After telling my friends that I would go to India alone, all the thoughts were based on “Oh you’re gonna die there alone”; “Gonna be rapped”; “It’s gonna smell bad”, just like all the bad things in the world would happen to me during this trip, just because of being alone. But nevermind, it’s gonna be just fine there- I try to lock this idea in my mind.
The day finally arrives, here I am arriving in Delhi, which city could be the worst choice than this one as the 1st stop of my 1st trip alone ever? Yap, you can guess. After Delhi, nothing in this whole trip would get worst for me. After Delhi, I’m ready for everything.
While getting closer to Delhi, I’m starting to feel nervous about what’s yet to come. I didn’t even have landed and the smell of “burned rubber” or something similar was hitting my nose and wouldn’t escape from my lungs. “OMG, I can’t believe that I will need to stay here in this city with this horrendous smell all day”. The smell of pollution was so strong in Delhi that I was starting to have some kind of pain in my chest.
Ok, this fact is getting me even more stressed despite the fact that I was arriving at 5 am and that the bad ideas about India were flooding my mind. Getting into the country was easy. I already had my online visa, so everything was fine, just that smell all over my nose wasn’t ok.
Now, 1st challenge: getting to the city. I had planned this trip for months and researched every step I would take- what transport to take, what’s the cost of each ticket, etc…
This way I headed to the metro. I was impressed that NO ONE ELSE took that metro to reach the city. Perfect time to start overthinking “why isn’t no one coming for the metro? Should I do it? There aren’t ANY OTHER women rather than me in such a place. Anyway, I went to the metro (very cheap jut like everything else in India) crossed a security line, a very weird security line btw, one line for men and one for women. Despite the odd looks at me, everything was ok.
Now let’s increase anxiety even more as I see almost no one in this metro and no women at all. (walking those empty underground paths is scary). Conveys to say that in India you feel like a F* alien. Everyone stares at you like you don’t belong to this planet. It’s so weird as they were a British colony and should be used to see Occidental people. I don’t know if they make on purpose or not, but this is really, really uncomfortable.
At this time I wasn’t getting so much attention as I was wearing a very large sweatshirt and the hood was covering almost all my face. At this point, I just want to go unnoticed.
Minutes later: Yeahhhhh! One woman in sight! Covered from head to toe but still, it’s a woman ( I don’t know why but looks from women in India are even more painful than men’s. They look at you like you disgust them and even with disdain. It’s awful. They look mean) I already made some theories in my mind about this matter, but I think you might have some of your own. Anyway, into the metro I seat somewhere randomly and surrounded by few men. I Wasn’t feeling much comfortable. Time to overthink. Yes, all those things you imagine that would go through your mind at the moment. Analyzing what surrounds me at the moment, I find a seat “reserved only for women”. Just With this fact, you can’t even figure out what’s India’s feeling about women.
So, I change the place and move to that one where no one could sit next to me. Feeling safer now? Hmmm not really… but everything went ok during those 20 minutes that felt forever. I leave the metro to cross those bad looking underground corridors. At this time all the overthinking starts hitting me even more. As I get out of the station I face myself with this “chaotic situation” that is all Delhi and New Delhi. This is the point where I start to feel fear. All the dirtiness of the place, the looks from men on the street (NO WOMAN in that hour of the day in the city) how dirty they look, the poverty, the mess, the skinny bones coming off their arms… I was really scared. I mean, really scared and hungry at the same time. Wasn’t eating for hours. The next step is asking for information about where is the train station, but I don’t see anyone that seems trustworthy. Difficult task! I keep on walking and see some guards, so I head to them and ask. Even they were looking at me in a weird way.
I go to the station that was a few meters away and come across one of the most depressing scenarios I saw. All those skinny Indian people sleeping on the floor of the station, just like in an apocalyptical situation, leaving a small space for people to walk along. Most of them were looking at me as I’m the only stupid foreigner there. Just like those movie scenes where everyone is looking at you and judging you- creepy. It was probably at that moment that I was the most scared ever. I will not only blame it on the scenario but also on all the overthinking and the fact that there was no one able to help me buy this God damn train ticket to Agra.
That was mistake number one: trying to get a train ticket at that hour for the same day. In India, it seems like you can’t buy a train ticket for the same day. At least for foreigners, I’m pretty sure. The trains are always full, they say, so you need to buy these tickets almost 2 days in advance. Being that, I needed to change all the plan that I had for India exactly on the same day of arrival. Great! I was planning this for months and now I have to make decisions under so much stress I was feeling at that moment…
-You need to read all posts from India, don’t judge the country only by this 1st impression. Plus I have never been to Asia before-
