Namaste India & Salam Egypt

Short recap coz I was in Mumbai- India for 2 weeks and one day as a transit passenger in Cairo-Egypt. After my internship from 6 months abroad in Lanzarote- Spain, me and my friend Asha decided to travel around and thought why not explore India ?
Soo in that time, which was April 2013 it sounded like a good idea to see more of other cultures than just to go straight back home .. So we booked a ticket around June which is even before I went to Lanzarote. Around the end of November I came back home as a surprise to my family for one week but also because I needed to arrange the visa for India. I was lucky because they kept my pasport for 6 days so one day before I went back "Home" to Lanza, I got my passport with in it, the stamp to enter India ..
The trip to india started off with me being the only one wearing casual clothes at the gate, or rather said a simple jean with sneakers and an eastpak bag on my back .. All the women however, were wearing long skirts and above it the most weird shirt I had ever seen. These shirts didnt have sleeves or place for the arms so you couldnt see their arms and with the long coloured skirt, they looked like christmas trees in different colours. The clothes came in one color, so they were wearing all green or pink or blue and a girl that sat next to me said that India has 3 main islamic communities and this was one of them .. When I wanted to talk to her, a guy from the airport announced that the gate was open and soo everyone started running and so did I for no reason. When arriving in India, I had a jetlag because it felt like night to me but I arrived at 7 in the morning.. The airport was hot and the way to customs was a 20 min walk! When I finally arrived, I seen around 800 people sweating and filling out forms and when I was waiting in the long quee, a guy called all his buddies that were still filling out forms, to come and stand with him and soo they all pushed me away. When I looked at one guy very angry, he said to his friends that he would stand behind me but his friend came up to me, pushed me aside and told him that I am a girl so there was no need to wait... I felt really angry and so I decided to pass the quee and just push my way to customs as well. When it was almost my turn, the scarf that I was wearing got stuck to a guy's bag and when he seen me close to his bag, he pulled the scarf so hard from his bag that he actually ripped it and so my scarf got a hole in it ... When it was finally my turn to give my passport to get a stamp, the man at the counter told me he deserved a break and left... When all of us in the queee decided to join another quee, one Indian man got agressive and started insulting the people like me that were joining his quee.
I could eventually give my passport, got a stamp in it and ran out to get my luggage. When I received my lugagge I went outside and didnt see the transfer from the hotel. I was standing there and offcourse all the taxi guys came running to me and asked me where to go. Only then I realised I didnt have any rupees (Indian money) one me and so I needed to go back inside to change.. Once outside the airport, I wasnt allowed by the security guy back in and so one taxi guy told me he would ask some girl from the exchange desk to come outside. I gave her 60 euros and she came back with 4000 rupees, told me that 400 rupees was commision and a part she kept for herself because she had to come outside specially for me.. There was no note with the exchange rate/commision cost or the money she took for herself but just a simple 4000 rupees in my hand... After this I found my transport to the hotel and the taxi guy that helped me, asked me money as well. I gave him 100 rupees, which I now know, is around 1,20 euro.
The hotel was actually great, far from the busy city and toxicating air that the cars and rickshaws produced. We took the rickshaw (mini motors for 3 persons) most of the time, because this is cheaper and easier to find than a taxi. We went a lot of times to Infinity mall which is huge, sells brand clothes and has a rollercoaster on the top floor. We have done one holy day, visiting Mosques (Islam) and Mandirs (Hinduism), prayed and gave food to a cow, to the homeless people begging on the street and sacrificed flowers and cookies to the gods. We have been one day to the south of Mumbai, where you can find the Gateway of India, where Brittains used to export and import goods and one day to an orphanage home for girls from 3 till 18 years old where we gave them cookies and toys to play with. Mumbai isnt the place to visit when you are going for the first time to India, so I heard .. This because there isnt really a lot to see and still the Taj Mahal which is located in Acra, about 1500 km away is the real miracle and should be seen when going to India. I couldnt do it this time, so I went to the Taj Mahal Hotel which is a hotel world known as well. India is a country where poor and rich live close to each other but I think that they cant relate to each other. Next to the airport there was this 5 star highclass Hyatt Regency hotel and when you would look down to the street, you could see people begging for money, kids wearing clothes with countless holes in them and super skinny dogs .. Also have I met one woman that is Indian but lived in belgium for a long time. She could speak Vlamisch and told me that she was from the better class and that I could see because she helped her sister with her nailsalon, was single and aiming for a good career. She told us that she would make friends with the not so wealthy ones if they would come on her path but those are not to be found in her environment and even then, you cant relate because they need money and you have it all .. I dont know what to say or think about the poor/rich situation but what I know and have seen is that 80% of Mumbai exists of slums...
The last thing thats comes to my mind when talking about India, is the food. The people like to eat superrr spicy, atleast in my opinion because from pizza and lasagna to tomatosoup and chips , everything setted my mouth on fire. And then there is this national spice called Masala (oriental spice) that according to the Indians can be used in anything. So was our hotel for example, targeting Indians from other cities of India and did they have for breakfast : masala bread, masala chicken, masala fish, masala eggs, masala chips, masala soup, masala roti, and when eating outside ; masala Mac Donalds, masala veggie burgers, masala fish sticks and I can keep on going no joke, there are even commercials about the best masala and Masala awards are being given by India every year !
Anyhow, I believe that India isn't Bollywood at all.. It is worse in Mumbai than I had expected but to see the real India, i believe that this is the city where you can see the local and how they live .. Mumbai shows India as a 3 world country for sure ..
The traditional clothes like Sari's and Salwars are very beautifull, handmade and are being worn by the Indian women on the street. This is true art and worth buying as a dutchie to wear as it is something special and extra ordinary!

