Day 1: Arrival

Finally arrived in New Delhi, immediately realized what disorganization look like. The surprise move by the Indian Government to discontinue the most popular currency has sent the whole country into a huge chaotic mess! All the ATMs are out of cash, we had to wait for 40 minutes just to exchange our US dollars to Indian Rupees. And the cash is limited to only $70/person. Let's see how much we can use our credit card here. Otherwise, we may need to wait in other long lines to get cash every day! Not good at all!!

After finally getting some cash at the currency exchange, we stepped out of the airport, and was hit by the smog. The government has declared the city was smog free, we didn't think that's true. There is a terrible smoke smell in the air . After I took a couple breaths, my throat felt tightened, my eyes started watering a bit. I started to regret my decision not to bring a mask.

We used a Uber driver for the first time, in order to persevere our precious cash. We met him at the messiest taxi stand I've ever seen. There were 4 or 5 lanes of cars, instead of coming into the pickup/drop off lane, the drivers would stop at any whichever lanes as they want, even though there were many policemen standing in those lanes and trying to stop this kind of behavior. They blew their whistles as loud as they could, but no one paid them any attention. The drivers were honking their horns, waving in and out of the lanes... many and many accidents were averted at the last second. We got into our Uber car nervously.

Then we experienced the famous Indian traffic. Turned out the entire traffic system was not that much better than the taxi stand. The lines of the road seemed like a suggestion only, since many drivers just drive on top of them instead of between them. The drivers would stop their cars in the middle of the highway, and pedestrians would walk across and dodging the incoming cars like it was nothing. More horn honking, and many last second traffic aversions. Well, we did see an accident while the driver crushed into the medium poles. For some reason, the medium divided the highway was a deep ditch, so the car was almost vertically stuck in that ditch.

Motorcycles seemed to be the best method to move around since they could squeeze between the cars and get ahead. Although much to our horror, many people would jam a kid between the driver and the passenger. Of course no one wore helmet.

I thought, this is just like China in 90's. Riding a car is more like riding a roller coaster... but more scary!

We have hired a driver for our trip here. We are meeting him tomorrow. Fingers crossed that he would keep us safe in this crazy chaos!Read more