ago was very common across bkk)
• get a bloody phone to call our narrow minded host and get us out of this lousy parking lot.

The thai guard of the parking lot was nice and smiley. There was a market just over the soi.

I went for a walk with the phone to catch some free WIFI. Found it and reached our host who wrote us back (after two hours) a message in Thai so we can show at Zenith Place, so they let us in.

Went back to Zenith Place (were they even refused us to let us use their wifi, cold blooded bastards these snob thais at the Zenith Place).

When the thai guy at Zenith Place saw the Thai message our host wrote he said "Not Here".

A lady from the market in front of the parking was very helpful as she knew some English and a lot of manners. They brought us a taxi and tried to explain the driver our whereabouts.

This is the time to mention all taxis in BKK run on gas, so there is no room in the trunk for anything... 

We jumped on the taxi. The luggage on us. The lady told us Sukhumvit 45 (we were in 72).

The driver took us to 45, I got off. Couldn't find any Zenith Place, so we told the driver to drop us at Ekkamai station (the one we got off the train four hours ago).

There is also a central bus station in Ekkamai, as we understood when we were dropped off the taxi.

Alright, so back to stage 1 after four exhausting wasted hours.

We sat down in the steel made bench of the bus station. Noa stayed with the kids and our luggage and I went to find the same as before. Sim, WIFI, phone. After 45 minutes and frustrated like hell returned with none.

Noa talked to two tourists that spoke good English. They were travelling with a very friendly and super helpful thai lady with a phone.

She talked with our host. Waved a taxi. Agreed the top price he's allowed to charge us and jumped in together with Noa in search of the place. It took them 45 minutes to find it AFTER the explanations of our stupid host.

They came back. THEY FOUND THE BLOODY PLACE!

The lady already left. She was like a fairy that came to save us!

The station guard, the taxi driver and Me took all our luggage and sleepy kids (now on the steel benches) and compressed everybody and everything in the cab. Except of myself. 

The station guard waved a motorbike taxi for me. We drove to Zenith Place. There are three Zenith Places along Sukhumvit road!!!!

The flat was Amazing:

(Two bedrooms, kitchen, living room, shower, smart elevator-you need the key to use it, guards in the lobby, swimming pool, washing machine - that takes one hour to finish washing, home stereo, cable TV, nice view of a golf range - a place to hit golf balls into the open space, a gym, etc...)

After six or seven hard hours, we were in our place in Bangkok. Exhausted, drained, too tired to do something)

The place is five minutes walk from Ekkamai station, the question was, in what direction...

McLeod Ganj - Dharamsala

The Tibetans:

We only met exiled Tibetans that escaped the genocide the Chinese are doing in Tibet. There are more than 2 million Tibetans missing. Probably most of them are dead after being tortured in the most painful ways only the Chinese are able to invent and, even worse, execute.

Mainly Buddhists. They believe that every bad thing that happens to you comes to make a good quality in you stronger. For example, The Dalai Lama (HH, His Holiness) says that He appreciates the Chinese, since they help him developing his patience.

Extremely friendly, polite and nice persons. Wonderful sense of humor and sometimes very naughty.

They are educated from the very beginning to eradicate their ego. They take care of each other.

They don't know how to take compliments; If you say a restaurant cook “- what a wonderful meal you made us!! Thanks” he would look at you, smiling and would not answer. They just don't know what it means or what to do with that.

An annoying fact: On every crappy map I've checked, Tibet is not drawn, but as an integral part of China. On the other hand, all maps bother to paint the Golan as a part of Syria, Gaza as a part of Egypt and the west bank as a part of Jordan. Israel area is 1/500 of Tibet. Losy cowards motherfuckers!

McLeod-Ganj – Dharamsala:

Also known as Little Lhasa, is the location of the exiled Tibetan government. It is a small town where the Tibetans that succeed escaping from Tibet first arrive. They meet HH (he meets each one of them as they arrive Dharamsala!!) and He helps them get started in their new hometown.

Most of McLeod habitants are Tibetans. There are also some Indian, most of the Indian live 1 Km away from McLeod though, in a place named Bhagsu. There is a tense relationship between these two peaceful peoples. The Tibetans are very united so the Indians use to say they are 'No me but a huge us'. The police forbids hanging around in the streets after 23:30, to avoid vandalism acts (which had occurred before). If you get to your guesthouse after 23:30 you'd probably find the main gate locked.

