"Fellow Indians... welcome home." Pilot, 17.05.14.
Everyone said coming to India would be a massive culture shock.
Coming to India from Singapore is probably the biggest culture shock you can imagine. This was their airport for starters..
And we were literally thrown right into the deep end from the moment we arrived in Delhi.
We wore appropriate clothing to cover ourselves and be respectful..but even on the posh airport metro men still stared a little.
If you just kinda look straight on and ignore them though, it's fine.
We went to New Delhi railway station, which I'd imagine is one of the busiest ones.
I'm rubbish at guessing numbers but I know there was a very big amount of thousands.
There were loads of ticket queues, only one had all women in it and the other 10+ were all men, apart from about four brave women.
Given that there's one boy and two girls, we didn't know if it would be more disrespectful jumping in the queue with the women, or men. We chose one of the many mens ones and just ignored the stares.
After we got our ticket, we started asking about a ticket for the next day too, as it said you can book advance ones. But men started piling forward and telling Jack it's "not an enquiry desk" so we hurried off, forgetting to ask what time our train was coming in the process.
India has a lot of guards roaming around with guns, which is a both scary and comforting.
We showed some security men our tickets and they tried to help..but really I think they didn't have a clue.
The platforms were almost as busy as the ticket bit, with hundreds waiting, selling things and sleeping on the floor.
We were eventually assured that getting on a train at platform 7 would get us to Agra. A young guy helped us figure it out and another bunch of guys all tried to work it out amongst themselves too.
We bundled into the busy train before it had even come to a stop, whilst everyone started filling it and scrambling for a seat. It was massively cramped and people were getting spaces wherever they could find them.
We were sat squished up with a group of lads who, for the first hour just either stared or laughed amongst themselves but then after a while did ask where we were from etc.
Aparantly men respect mens sisters more than their wives or girlfriends, so we made a point of saying we were all siblings.
It was really overwhelming at first.
With only tiny shutter windows, respectably covered up clothing, and people everywhere around, it was roasting!
After a while though, I started to enjoy it and just soak up the atmosphere.
The men next to us were playing cards, some kids were sleeping across each other (but their mum was dead scary if you looked at her), then as it slowed at each stop, men hopped on and walked down the train shouting out what they were Selling - (poppadoms, peas, chillies, sweets, toys, a page of newspaper).. and you just tried to grab it and pay whilst you could.
A man was singing.. and when it all got a bit loud, you couldn't tell if everyone had gathered for a story or an argument.
The guy who helped us with the train soon became quite odd, he kept trying to say our stop was before it was and he tried to convince me to swap my ring with his.
Once we were at the station though his over-friendliness made sense.. he conveniently had a taxi friend already waiting there who could drop us off at the hotel.
We scared them a bit by asking a police man directions to the taxis though.
After over 3 hours of numb bums and being slightly on 'the edge' our guesthouse was a very welcome sight! Our bottles of cold coke and nice curry went down a treat.
I was desperate to capture all of this in pictures, on the train and at the station. But a mixture of not wanting to flash an expensive phone around, keeping my witts about me at all times and not wanting to stir anyone up the wrong way kept my phone in my bag.
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The next morning after breakfast, we walked to a different hotel, as it had been a toss up between the two.
It was quite posh for us so it was lovely! And the view was brilliant!
In the arvo we walked five minutes, to get to the Taj Mahal but we were starving so we decided to go for food first, at a place highly recommended in the Lonely Planet, called Saniya Palace Hotel.
The recommendations did not even do the place justice, we couldn't have found a better spot.
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Not only did it overlook the Taj Mahal but it seemed special to us because we've all just read the Kite Runner .. and we could see boys stood on roof tops all around us, just how we imagine Hassan and Amir did in the book.
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After a beautiful meal (it was much tastier than it looked)..we tried to go to Taj Mahal.
We should have researched this earlier but you have to get tickets 1km down the road and the ticket booth had shut five minutes earlier.
So we just went back to soak up more of the perfect setting.
The next morning, we got up at 6am and went straight to the Taj Mahal. For locals it's 20p to get in but for foreigners it's £7.50
It was well worth it though, it was stunning!!
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Our train was due at 7.25am. At 7.12am, we sped walked rapidly to find a rickshaw to take us to the station.
