Maxon's India Experience

MaxonTreik

MaxonTreik

Chuunibyou
If you've been in the Chat Room at some point 2 months ago you would have heard me prattling on about going to India for my friend's (Donald-John) wedding, who I will refer to by his nickname, DJ. Well, I finally decided to get off my arse and upload the photos and videos. Please be aware these aren't the only photos I took. These are just the best for telling you people about it. :) This thread will be photo heavy, but I will use thumbnails so you can just click them for the full size version.

Feel free to ask questions or make comments.

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OK, so we were supposed to fly out from Edinburgh to Paris, and from Paris to Delhi. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, our flight got delayed and as a result we would miss our connecting flight. This is us waiting in the airport in Paris to find out what's going to befall us.

Air France decided to put us in hotels and provide our food on top of that.



However, getting up so early and waiting around for so long drained us. We still went into the centre of Paris because, well, there's no reason not to. We did visit Notre Dame but everyone knows what that looks like and it's a very touristy thing so I won't bore you with that.



This sign is quite amusing because one of my friends that was on the trip is called Reuven de la Haye, and his nickname is Reu. After staying the night in Paris we headed off to Delhi and immediately went to our hotel the YMCA *snigger*.



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This is Edd and our room. We only stayed one night due to having to stay in Paris. The people that I say hello to are DJ's parents.



This is the YMCA on the morning that we went out to explore Delhi. Coming out of an AC'd room into that heat was like someone dropping an iron weight on me. It just hits you so suddenly. We grabbed a rickshaw into town and explored the various markets.






This is a mosque we found. To be honest, it was a bit of a pain to visit. We were constantly hassled by beggar kids and people trying to scam us and taking our shoes off to walk on stone slabs that have been exposed to 40 degrees heat for several hours wasn't pleasant.

I'll break this up into several posts since there's a good number of photos to go through.
 
I hope you'll remember the sights you photographed more than you will the symptoms you later described. Edd reminds me of some oft-shirtless friends of mine.
 
Zin5ki said:
I hope you'll remember the sights you photographed more than you will the symptoms you later described. Edd reminds me of some oft-shirtless friends of mine.
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Oh I do. However some memorable things weren't the most positive things to remember. :(
 
We left Delhi by coach and went on a 16 hour journey from Delhi to Manali. I should mention that Manali is a "tourist resort" (and I use the phrase with a pinch of salt) up in the Himalayas. It's altitude is roughly twice the height of Ben Nevis and it was still over 30 degrees. Yikes.



We got settled into our hotel after going through some torrential rain to get there that served as a warning of the coming monsoon season. On the first night we went out for food at a Chinese place.




Being the idiot that I am, I tried to be bold and dived into the Japanese menu and ordered Sukiyaki. It had to be the biggest amount of food I've ever had set in front of me. I tried my best to get through it but the lack of flavours didn't help.




The next day it rained a bit. The above photos are the view we were treated to in the morning. Many people decided that they wanted to go to Old Manali, which is where the older buildings were. So we walked up. Getting around in Manali was pretty daunting since there was a lack of pavements and an abundance of traffic jams.



Monkeys roam free at the side of the road. This made my day.

We took a little detour and went to a temple thing and Eleanor rode a yak.



After the temple we headed down into Old Manali and hung out at a cafe for a little while, and it rained again.





The building in the second photo amuses me because it looks as if there's only one room on each floor and looks like its been chopped in half.

We went further up Old Manali and the further we climbed, the older the buildings got.




I love those steps. The chap with the pipe is Matt. He goes to Cambridge. 'Nuff said.



This is the view from the top of Old Manali.
 
Haha, I love your accent. Truth be told, I never really thought much about India and it's tourist locations, but I have to say, the views you've taken with the pics look fantastic!
 
Will-O'-The-Wisp said:
Haha, I love your accent. Truth be told, I never really thought much about India and it's tourist locations, but I have to say, the views you've taken with the pics look fantastic!
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Thanks. :) I never found my accent that interesting because I live in the Scottish Borders.

To be honest, India isn't a tourist friendly place. You really have to read up on what to avoid and who to avoid. In Delhi people constantly try to offer you things in the hope of scamming you. We had one guy follow us around telling us where we should go and giving us advice. After a while we decided to just ignore him because we knew that he would ask for something, even when he said he didn't want anything and was just being friendly. They generally work under the assumption that if you're white and a tourist, you're dumb and have a lot of money.
 
Souns like you had an interesting experience there Maxon. The coutryside around Old Manali looks beautiful, and I love the third-built apartments, that's the kind of ingenuity they won't let you get away with in the UK (I've noticed the Greeks do something very similar, no modern house is ever finished over there, it's always ready for expansion should the need arise).

I did rather lol at the chap with his suit and pipe. He looks like he should have been there about seventy years ago as a colonial overlord. :lol:
 
ayase said:
I did rather lol at the chap with his suit and pipe. He looks like he should have been there about seventy years ago as a colonial overlord. :lol:
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You should hear him in a normal conversation. He always makes me laugh. :lol:

It appears Youtube is down for a wee while and ImageShack is being a pain so I'll have more stuff on later tonight hopefully.
 
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