Many attempts have been made by the Tibetan leaders to settle an arrangement that would be acceptable to both China and them. Eight round of talks took place since early 90's but no progress done. The official Chinese stand is that HH is a terrorist and the Tibetans cannot be trusted. The Chinese are just a bunch of cynical greed so called communists that are interested on depleting Tibet on one hand and expand China borders to India, Nepal and other countries in Tibet vicinity on the other.

The Tibetans decided to act alone, since the Chinese are not really up to any kind of arrangement. A great meeting took place on November 2008. For the meeting arrived to Dharamsala Tibetans and pro-Tibet activists from all over the world. In the same month also we arrived there. When we got to McLeod there was no place to stay.

The first two nights we staid in the Bhagsu hotel, with TV in the room and monkeys in the garden. We had a nice time there, resting from the traumatic journey to Dharamsala. We saw a movie about two ladies that have a car accident, very crazy movie.

From Mc Leod Ganj

Now, with a roof over our heads, we could take a look around. The town is shared by Tibetans, Indian, Nepalis, Eagles, Crows, Monkeys, Cows, Dogs and tourists.

It has a breathtaking view of three mountain chains that run in paralel. All part of the lower Himalayas. The near one is the one McLeod itself is built on, together with Bhagsu and Dharmakot. Then there's a green chain and on the background you can see a white and gray chain.

After resting we changed 100 u$s at 'Thomas Hook' and 100 u$s at 'Paul Merchants' so we could find out where is the best place to change money (Thomas Hook wins by little) and went to eat.

Our first meal at McLeod Ganj was at the Tea o'clock restaurant. We immediately understood we were in a culinary heaven and that eating will become an important component of this chapter in our trip.

While having a room somewhere, we found a room at Tibetan Ashoka guesthouse, for 350 Rs the night. Since we paid 400 Rs at Delhi (for a shit hole without windows) and 720 Rs at the Bhagsu hotel, we were sure this guesthouse was very cheap. We'd soon learn we were mistaken. The guesthouse had many balconies with great views of the Himalayas. In the room we got a metalic closet and Shubalino decided this is his laundry drier.

At the beginning we walked around, without getting away from the town.

McLeod Ganj consists of two main roads. Jogiwara road runs from the main square (nothing else, but a relative wide parking lot, where parking is forbiden, used to load the public buses with people until there is no room in the bus for a fly.) to lower Dharamsala.

Temple road runs from the main square to the temple and the residence of HH (the Dalai Lama).

At the first 100 meters from the main square, both roads run in parallel, providing the frame of the market of the town. You can get there all kind of Tibetan and Nepali goods, a few indian shops and nothing from China. There are also a few restaurants, some really good like Mc LLO, the mentioned T o'clock, Norling, Snow Lion and more.

30 mts from the main square there is a temple under construction. Seing the workers there reminds me the Israeli style, six look while one works, with only one difference: the one that works is consistently missing. In a month we've been there I could notice very little progress.

Every place that has a door changes money. Is like everybody there does something plus forex.

At the end of the market place there is a Tibetan clinic. The doctor there is a wonderful woman with a very fine sense of humor that yelled at me on regular basis as she saw Shubalino without socks.

There are also two cellular phones distributors, where I got a mobile and a sim for only 1700 Rs, around 150 NIS. The nice thing they have, is that my line is good for only one year, then it expires and the number goes back to !dea, the service provider. I guess they have no other option in a country with 1500 milion potential customers.

Oh! I almost forgot. By the main square there are two places where they sell delicious cakes full of cream and edible colorants, non of them natural, don't worry. In general there is a trend among the Tibetan, all of them make cakes. Some of them make delicious cakes. The cakes by the main square are made by Indians, though.

After a few days at McLeod Ganj it was widely agreed that I'm carrying too much hair on my head. I went to an Indian barber to get my hair cut and my face shaved. It was a nice experience. At the beginning the hair dresser explained my possibilities. I can get a indian hair cut, or like this guy (a guy sitting next to me with an afro curly hair...) or other option that said even less than the indian hair cut. So I picked the Indian.

