As expected the first day in India was a shock. Chaos everywhere. We had heard them a thousand times, the culture shock warnings. "Westerners for the first time in India. The poverty on the street. The heat. The odour. The food." But nobody had said: "The tricksters. The information sharks. The rickshaw drivers." Coming to India with snow white winter skin that glows of "foreigner just arrived", is an experience nobody should lose out on. The first few days we could not walk ten meters on the street without being interrupted by somebody wanting our business. Mostly the Indian "taxi drivers", the rickshaw men, who seemed to be warmly concerned about our sore feet.

The next feeling is that of helplessness. We used some of our friendly "helpers" to find out where we could by bananas and bread, having set the menu for the first days. In the evening we consulted our bible (the travel guide) to find safe restaurants. What we the first day defined as "safe restaurants" were the more expensive in town, places we could not "afford" later on.

Slightly nervous is a good term when referring to the bugs in our beds the first nights in Dehli. Us I mean, not the bugs. They were small cockroaches, that came out and played in the dark. Needless to say we were somewhat hesitant about turning off the light, but after a while we figured, "oh well, guess we have to get used to it." But to our increasing relief, we never saw them again in any other Indian guesthouse. We had just picked a bad one the first nights.

Sightseeing in Dehli? Well, we did the Red Fort and the Presidential Palace. When we came back to Dehli two months later to fly to Thailand, we visited the beautiful Baha'i Lotus Temple just outside the city.

Agra. The number one tourist city of India, and only for one building, the

Taj Mahal

The photo is picked up here.

It is not only the name of half the Indian restaurants in the western world, it is also the magnet of India. One of the worlds seven wonders. Built in the 17th century by Shah Jehan one of Northern India's Muslim rulers (moghuls). The Shah was married to Mumtaz Mahal. At her death he decided to build her a tomb. Yes, all you romantics out there, it is built from pure love. Of love and white marble, Shah Jehan built what he intended to be the ultimate piece of architecture. Stories tell that when the constuctions were finished he had the hands of the artists cut off; they were never to built anything like it again. To know more about it, visit here.

To photograph the wonder you need to be there in the morning, or in the evening. They knew, raising the prices by 5000% (I am not exagerating) for the morning and evening hours. (Let me, to be fair, add that the price was usually near to nothing, increasing to $3.50.) It was nice to visit the Taj Mahal, but we knew it would be nice, so no surprise. Seeing the slides afterwards, of the white marble building in the red light of the rising sun, was maybe the best thing about it.

In the Agra area we also visited Fathepur Sikhri, a small palace town built by another of the 17th century moghuls. He built it and he left it. The water supply wasn't sufficient to sustain a whole town. So there it lies today, adding to the magic of Agra. And its attraction on western tourists.

We had to stop a day in Ahmedabad to wait for the next southbound train. I expected little of the city. All I knew about it was that it's among the most polluted in India. But in Ahmedabad we found a pearl: the Ashram of Mahatma Gandhi. A place that still today contains the peace of the long gone Mahatma. The Taj Mahal was astonishing, as we knew it would be. The Ashram was an unexpected oasis in noisy, dusty Ahmedabad. A place were you could sit in peace on the porch of the grand master's little house and know that finally the journey had brought a special moment. A moment I still remember among the highlights of my life.

At the Ashram I picked up a copy of Gandhi's early autobiography. This book was to be my lecture all the way to the high Himalayas. To read about Gandhi, visit a Gandhi home page. Ahmedabad is the largest city in the State of Gujarat.

Diu: Beaches, Japanese hippies, beer, and old Portuguese churches. (Visiting this is what drove us towards the beaches. We must have missed something.) A vacation from the real India, relaxing for a while, but after almost a week we were anxious to continue our travel. As a link to the future we found, in Diu's many churches, the same architecture that we were later to rediscover in Brazil.

You think lions only live in Africa, don't you? Atleast that's what we were tought in school. But as so many things from those early school years, it just isn't true. Leaving Diu, we went a little train ride north into the state of Gujarat. The purpose of this stop was to catch a glimps of some of Asia's last lions. They are supposed to count more than 200 in the Girnar Forest national park. The first morning in the park gave no result. We were put on the back of a jeep and taken along gravel roads into the forest and bush country. Pretty boring after a while, as hope of spotting the King himself slowly vanished, and the chilly Indian morning penetrated the far too thin clothing.

In Varanasi there are three categories of people; the pilgrims, the tourists, and the citizens. The pilgrims bathe in the holy Ganges river and visit the temples (Vishwanath temple). The tourists photograph the pilgrims as they bathe and visit temples. And the citizens make money on the bathing pilgrims and clicking tourists.

Varanasi, earlier called Benares, is the holiest of the Hindus' holy cities. Millions go there every year, followed by thousands of tourists. Varanasi is a horribly beautiful place, literally speaking. It is a rather dirty, stinking city, which also goes for the holy Ganges, but so-so charming and exciting. The best place to be is at the Ghats, i.e. the line of buildings and steps on the riverfront. Read a bit more on Varanasi here. Take a look at two of hinduism's figures: Krishna and Ganesh.

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