A little step back to the west: India

A second month in China spending with friends and with 萌 passed by very quickly, but with many changes. Again as flexible as I am, I deal with all happiness. Because when something does not work out, there is always a different solution which I really look forward to.
My plan was to travel from Beijing to Tibet, cross the border to Nepal and continue to India.
To be allowed into Tibet, a permission for foreigners is mandatory. However at the moment I was planning to leave Beijing to Tibet, the office for permission requests was closed as it was the weekend. So i decided to travel to the south to Shaoxing to meet 萌 again, and arrange the permission from there. I preferred to spend my time with 萌 than staying in Beijing. I met 萌 in November in China, and I was glad to meet her again. So I went to the train station to get a refund for my already bought train tickets to Tibet via Chengdu, and bought a new ticket to Shanghai with the hard sleeper night train. In Shanghai I started a three hour bus ride to Shaoxing, just south of Shanghai. In Shaoxing, just south of Shanghai. In Shaoxing I spent more than a week, and spend the Chinese new year in beautiful Hangzhou at the beautiful west lake.
Due to the Chinese new year, celebrated for over a week, the office to get the Tibet permit was again closed and once opened, I did not have enough time anymore to take the exciting and mountainous long rail road to Tibet and through Nepal. Sadness but it meant I could spend a few days longer with 萌 in Shaoxing!

To move on I booked a seven hour flight with China Eastern Airlines from Shanghai to Delhi, India where I would pick up my sister from the airport, arriving 24 hours later. I arrived at a beautiful time of 2.00am. I considered staying at the airport for 24 hours waiting for the KLM flight carrying my sister and her friends, however I found a nice hostel not far from the airport and as I was tired I decided to grab a cab in the middle of the night to this hostel to get some sleep, and wake up before breakfast. Also I hoped that at the hostel they would have a used Lonely Planet of India, to swap for one of my books. Or perhaps a used on for sale.

After a good morning of sleep, I woke up just in time for the all-you-can-eat-breakfast. The hostel was very quiet with only a few guests, but nice people. Two girls from Germany, a guy from Sweden called Fredrik, and an Indian guy searching for an available apartment to live close to his new job.
At the hostel no books, so in the afternoon I went with Jantje, the German girl - before she was going back to the airport to pick up her friend - to the local market to find books.
These were my first steps in India during the day. Obviously I had already seen a bit of India in the night during my ride to the hostel. But the streets were empty. Everybody had left the world alone for a moment, gaining new energy to take over the world in another new day.
Everything was dark, but here and there I could find some spots illuminated by different sources. I saw a lot of dirt, chaos, broken roads, sand, people sleeping on the ground. Cows and dogs laying next to them. But further than that everything was very peaceful. So this afternoon, after my breakfast, I stepped outside and found that a complete new world had surrounded my hostel, as if someone had picked up the house and dropped it in a new world. The peaceful world lost it's territory and the chaos had taken over. So quiet it was the night before, with empty streets containing dark houses and walls. But now so many people, so much life, also the houses and walls had faded away and turned into shops, little restaurants, mechanic garages, etc. I didn't believe I was walking through the same street as I was a few hours before in all darkness.
I was re-enjoying the same streets with so many new things to explore and observe. Unique moments, an almost unique culture. A new country to add to my list of different experiences.
Walking in one line is impossible. Walking with a friend, having a conversation becomes a challenging enjoyment. Every step you take, you need to watch where you put your foot. In your own country you might dare to walk without checking where you walk but here, and especially in this street, probably you can make only 5 steps and you will put your foot in a big puddle of mud, or right in a smelly pancake, freshly dropped from cows their asses. Or you could stumble over the sleeping street dogs and cows or also very common, you could drop down into a one meter wide and one meter deep drain connecting the toilets.

Yes! Along the road in the middle of the city! - 13/03/11

All the houses were transformed into little shops, on the streets people put their gear on tables selling jewelry, books, or scarfs. Other guys brought their 'rolling kitchen', a table on 4 bicycle wheels with a few pots and pans and a gas heater, serving you your breakfast or lunch on the road, where you enjoy your food with fellow customers surrounding the rolling kitchen. At one of these places, a guy was baking sort of snacks - potato pancakes - which we tasted and enjoyed! A nice taste, warm and filled with Indian spices.

When we got to the end of the road, crossed the main road and arrived at the little shopping area - a square with many shops - I found a guy selling books, including a cheap Lonely Planet and another book with the title 'the little prince'. Or in Chinese: 小王子(xiǎo wáng zǐ). I recognized it as I knew this book. 萌 had read me a few stories out of the book. I bought this thin book to have good memories and because she had made me curious what beautiful stories were written in this children's book for grown-ups.
After shooting a pasport photo and getting a copy of my passport I was able to get a sim-card. After the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in few years ago, it is now legal requirements to get passport photo's and passport copies for everyone buying a sim-card.
Back at the hostel I did a little more internet and left the hostel to go back to the airport by rickshaw. After stopping a few rickshaw drivers who didn't want to bring me, I found a guy who was willing to take me there. I started bargaining while we were driving already. I knew the ride was only 180 Rupees, but the driver wanted to charge me 500 Rupees! The beautiful moments of being a foreign tourist. I told him I would pay 200 and nothing more. So he dropped his price to, like he was too kind to me to a price of 450 Rupees! I kept declining and he didn't want to agree with my 200 Rupees offer. I told him I would pay 200 or he could stop, but he kept driving, so I knew he would agree with my offer. Others who wouldn't agree would have stopped straight away and kicked me out. He started dropping his price a little further but I kept declining.
Finally, nearly arriving the end of this rickshaw ride, he decided, because I was his friend, on a price of 250 Rupees. Just because it was me.
I still didn't agree, and hen we arrived at the airport I got out of the rickshaw, gave him my 200 Rupees and still he didn't agree and angrily he threw my 200 Rupees on the back seat of his rickshaw. But I walked away anyway. I knew this game he was playing, and with shouting from the driver I simply walked to the free shuttle bus to be dropped off in front of the airport. If he really didn't agree he would come after me. But he didn't, because it was a game. And I knew the standard price is 180 Rupees.

I was a few hours too early at the airport so I started reading in my new book, reading the learning adventures of 'the little prince'. I finished the book at once! It is a beautiful story.
I finished it just before my sister arrived, and my brother-in-law had arrived in meantime as well, and together we drove up north to Karnal, about 200 kilometers north of Delhi.