I've arrived

Wow, a lot has happened in the past however many hours it's been. I'll start at the beginning I guess. Being tall I got an exit row seat from SFO to Seoul to Singapore, so I stretched out and "enjoyed" that 17+ hours of flight time. I slummed it in the regular seats to New Delhi, but Singapore Air is nice, so it wasn't bad.

I got in to New Delhi this morning at about 5:10am (just short of 29 hours after leaving). It was 82 degrees and I can only assume nearly 100% humidity. I tried to take a picture from the taxi of the sunrise, but the lense fogged up it was so humid. I made it to the hostel, got all settled in and attempted to sleep.

At about 8 I started wandering around Delhi. The place is incredibly busy, crowded, smelly (alternating between nasty and delicious if that's possible), hot, and ready to take a tourist's money. Somehow I made it back to the hotel in one piece for another little nap.

At about noon I set out in search of food. I was quickly sucked in by a "guide" who took me to a nice restaurant, where I had a really good meal for about $2, including naan (although they don't call it that), 3 curries, vegetables and some delicious bottled water. From there my "guide" took me to the tourist info office, where I booked a huge tour. After seeing the chaos of everything in the morning and feeling incredibly overwhelmed, it seemed like a good idea. When I say tour what I really mean is train tickets and hotels for my initial stay in India of 23 days (I'll post my itinerary tomorrow). I think I may have paid slightly more than I could have booking it all myself, but everything here is cheap so it's not a big deal.

Anyway, I finished up with them, the "guide" who told me earlier he worked for a small tip, took me back to the hotel and said I should pay him at least $50. Yeah, that's gonna happen. Long story short he made some money, but nowhere near what he was hoping too.

I'm doing my best to not freak out from the size and scope of this trip and how different everything is here, but it's not easy. Maybe I just have to get out of Delhi. That sounds pretty good right about now.