Salam Egypt .. I havent really discovered all of Cairo - Egypt because we only arrived there at 12 in the midday and had to fly back home at 10 in the morning.. However, this time on the airport a random guy came up to us and asked us if we had flown with Egyptair .. I told him yes and that we were transit passengers. He told us that we had to walk with him to the desk from Egyptair and that he would make sure that we would get one night in the 5 star hotel Le Passage located 10 minutes from the airport on the costs of Egyptair.. And so it happened that we only had to buy a visa entry inside the airport and drove to this amazing perfect hotel and for 25 euro he arranged a taxi driver that would take us anywhere we wanted for the entire day. We didnt use the taxi a lot, because he dropped us off at a shop where we could do a tour around the Piramides of Giza by horse or camel and the driver came back 2 hours later. It costed us some money but it was worth seeing the piramids in not such a far distance and have a view over Cairo while sitting on a horse .. I got an allergic reaction from the horses so I had to go back to the hotel after..
The women in Cairo are all covered up and the streets arent that crowded. I havent seen any tourists and the men looked strange seeing that I was just there wearing a jacket, sneakers and my hair in a ponytail, not quite covered up .. The houses are very beautiful, Cairo doesnt have a good reputation right now and that is why I guess we could stay for free in a 5star hotel closeby but the vilas build there are beyond imagination ! The bad thing I seen was on my way to the piramids, we passed the road where only locals live and dead horses were laying one over another .. I dont know how or what happened but this was really sad ..
I went back to the hotel and at 10 in the morning Asha and me flew to Amsterdam to spend 5 days with our family before starting our study abroad journey in Istanbul for 4 months..

Well my long story short hasnt turned out that short after all, but I just dont want to lose these memories that Lanzarote, India, Egypt and now Istanbul have formed for me and how they changed my way of thinking, developing and growing up. I like the extra ordinary and these are countries worth seeing and create your own opinion about them. I was scared knowing that these countries are not the ones on the-most-favourite-countries-to-go list , but I did it and I wouldn't want to have missed it!