Then came the turn of the barber. This is really an experience. He shows you he is opening a new knife, which made me suspicious about something I wasn't till then. After washing my face with soap and hot water twice, he spread shaving foam and started shaving. Then he washed my face again, spread another round of foam and another shave. A face massage began after my face was dried and washed with aftershave lotion. The dessert was a head massage that I believe made me forget some stuff.

I felt very light after my visit to the hair dresser. The next day I bought a Gillete Mach3 though.

Before

After the Indian hair dresser

The first walk we did out in the wild, was still very near the town. We didn't mean to see anything green at all, but we startred walking on a road that went down in very steep way for returning the way up with Shubalino on my back. So we decided to abort mission. Instead of returning through the same road, we got off road into a green path, beautiful. With mini watermelons and a dog puppy and an Indian puppy that played together.

When we got back to the town, my love went to an internet place and the men went to the Chocolate Log, or shoclogloglog if you ask Shubalino. Very nice place ran by a fine Indian lady with sweet cakes and hot chocolate.

Our first visit to Bhagsu:

Four roads, in addition to Jogiwara and Temple roads, begin at the main square. The Bhagsu road to Bhagsu, the Dharmakot road to Dharmakot, the TIPA road to TIPA, as you can see, they don't have lots of martyrs, politicians and scientists for giving names to their roads (in the Tibetan case they have too many, sadly).... Oh, and the long way to Dharamsala, which has lots attractions before it gets to its destination.

The 21^st of November we took the first road on the right.

The walk lasted 1.5Km, mainly up but not steep. We saw a nice carpenter place by the road, just there.

We got to a town. It looked like an offseason tourist village. Empty restaurants, lots of shops closed, locals playing criket in the street and a small number of rickshaws. As we kept going, it became more like an Israeli offseason town. We found a Beit Habad, a restaurant with kosher meat, falafel and, of course, all the town had signs in Hebrew.

We saw an intresting temple which we decided to come especially to visit it later.

We kept uphill until no cars could get to where we were heading. Oh! We actually were looking for a waterfall that happened to be around there, but not exactly where we were.

We got to a beautiful neighborhood with great view and very nice houses. Sleeping there costed half than at McLeod. At the beginning we considered staying there, but no roads means no lights at night. Meaning we had to be back home at half past six.

Shubalino took us to a walk around this neighborhood. It was great, just following him.

On the way back we met a Japanese journalist that was very surprised our visit had nothing to do with the Dalai Lama and that we didn't even know he lives there until we got there.

We also met an orthodox jew named Uri. He invited us to a Kabalat Shabat at Beit Habad. We said we'd like to, mainly because Shubalino loves it.

Our first take away:

While in Bhagsu we were hungry so we decided it is time for lunch. But the empty restaurants, the electricity shortages and the hygienic customs of the locals pushed us back to our town.

We went to a highly recommended restaurant. My love's food was OK, mine was fine and Shubalino felt asleep We asked them to pack Shubalino's meal so we could feed him when he wakes up and finds out we are no longer in a restaurant. They immediately took his meal and went to prepare it for delivery. They came back with his food packed. I think that the way the Indians share their cities with cows, dogs, monkeys, cats, crows and other non humans creatures sometimes confuses them. Shubalino is indeed a cab, but in a metaphoric way. His food was packed in a Pedigry bag. I want his skin-coat to be healthy but not shiny.

Shubalino having his meal after he woke up:

Take a closer look, please:

Now, the question I have is: “-What is a Pedigry pack doing in the kitchen of the restaurant??”

... to be continued ...

The way to McLeod Ganj

We wanted to go south and then North, after going to North west we could go to the Mid East and later on aaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!! CUT THE CRAP!!! Let's go to the north and later on we'll see, so to the north then!

We went to the rail station and asked to get tickets to the Delhi - Dharamsala night express. It is a pleasant five to seven hours train ride. Even though it is called express I asked the tickets seller specifically if we are getting of in the final (and assumed by me as unique) stop of the train. The indian guy moved his head around the axis that doesn't mean yes nor no, just moving his head; I'm 100% sure he said Yes in addition to this informationless head movement.

The train was supposed to depart at 20:40. So we arrived to the station at ...
...
well ...
at, mmmm, emmm, 19:00! We, me, mainly, didn't want to miss this train and stay in Delhi.
On 20:00 the tourists office of the railway station is closed, so we were forced to wait for the train in the incredibly crouded train platform with, I believe, enough Indians to populate TLV and Jerusalem! I'm exagerating, but easily they could populate all Afula, that's for sure.

