First post from India

So it has been 5 nights in India so far. 1st impressions of Delhi was hot, dusty and dirty! Very chaotic, but also super awesome! It is quite the change. We stayed in the Pahargang area, which is very run down. Well compared to Canadian standards. I'd post pics, but there is no card reader here. There is trash in the streets, and many skinny cows roaming about!! We arrived during a torrential rain storm, so thank goodness the temperature was very pleasant. Our plane was late, so we checked in around 2;15am. Next day walked around tons, bought our train ticket to New Jaipalguri (aka NJP), and tried to find the foreigner's registration office to get our Sikkim permits (but failed in that). Bought some probably overpriced indian clothes too :p Next day, woke up and took a cycle rickshaw to the train station to catch our train. The train tickets were $80 USD for the two of us, but this was for 1600km train journey, and included meals. Since we booked via the tourist office at New Delhi Station (NDS), we were placed in a compartment with 4 other foreigners. 1 american, 2 Nepalese, and 1 Bhutanese. They were all very pleasant. The train was 28hours long. We booked 3tier a/c class, which is exactly as it sounds, 2 triple bunkbeds on each side of the compartment, and a tiny table in between. I officially had the top bunk (more headroom) but Kat hijacked it from me, so I got stuck with a middle tier bed. The Bhutanese man we met we found out was a monk, late in the journey. He got off the train at the same stop as us, and bargained and paid for an autorickshaw to Siliguri from NJP for us! We tried to pay our share to him, but he refused to take it. At Siliguri, he took us to the foreigner's registration office there, and we got our Sikkim permits there. He then took us to the Jeep stand accross the road and bargained for seats in a shared jeep for us. We paid 150 Rs each, for the 5-6 hour jeep ride to Gangtok. This was a good deal he got for us, because people who got 3rd row seats paid the same!! 12 people fit into a jeep, 4 in front, 4 in 2nd row, and 4 in 3rd row. luggage is strapped to the top of the jeep. Also sharing the 2nd row with us was 2 more monks, both from Sikkim. At first we thought they were Korean (most asians here are korean, or so we think), but they were actually Sikkimese. They were very nice, and explained the stops and police checkpoint to us. So after a long bumpy ride, we arrived in Gangtok. It gets dark here really early, like 6-7pm ish.

Next blog:p