Jon - G traveller

They boy who worked with me
first emalil 17/07
Hi Everyone

Arrived in Israel no problem, and have adjusted to life quite easily. Only problem is the weather - its too damn hot How I'm going to cope in India is anyone's guess - although apparently the Himalayas (where I'll be for the first month or so) really isn't that hot. Were flying this friday, first to Delhi then travelling north immediately to the Himalayas.

I just wanted to say hi and to also make sure I had everyone's email addresses correctly before we go.

Stay in touch. I'll probably send a few big emails to everyone whilst travelling and then just stay in touch with personal emails to whoever wants to stay in touch with me..if any of you actually want to of course.

Take care

Jon
second today
Hi everyone

Just to tell you all that we've arrived in delhi without any problems. The flights were very good and everything went to plan. We landed in Delhi at 6am and came straight to a guest house. Or thats what we thought we were doing.

The bloody taxi driver stopped at a tourist office and gave us no choice but to go in. The agent was very friendly and after our long trip we didn't have our guards up as we should. Next thing he was trying to convince us to swap our plans from Ladach in the Himalayas and go to Kashmir instead. We said we'd think about it and next thing he came into the taxi and drove us to a guest house. Thankfully the guest house is still quite nice and has worked out at 600 Rupees - which is more than we should pay but ok seeing we were being taken for a ride.

Of course we were expecting all this but after the long journey it was hard to steer away from the inevitable. Anyway, so were here in the guest house writing this - we have our bags, everything is fine, we have air-con that works...and best of all we leave in 4 hours to go to Leh as planned.

We had been told that Delhi was a hard city so we thought we knew what to expect. The car journey from the airport was truly amazing. On one side of the road you see old looking buildings - as expected - and on the other u see a small piece of concrete looking land with a mixture of animals and people living in what can only be described as squalour. And then u just see the most bizarre things...monkeys, cattle walking on the road, drivers completely ignoring the red traffic light. Just bizarre - but fascinating at the same time.

But then we left this afternoon after some sleep to explore. Actually we knew where we wanted to go - it was just hard getting there. As soon as we started to walk anywhere u have people coming up to you offering to show u the way. We soon learned they're all trying to take u to a tourist office where they get commission if u organise something there. So we soon also learned to tell them politely in Indian (1 nice guy taught us the lingo) to bugger off. And it works. Kind of.

So after not getting anywhere fast we decided to spend the remainder of our time in Delhi in the luxury of our air-con room watching MTV indian style - very funny. And here we are, happy that were here, even happier were going straight up north in 4 hours. That was the best thing we did buying the tickets to Leh b4 we came. Now we can say goodbye to Delhi, for now, and perhaps come back when we dont look like obvious targets to one and all. Not that we've left yet so maybe its a good idea not to get too happy just yet.

So were here, safely, and looking forward to what lies ahead. For now take care

Jon & Hilit