the first day

Andy and I used the first day to do an first exploration of the city. Falko stayed in the residency as he had to finish some work. We took the train and not a rickshaw as we wanted to travel like the locals and save some money this way. There is a counter where you can buy tokens - they look like small plastic coins and seem to be NFC-based.
The fare is really cheap - for a ~20min ride we paid like 16INR - there where also day-passes available for like 100INR. You can also get a card instead of the token - it is like the oyster-card - but we where told that is only useful if you stay more than 2 weeks in Delhi - but we did not want to stay that long in the big city - we wanted to explore India.
When entering the inner train-station you get a security check with x-ray of our bags. This happens really often here in India - but other than in western states I never had to open my bag here ( after > 10 checks so far ). They are way more interested in other stuff. Too bad I could not make a photo of the sign that shows what is not allowed in the train. When I wanted to make a photo one of the security men told me that this is not allowed. ( looks a bit like army - but I was told they are not - but they have very heavy weapons and I do not want to argue with them :) There where some obvious things like weapons, but also some really obscure things like manure and skeletons ...

The ride in the train was nice - it was not too full and we could explore some stuff in the train. And they have interesting stuff there like power outlets for laptops and phones ( this is one thing western transportation companies could learn a lot from India )
Also they have special seats for elderly and otherwise disabled people and seats and whole areas of the train for woman. About the later I had a little discussion with Andreas if this is good or bad.
Also you find some signs you would not find in a western train - like something we later found out means "spitting not allowed" - this is really one of the negative sides for me here in India - my western

brain really cannot digest this. People spit a lot on the streets and everywhere. In the beginning we even thought some of these remains look like remains of s**** because it has a brownish color - but we found out that this comes from spitting after consuming some kind of nut which is very popular here.
We arrived at the place we where told is good to organize some things we need - unfortunately it was sunday and most of the shops where closed. But we where able to get some stuff from the list and do some first improvements of our bargaining skills.

While walking around some locals talked us into going into a "Government Tourist Information" - but we realized quickly that they just want to sell us some transportation and tours and we got out quickly. Walking around further we have seen more of these - you seem to be able to easily use the term "Government" - perhaps that just means they have a legal business that is registered at the Government and not an illegal one;-)
There was already much to digest and we took a train back to the residency - the train back was way more crowded - first we thought we will not fit in the train - but the compression algorithm worked - it was a bit bumpy, but we fitted in at the end ;-) Unfortunately when exiting the train Andy noticed that his purse with Passport/Money and a lot of cards where gone - very likely it was stolen. I tried to calm Andy down by saying things like "the most important thing is that you are still alive", "it is good that it happens to you in Delhi - here it is easy to do the paperwork" - but understandably he was very upset by the situation. We where going back the way into the train-station to try our minimal chance to find the purse or perhaps the remains ( the passport and stuff which is not really of use for a thief but very important to Andy ) As to be expected we found nothing and asked the security guys - they took care of Andreas and I got back to the hotel to inform Falko and do some research on how to block his cards. I also did not want to go back into the security zone as I had a deeper study of the regulation signs and noticed that no Knife except a butter-knife is allowed in this Zone. At this time I was carrying a Leatherman-like tool-set which had a knife that exceeded this spec - so I already violated the rule some time and did not want to take my chances again. Andreas had to wait a lot - first at the security and then at the police - if you get a chance to meet him - ask for this story ;-)
After all this stress we where invited to dinner and where meeting some parts of the family - we got our first real indian food - and I was surprised that it was not as hot as I expected - but yummy never the less. We where told it get's hotter ( food and clima-wise ) in the south. I am really looking forward to it. The family is really nice - had my first conversations about Indian politics and religion which I really enjoyed - but more from this later - this post already is way to long ..