Next stop...Jaipur!
Everyone said coming to India would be a massive culture shock.
Coming to India from Singapore is probably the biggest culture shock you can imagine. This was their airport for starters..
And we were literally thrown right into the deep end from the moment we arrived in Delhi.
We wore appropriate clothing to cover ourselves and be respectful..but even on the posh airport metro men still stared a little.
If you just kinda look straight on and ignore them though, it's fine.
We went to New Delhi railway station, which I'd imagine is one of the busiest ones.
I'm rubbish at guessing numbers but I know there was a very big amount of thousands.
There were loads of ticket queues, only one had all women in it and the other 10+ were all men, apart from about four brave women.
Given that there's one boy and two girls, we didn't know if it would be more disrespectful jumping in the queue with the women, or men. We chose one of the many mens ones and just ignored the stares.
After we got our ticket, we started asking about a ticket for the next day too, as it said you can book advance ones. But men started piling forward and telling Jack it's "not an enquiry desk" so we hurried off, forgetting to ask what time our train was coming in the process.
India has a lot of guards roaming around with guns, which is a both scary and comforting.
We showed some security men our tickets and they tried to help..but really I think they didn't have a clue.
The platforms were almost as busy as the ticket bit, with hundreds waiting, selling things and sleeping on the floor.
We were eventually assured that getting on a train at platform 7 would get us to Agra. A young guy helped us figure it out and another bunch of guys all tried to work it out amongst themselves too.
We bundled into the busy train before it had even come to a stop, whilst everyone started filling it and scrambling for a seat. It was massively cramped and people were getting spaces wherever they could find them.
We were sat squished up with a group of lads who, for the first hour just either stared or laughed amongst themselves but then after a while did ask where we were from etc.
Aparantly men respect mens sisters more than their wives or girlfriends, so we made a point of saying we were all siblings.
It was really overwhelming at first.
With only tiny shutter windows, respectably covered up clothing, and people everywhere around, it was roasting!
After a while though, I started to enjoy it and just soak up the atmosphere.
The men next to us were playing cards, some kids were sleeping across each other (but their mum was dead scary if you looked at her), then as it slowed at each stop, men hopped on and walked down the train shouting out what they were Selling - (poppadoms, peas, chillies, sweets, toys, a page of newspaper).. and you just tried to grab it and pay whilst you could.
A man was singing.. and when it all got a bit loud, you couldn't tell if everyone had gathered for a story or an argument.
The guy who helped us with the train soon became quite odd, he kept trying to say our stop was before it was and he tried to convince me to swap my ring with his.
Once we were at the station though his over-friendliness made sense.. he conveniently had a taxi friend already waiting there who could drop us off at the hotel.
We scared them a bit by asking a police man directions to the taxis though.
After over 3 hours of numb bums and being slightly on 'the edge' our guesthouse was a very welcome sight! Our bottles of cold coke and nice curry went down a treat.
I was desperate to capture all of this in pictures, on the train and at the station. But a mixture of not wanting to flash an expensive phone around, keeping my witts about me at all times and not wanting to stir anyone up the wrong way kept my phone in my bag.
It was quite posh for us so it was lovely! And the view was brilliant!
In the arvo we walked five minutes, to get to the Taj Mahal but we were starving so we decided to go for food first, at a place highly recommended in the Lonely Planet, called Saniya Palace Hotel.
The recommendations did not even do the place justice, we couldn't have found a better spot.
Not only did it overlook the Taj Mahal but it seemed special to us because we've all just read the Kite Runner .. and we could see boys stood on roof tops all around us, just how we imagine Hassan and Amir did in the book.
After a beautiful meal (it was much tastier than it looked)..we tried to go to Taj Mahal.
We should have researched this earlier but you have to get tickets 1km down the road and the ticket booth had shut five minutes earlier.
So we just went back to soak up more of the perfect setting.
The next morning, we got up at 6am and went straight to the Taj Mahal. For locals it's 20p to get in but for foreigners it's £7.50
It was well worth it though, it was stunning!!
Our train was due at 7.25am. At 7.12am, we sped walked rapidly to find a rickshaw to take us to the station.
Next stop...Jaipur!
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