October 31st – November 2nd, 2019
Our day at the Taj Mahal yesterday was great, but it seems we couldn’t leave India without total chaos which is a fair summary of this part of the world we have visited. Even taking an Uber can be unreliable and dodgy. EVERYTHING takes so much longer than you could ever imagine possible (I think I said the same thing about Nepal). We got private transportation from Agra back to Delhi where we went to Madpackers Hostel to pick up luggage we had stored there. Our flight to Egypt left at 3:50am so we had some time to kill. Found a $8 hotel room right by the airport and decided to stay there for the six or seven hours we had to wait until our flight.
To make a really long story short, Brendan missed the flight to Cairo and I ended up in Egypt by myself. It would be far too frustrating to write out every painful detail of the horrific chain of events leading up to him missing the flight and me taking it. But in summary, it involved a missing piece of luggage that was at Madpackers. Brendan went back to get it, and an Uber driver stole his money and left him stranded at 2am in the middle of the street with no money, and me waiting at the airport begging, pleading, and crying with the airline for them to wait. I was then forced with a decision of staying and having half our luggage end up in Cairo with no one there to claim it, and losing the cost of two airline tickets, or taking the flight and waiting for Brendan in Egypt. He thought it made no sense for me to waste an airline ticket. At the very last second when they said I could not wait any longer, I decided to go with the escort waiting to take me to the front of the lines at Exit Immigration and Security so I could get to the gate in time to get on the plane.
Brendan had the worst 36 hours ever, with everything going wrong that could. I felt terrible that he got stuck waiting around for so long dealing with the most stressful and frustrating situations. He ended up getting a new flight the following morning and meeting me in Giza about 24 hours after I arrived. He is a real trooper as I thought he might be ready to just go home. I think when traveling for this long, it’s almost inevitable for something like this to happen but when you are in the middle of it, it can be super frustrating.
I don’t think Brendan has much to say about spending 24 hours in The New Delhi airport. My flights and trip were uneventful. It was quite interesting flying over the desert to change planes in Saudi Arabia. It was also special flying over the Red Sea and coming into Cairo, Egypt.
The hotel had a driver pick me up at the airport. The hotel I booked has a great rooftop with awesome views of the three pyramids. It’s pretty amazing that I have seen two Wonders of the World in just three days.
I went out to get some food and it is a lot of work walking around by yourself when everyone tries to talk with you and get in big conversations to be your guide. So, I just hung out at the hotel, watched sunset over the pyramids and went to sleep early.
The next day I waited for Brendan to get to the hotel and tried to map out our time in Egypt. I know our big priority is to go diving in the Red Sea, but Egypt obviously has so much more. Neither of us know much about Egyptian history and it is such a massive subject, it is a bit overwhelming. One could easily spend a lot of time in this country but it is important to us to have time for Israel and Jordan. So, like always, I am trying to pick and choose best options and I have a feeling Egypt will warrant another trip in our lifetime to really take it all in.
Since we are now in Africa, this is our fifth continent of this trip! I previously wrote a lot about my thoughts and experiences in India, and don’t have too much more to say about our time there. It was a tough place to travel for sure. We were only in the North, and I heard the South is probably better and cleaner. I definitely cannot judge the entire country since it is so huge. The North was rough but did have some treasures. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to go there if you want a “relaxing” vacation. It was highly stressful doing normal things like walking around. But, if you want to see things that are different than anywhere else, eat some really good food even if it hurts your stomach, and have a very adventure-filled and crazy journey, India might be the place for you. If I could do it over again, I would hire a driver for a week to explore Rajasthan. It would have made things much simpler and would be affordable unless you are on an intense shoestring budget. I think even on our backpacker budget it would have been possible and would have taken a lot of stress out of arranging all the transportation.
Brendan will never go back to India, and I can’t say I blame him, especially after his final hours there. I think it would take me a while to be ready to tackle India again and I would definitely go to a different region. I’m happy we went and got to see the amazing things we saw. But I think it’s one of those experiences where I’m glad I did it, and glad it is over. We are both REALLY looking forward to some relaxing beach time in Egypt!