Travelling is more than just riding on the bus......

Lotus Temple

Taj Mahal

"People who don't travel cannot have a global view, all they see is what is in front of them. Those people cannot accept new things because all they know is where they live," Martin Yan quoted. And this is what I also believe to be true because as we travel around the different places we come to see different views of the universe and we also come across various kinds of people and their lifestyles and cultures. So let me share my experience of a 5 day trip to Delhi.

Though I was bit scared of getting car sickness, I reluctantly consented to join few of my colleagues on trip to Delhi after our exam because I didn't want to be the black sheep among the friends. As we all agreed with the decision, we started our journey on 22nd December to Delhi. Our main purpose of the journey was to visit Taj Mahal, Lotus temple and the Indian Gate. After our arrival in Delhi, we settled for a few days at Tibetan Colony renting a hotel. Our stay there at Tibetan Colony gave us a feeling of being in our own country Bhutan since Tibetan people are more or less similar to Bhutanese race and share similar cultures and religion.

But as we step out of that place and go around, we could see beggars and homeless people in a worse condition, worse than the animals I can say. Some beggars were hand-less, some were leg-less, some were cloth-less, so on and on that I can't explain in words. I even saw a few people sleeping on the ground and around them were waste materials, dogs, monkeys and all. Moreover, they were with only a very thin cloth piece in such a harsh winter season. Can we survive in such condition if we were one of them? This question has hit my mind as soon as I saw such pathetic people. Likewise I saw so many people in such animal-like situation and we can't even look at the faces of some people. What I realized upon seeing such people was that the Indian government has got lot to do to enhance the livelihood of their people.

Indian people are cunning, deceitful, lairs and pesky. These were what I learnt from my trip to Taj Mahal, Lotus Temple and Indian Gate. Shopkeepers on seeing our new faces increase the rates of  stuffs. Drivers had cheated us many times. We even had to quarrel with some drivers and shop keepers when we knew that they were deceiving us. And on our way to Tag Mahal, one man entered into our bus and proclaimed himself as our guide without prior information from the agent. He was speaking so many things in Hindi and we barely got what he was speaking. After sometime, he began to collect money from us. 10 rupees each from Indian passengers and 20 each from us as we were foreigners. Afterwards that man disappeared without our notice and another man replaced him. That new man also started to speak ceaselessly in Hindi. But luckily that man didn't collect money from us. So, I thought that is how they make money simply by lying and cheating people.

Although we had been cheated and lied for several times, we are satisfied and elated by reaching Taj Mahal which has been our dream for so long. Moreover, it was a new experience and new knowledge for me and for my friends too. We shared both success and failure, happiness and sorrow and smile and frowning. Above all, travelling is window to the outside world.