Welcome to India

So we made it into India. We touched down in Calcutta for about an hour before securing a flight to Delhi. That was the quickest flight that I've ever purchased! We walked over to the domestic terminal (they're separate) and went around trying to figure out which airline was leaving in the next couple of hours. We found one that was leaving in about 30 minutes so we said ok and hauled ass through the airport. Of course, in typical India style, the girl at the airline counter ripped me off for about 400 rupees ($10). Anyway, we made it to the flight about 20 minutes after it was to have taken off... it didn't actually leave for another 30 minutes or so though so we were ok.

Once we got to Delhi we caught a cab (which tried to drop us off at his preferred hotel) and walked over to the backpacker area of town- Main Bazaar. Turns out that this is the armpit of Delhi. Disgusting! There were a ton of people shoving for space in the street along with quite a few cows which meant that you had to be especially careful where you stepped. The sights, sounds and smells were total overload.

We were quickly rounded up by a friendly tout who took us to his hotel, all the while lying about the prices. When we said we would stay, he doubled the price! We left. We ended up in one of the worst hotels I've ever stayed in...

That evening, we ran across a tour operator who actually seemed pretty decent. We decided to take his tour around Delhi to try him out and go from there. Our driver and the car were both fantastic! We had a good time checking out the city and decided to book the next leg of our trip with him. When we went back to book Western India, he somehow talked us into booking a tour to Kashmir...