Since the area was not very nice to look at, we did not stay very long and soon went back to Delhi and booked our flight to our next destination: Cambodia.

Rishikesh is right next to a river and while we did not do anything exiting there were some river rafters that one could watch. There were also some temples but we had enough of temples from our time in Delhi. Also, the river seemed really dirty.

Paula also bought a really nice red indian dress with silver stitching

The border crossing from Nepal to Delhi was one of the worst yet. We overstayed our visa in Nepal for two days and were prepared to pay for the overstay at the crossing. We payed the nepalese border guards but they gave us the wrong date on the stamp. When we arrived at the indian border point a few minutes later, they wanted money to admit us with the wrong date. We were separated into two different rooms, and luckily our bus driver came in at some point and paid the money for us. Paula still had to stay in a different room and enter the passport data into the computer of the border agents while he watched. At our next stop we got some money from the ATM and paid the bus driver back.

Because we did not shop the whole time we were in Delhi, we had some time to go sightseeing. We discovered that the tourist prices are 6 to 10 times the prices that the locals pay and we had to really descide on what to do and what to leave out.

While most of Delhi was really dirty, it was really surprising how clean the subway stations were. To enter a subway station you had to pass through a metal detector and Paula lost a lot of lighters to the guards.

At the end of our stay in delhi we sent a big package back home with the hiking stuff and the fabric. The packages are surprisingly cheap to send with the indian post and are quite fast for the price.

Since Paula got to shop for fabric, the next stop is Rishikesh so that Max can do some yoga. Also, we booked our flight back for the 28th of July since we do not have a lot of money left. The Flight is from Bangkok to Frankfurt so we still have time to see some of Asia.

The next day we had Indian food for the first time and not taking too much from the red sauce makes it amazingly good food. We did a bit of shopping which works like this: you have Tuck tuck drivers and they get coupons or money if they drive you to specific stores which are waaaay too expensive and then your ride gets cheaper or free, depending on how many stores you agree to be driven to. That is so lucrative for the drivers that they even offer you to split the money 50:50 with you if you have 2 hours to spare. The problem is that you have to spend 5-10 minutes in the store and Indians are very good salesmans so I wouldn’t recommend doing it.

The rest of the time we basically chilled and ate. Then we took a 2 day train to Kolkata, a city in the northeast of India. The train ride was interesting, for the first time we, and especially Paula, got to feel how established sexism is in India. She got stared at all the time no one would talk or answer her, and if she asked a guy stuff he would answer to Max or look confused at him. And one time Paula tried to smoke in the train at the doors like the guys do … It was a bad idea as Max hat a mob of four very upset man viciously talking to him that he should stop Paula from smoking.

We arrived in Kolkata so tired that we took a quite expensive hotel right next to the train station. Then it took us over a day to book the train ticket because there is a certain amount of tickets reserved for foreigners, but they can’t be booked in the normal ticket office, there is a special office half an hour away. But the food was still good and cheap. In India you can have a full meal for as little as 0.65 euro. From Kolkata we took another train to Raxaul to cross the border to Nepal. You should definitely get dollars if you want to cross the border, because if you don’t you will have to pay a almost criminal exchange rate from 90 Indian Rupees for 1 USD. The official course at that time was 62 for 1 USD.