We went to a dark, isolated (as much as isolation has any sense in this place) corner and waited.

The train arrived. All Afula's population needs a long train, so it was. It was like one kilometer long!

We found our beds. It was a three tier, air conditioned wagon. We took both top beds in the same room. We put all the bags in one bed together with me and Noa and Yubalino were on the second bed:

From Mc Leod Ganj

From Mc Leod Ganj

It was very nice!

We had an Indian princess as a Neighboor. I believe so. She was dressed and adorned like a princess. The prince was in regular jeans and T-shirt. Under Noa and Shubalion, a bussinessman from Kalkuta was in his way north to do some bussiness. Very nice guy!

The train left exactly at around, more or less 22:00... Indian trains work, I guess, on Israeli time zone ...

We had an Indian princess as a Neighbor. I believe so. She was dressed and adorned like a princess. The prince was in regular jeans and T-shirt. Under Noa and Shubalino, a businessman from Calcutta was in his way north to do some business. Very nice guy!

The train left exactly at around, more or less 22:00... Indian trains work, I guess, on Israeli time zone ...

Shortly after departure a guy started bringing towels, blankets, sheets, pillows, etc. In the end he started to bring all kind of food. Very tasty food! In the middle of the food bombardment shubalino came up with one of the best questions I ever heard:
This guy is our friend, right? I laughed for a while


After eating and eating some more, our friend asked for TIP and stopped coming and bringing stuff.

We saw all the train is turning off the lights. I asked the prince if he wants me to shut off our light too. He replied with the typical Indian answerless head movement, so I turned the light off. Since shubalino is affraid of the dark, I took a head-light off my backpack and turned on. Shubalino felt asleep quiet immediately.

Then I started reading about Dharamsala and I found out there is a quiet place nearby named McLeodganj. I immediately understood this is our destination, so I tried to memorize this terrible name.

Since we were almost robed twice, few hours before departure, my love and I decided we won't sleep all the journey. So I red everything in our India's handbook about Dharamsala and Mcleodganj especially. I red it twice and once more, and the train stopped like five or six times. My love looked at me, why is the express train stopping? she asked. With a total confidence They have only one rail in some segments I replied... What the hell do I understand about trains in in general and about Indian trains in particular!??!!??!??!!!

After a long trip, the train stopped and everybody started getting off. So we did. Shubalion was awaked suddenly, so he started crying and fighting. I lost my temper, but thanks to my love, there were no casualties.

When I got to the train door, while my foot was on the air on its way down to touch earth, at that specific moment, I understood we are fucked up by a big dicked donkey! I saw some soldiers behind sand bags holding 0.5 machine guns. This can't be good news. Especially when you are traveling north.

A feeling of emptiness, fear, exhaustion and panic were switch with infinite rage as I understood we are in Kashmir. I wanted to shoot the tickets seller between his eyes with the machine gun of this guy looking at me, three meters away.
Nobody spoke English, all our neighbors from the train vanished. My love tried to calm us both by telling me it is worse if they feel our weakness. She was as right as I was almost out of control.

After finding an English speaker we understood we are at the last, so called, express train. More than 100 Km away from our original destination. This friendly guy told us we should buy tickets to the train back south and get off at Penthakot. Another terrible word I must store in a head full of rage and after being awake all the night. The train is leaving at 9:00 AM, two hours of waiting in the station and the journey would last another two or three hours.

9:00 AM my ass!!! The train didn't even arrive the platform at 9:00 AM

The platform was full of sun burnt men, washing their teeth. What and hygienic sight, especially when you are in a country where people shit in the very place they understood the kaka is ready for delivery. I checked my teeth like ten times, just because of them.

Don't remember what time it was. A train entered the platform. I tried to understand where is the north, calculating this is winter, morning, north, his brushing his teeth, he looks at us all the time, why he keeps his finger on the trigger with the clip inside, ...., ah!!!!!!! My brain cannot even calculate how old am I. I'm tired, scared, tired and exhausted.
Luckily, another incredibly friendly lady with an understandable English told us to get on this train. So we did.
I believe we sat in this train for another whole hour before it started moving. My love even went to pee on the train toilet. If it doesn't mean anything to the reader, I believe that the train toilet is comparable with the worst stinky, ugly, wet, grouse toilet an ex-prisoner in the Vietnam war can imagine.

