My unsociable time in kuala lumpur has come to an end, it was a nice little introduction to solo travelling but I definitely need to talk to more people when in Bali! I started the day with the same as yesterday, it was pretty funny trying to order it because evidently my accent is hard to understand and we had a confusing conversation about tea, but hey, I got it in the end! I printed my visa at the hostel- thank God I did as I hadn't thought of this until someone mentioned it on the Facebook page and I needed it to get into India!
I set off with the intention of going to a vegetarian restaurant for some lunch but I was still full from breakfast and couldn't find it so got the monorail into the city centre. There's a huge shopping centre that you have to walk though to get the bus and I went in and saw to my amazement that they have my favourite shop, monki! I went in for a wander and wanted everything but thanks to limited bag space just got a t shirt. It was £5 so bargain! I wandered round a bit more and exchanged some money for pounds to change in India. Rupees are a closed currency so it's difficult to get them outside India! Fun fact
Then I caught the bus to the airport. My flight wasn't until 7 but I had to be there for 5ish and the journey takes an hour and a half by bus. Still probably didn't need to allow like 5 hours Lol... I arrived at the airport and got some pasta and basically spent the day doing nothing. I read a lot, ate some snacks and used the wifi. Not the most interesting day but hey!
I went through to my gate pretty early and was a little put out when I realised everyone was male. Literally everyone. I mean, most men are fine, but it was just a bit weird. And they were all Asian. I felt like everyone's eyes were on out of place white girl! But when we boarded there were actually a handful of Europeans, easy to spot as we were all sat in a 5 row radius!
The flight went smoothly ish with a bit of turbulence but I slept through pretty much All of it. I even had the pleasure of having an empty seat next to me which was a godsend as the other man on my row was a bit of a starer.
We landed in Delhi and I felt weirdly emotional. I've wanted to visit India for years and I was just so excited (and tired) that I thought I might cry! I got to customs and had to fill out an arrival form. This is the norm in Asia and I filled mine out with a fellow English guy from the plane. To my horror I realised I had no idea what my address in India was and started to panic, especially as people here are fairly blunt and abrupt and I imagined facing immediate deportation. The man just shrugged, said "don't worry" and wrote something down (probably words to the effect of "very stupid English girl"). I practically ran to the exit, 40 minutes after I was due, and found a man holding a sign with my name.
The walk to the taxi was probably about 200m, but it was about 36°c despite being 11pm which was just bizarre. It was so cool driving around and seeing the city; there were cows wandering the streets, it was all bright and bustling. The driver stopped in the middle of the road and said "2 mins" and hopped out; every car beeped as it went past but he came back bearing a bottle of ice cold water and simply said 'for you'. So cute!!! We drove on the wrong side of the motorway for a bit which was interesting to say the least. I attempted some conversation but his English skills were limited; confirmed when I said "does it rain much?" And he replied "thank you"... there are slums everywhere which aren't what I expected. I had imagined a couple of big clusters, depressed looking young mothers holding their screaming children outside all looking malnourished. They're more like permanent tents, I haven't seen inside one but some definitely seem to have electricity and it's way more like a little (albeit still obviously far from ideal) family home.
We arrived at 12.30am (which felt like 2am to me) and I met Vishy who is in charge Of the volunteering. I got a tour of the (lovely) house, chatted a bit about the programme then went to bed, where I was too excited to sleep. I felt a bit like in Annie when she visits new York for the first time.
Laura x
I set off with the intention of going to a vegetarian restaurant for some lunch but I was still full from breakfast and couldn't find it so got the monorail into the city centre. There's a huge shopping centre that you have to walk though to get the bus and I went in and saw to my amazement that they have my favourite shop, monki! I went in for a wander and wanted everything but thanks to limited bag space just got a t shirt. It was £5 so bargain! I wandered round a bit more and exchanged some money for pounds to change in India. Rupees are a closed currency so it's difficult to get them outside India! Fun fact
Then I caught the bus to the airport. My flight wasn't until 7 but I had to be there for 5ish and the journey takes an hour and a half by bus. Still probably didn't need to allow like 5 hours Lol... I arrived at the airport and got some pasta and basically spent the day doing nothing. I read a lot, ate some snacks and used the wifi. Not the most interesting day but hey!
I went through to my gate pretty early and was a little put out when I realised everyone was male. Literally everyone. I mean, most men are fine, but it was just a bit weird. And they were all Asian. I felt like everyone's eyes were on out of place white girl! But when we boarded there were actually a handful of Europeans, easy to spot as we were all sat in a 5 row radius!
The flight went smoothly ish with a bit of turbulence but I slept through pretty much All of it. I even had the pleasure of having an empty seat next to me which was a godsend as the other man on my row was a bit of a starer.
We landed in Delhi and I felt weirdly emotional. I've wanted to visit India for years and I was just so excited (and tired) that I thought I might cry! I got to customs and had to fill out an arrival form. This is the norm in Asia and I filled mine out with a fellow English guy from the plane. To my horror I realised I had no idea what my address in India was and started to panic, especially as people here are fairly blunt and abrupt and I imagined facing immediate deportation. The man just shrugged, said "don't worry" and wrote something down (probably words to the effect of "very stupid English girl"). I practically ran to the exit, 40 minutes after I was due, and found a man holding a sign with my name.
The walk to the taxi was probably about 200m, but it was about 36°c despite being 11pm which was just bizarre. It was so cool driving around and seeing the city; there were cows wandering the streets, it was all bright and bustling. The driver stopped in the middle of the road and said "2 mins" and hopped out; every car beeped as it went past but he came back bearing a bottle of ice cold water and simply said 'for you'. So cute!!! We drove on the wrong side of the motorway for a bit which was interesting to say the least. I attempted some conversation but his English skills were limited; confirmed when I said "does it rain much?" And he replied "thank you"... there are slums everywhere which aren't what I expected. I had imagined a couple of big clusters, depressed looking young mothers holding their screaming children outside all looking malnourished. They're more like permanent tents, I haven't seen inside one but some definitely seem to have electricity and it's way more like a little (albeit still obviously far from ideal) family home.
We arrived at 12.30am (which felt like 2am to me) and I met Vishy who is in charge Of the volunteering. I got a tour of the (lovely) house, chatted a bit about the programme then went to bed, where I was too excited to sleep. I felt a bit like in Annie when she visits new York for the first time.
Laura x
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