One of the first things I realised in India was, that I am travelling with expensive baggage. Since almost every sight in India, where an entrance fee is required the admission charge differ for foreign visitors and indian visitors. Verena obviously does not pass as an Indian and has to pay the significantly higher price, whereas me, I simply shake my head diagonally (the Indian way), say Indian and pay the Indian fee*.

The following overview gives you an idea on how much more needed to be paid so far for Verena to get her see the sights:

The perks of having a foreign ticket is that you can pass along the queue and don’t have to wait in longer indian lines. This however was only the case at Quintar Minar. Here I just waved Verena’s foreign ticket infront of the guard and walked by just fine.
At the Taj Mahal benefits paid of doubly. Not only I benefited from a entrance charge 25 times cheaper I also had a much shorter queue to wait in, because we went to the Taj Mahal at 6:30 in the morning. I was the first one in the Indian line wheres Verena had 20 foreign tourists waiting infront of her.

Luckily we don’t get to see a lot of sights because we can hardly move forward as it turns out Verena is quite a popular photo motif. Every few meters we hear “Madame, Selfie please”, “Please, Mam, one photo please”, “Mam, can I have one Selfie, please”, “Hi Madam, please can I take a photo”. Of course, noble Verena stands there, poses with them and let them take selfies with her. And while one selfie is taken obviously tons of others come by to either take a selfie on their own or just to get in the picture as well.

I love it though. All these strangers begging for a photo with her, makes me feel like im with a celebrity.

Dino

Below an extract of these happenings:

*I admit I had to show my OCI Card every time to prove my indianness.

Anmerkung der Redaktion: Since the selfie requests haven’t stopped yet I will keep updating this post with additional material. So stay tuned, it’s worth checking this post.