The train finally started moving and kept doing so (since it started a few times before). We were explained that we should get off the train seven stops after departure. Well, at the seventh stop there was no power on earth that would take us out of this train. It looked like the train station of a far west town that the sheriff was killed a long time ago and his body's smell is still in the air. The blood pressure started raising again to the 500mm line. Actually it was us, since the people in the train were incredibly nice, gentle and with faces full of peace. It was just us with stress in the whole train.
A friendly guy told us the next station is Phantakot. And exactly as he said, six stops afterwards we got off the train at Pantakot.

Phantakot is a 300m, doble direction road (in both sides of the road they dive in both directions!!) with shops, taxis, buses and a railway station.
We went to the right, we were wrong. We got back and finally found the central bus station, 100m from the railway station.

We found a unique bus that gets to Dharamsala. This bus has three doors. One by the driver and two on the rear part. None of them mechanical, of course. One of the rear doors is constantly open, since you can enter the bus from behind or from the front. We sat on the last seat, since we had four huge back packs and no other place to put them but by us. We assumed the rear door is closed as the journey begins...
Then my love and Shubalino moved to another seat, a bit away from the constantly open rear door.
Then we discovered the third door. An emergency door. In india they didn't understand the meaning of Emergency Door. Here in India is a door that when everything is just fine, it suddenly opens by itself and generates an emergency!! That's the way this new discovered door looks like.

The journey to Dharamsala lasted a three and a half hours eternity. The road climbs to the Himalayas, on a road that is full of Indian drivers and our bus driver passes trucks just before a turn without having any place to go in case another Indian driver comes in the opposite direction.

We got to Dharamsala!! Well, don't be so happy. We must get to mclejanag or something like this, Panthakot was stored in the place where Mcleodganj was stored before. So I couldn't remember where we were heading to.

We found a Jeep that goes to McLeod Ganj. Well, I finally understood how the Arab workers feel when they seat 20 guys in a small tender. I believe that at several parts of the journey we were 15 passengers in a Jeep climbing the Himalayas without touching the brakes and with more cars in this snaky road than in Ayalon at 8:00 AM on Sunday.

Finally, after four false alarms, we got to McLeod Ganj!!!! Well, we are happy to soon, again... The Tibetans are holding a very important meeting and every single bed in this town has a Tibetan or two sleeping on it.
My love was exhausted and I was trying to hold her for just 20 more gest houses. Probably at the twenty first there will be a vacant room.
Finally we found a room and went to sleep, I don't even remember if we had a shower before going to bed.

The funniest hell on earth.

We arrived to Delhi by 04:00 AM.
It seems like our luggage came in other plane. As we finished the police check there was a Royal Jordanian representative watching after our stuff. It was only ours and the Medical needed guys from the Ben Gurion air port (see previous post).

After finishing the entrance to India we took a prepaid, so called, taxi. It was a terribly small car. Some how we managed to get inside.
The ride was a kind of a blend of a roller coaster, GTA San Andreas, A ride with Mr Magoo and a crush test (where we are the dummies...). It was terribly dark, even while there was a full moon. The pollution is so terrible that you cannot see the moon... On the road, while the right seated driver flies at about 80 km/h you see cows, trucks, motorcycles, other cars, and so on. Each time the driver passed someone he blew the horn like 'ti ti ti ti ti ti '. But the best part is the bicycles. In the middle of this chaotic, dark road they ride, without any light or reflector at all!!!!!!!! Is like they wish for some kind of death. Or by a car hit (the acute style) or by pollution (the chronic way). Didn't understand these guys.

We got to the 'Main Bazar'. It is, to say the least, the lowest slams you could imagine. It was still dark. The driver, who was paid upfront, wanted some more for the TIP. We sent him to check if we are there, just around the corner, and ask from us if he find us, there, ...

From Delhi_1

As is clear, the cellular companies here are not hypocrite like @ IL (look on the right of the picture)...

Well, the guest house we wanted was full. We went to 'Hare Rama' guest house and got a windowless room!!! We understood how shoes feel in their box...

Delhi seemed to be less annoying than expected. We walked around. Ate Indian food, which turned to be very tasty and healthy. We also bought all kind of fresh vegetables in the street and ate them:

From Delhi_1

We had our regular place where we ate delicious mouseli, thali and other great stuff:

From Delhi

When we understood Delhi is annoying as we were warned
We decided we had enough of this pollution:

From Delhi_1

so we went to the railway station to get tickets to the south (Goa). At ten minutes walk from our guest house there is Delhi's main railway station. There is also a building called 'Railways Reservations' a hundred meters from the station. Still not sure why, I decided we should get our tickets at the railways reservations and not at the station itself. As we got there it looked quiet like Gaza strip after Ahmed Yazin met our hellfire missile. Before we even got shocked, a incredibly friendly Indian offered his help, which reminds me this story:
"A little bird felt off the nest into the snow below. He was about to freeze when a cow passed and without premeditation shit on the bird a warm and cozy bulk of bullshit. The bird felt a sudden infinite happiness so he started singing of joy. A hungry cat that was terribly hungry due to the cold, heard how the food is calling, took the bird out of the shit and ate it in one bite".
What this story comes to say is that when somebody volunteers to take you out of the shit, you should start to worry...
This Indian guy, with an CNN English, told us he works there for Indian government. He told us to go to a place where they are allowed to sell the tourists quota of the train. That in the railways reservations building only Indians buy tickets.
We went to where he sent us and they offered an only today price of 2000 u$s for getting all kind of tickets we didn't ask for. The saddest part is that I almost payed and my brilliant wife told me to get our asses out of there ASAP... Another riksha driver took us to another place by saying that this is really an Indian government tourists agency. The prices were lower but we wanted to think a bit. So we walked around.
We didn't buy tickets this day, but we made a couple of friends in a park in Delhi and shubalino had his first chance run a bit in India, around the park. We then got into the Metro station and went back to our shoes box to have a shower and some rest.
In the morning we went straight to a place our Indian friends told us, in the first floor of the Delhi's Railways Station. We just walked, like defths, blind people that cant hear all the offerings around us. And, ... WE GOT THE GOD DAMN TICKETS!!! We decided to go north and we got tickets to the north, since Goa sounded a bit long to travel.
We were so happy we have train tickets that we went for a walk around Delhi.

From Delhi_1

Two minutes after this picture a guy tried to pick my pocket. I almost broke his hand, I really got mad.

Later we went to the shoes box to pack and started walking to the train station. On our way there another motherfucker got a broken hand while trying to pick my pocket!!! Damn motherfuckers!

We got to the station and went straight to the place where we bought the tickets. Since we felt this was the place were we made our first progress since we got in India.
Now we'll wait for our train, it feels we have nothing to worry anymore... NOT! They close this nice tourists office at 20:00 and we then must wait downstairs, in the middle of this crazy funny suffocating hell called Delhi's Main Railway Station.

Delhi, here we come!

The airport check in was actually a bit stressful. They gave us three seats away from each other, which probably wouldn't be so good for Shubalino. Royal Jordanian are a great flight company, once you are on the air...
The desk in which you do check in is not the same one where you change your seats. You first finish the check in procedure then, if there is a problem, you talk to the guy with the kuku and he fixes it. The problem is that in our flight there was a group of guys that, due to medical reasons, had to put a lot of medical stuff in the plane. So they needed more than I the kuku guy. It took them around 40 minutes to get their stuff in place, so it took like 50 minutes to be seated together in the flights.

We, my love and I, were planning for a month how it would be to tell shubalino about the flight, and how everything looks so small down there and that these are the wings and these are the seats...
The only thing he saw is Amman's duty free. And had on questions about it.

On the flight to Delhi, the flight-attendants kidnapped shubalino. They were so crazy about him! It just was a prelude of what expected to him in India

The beginning of the trip

This trip actually begins three days before departure. At a magical Saturday in which the low temperature didn't succeed on cooling the warm company of loved family and friends.
First came the married plus ones. The kids played together and it was so sweet and calm.
It was so nice having some talks with loved people you won't see for a while.
Later came the musicians friends and was very happy, fun and wonderful.

Just a day before leaving my mom came to give one last push to empty our home so Rafi can rent it.

And just hours before departure, a wonderful full moon bicycle trip with Maxi and Sansi as a last goodbye.

Well this is quiet how this trip started.