Bilingual | 中英對照
November 2006, Percy was assigned for his first business trip to Singapore & India with Yu Chan. Since it was an emergency call, so I couldn't fly Singapore Airline through the whole time like Yu Chan did. Instead, I flew China Airline to Singapore and Air India to Delhi. Going to Delhi was not a problem, plenty of seats, got to lay down and stuff. But coming back, I can only say, wasn't a good experience at all...
First time to Singapore, since the business part is on the next time. I wasted no time and left the hotel as soon as I dropped my luggage. The first stop was the Sentosa, then the Orchid road, and the Night Safari for the last stop. I liked the Night Safari the most. Though the ticket was a bit expensive, I still enjoyed the little train ride.
I've always wanted to visit India, and I finally made it this time. I had to wait for Yu Chan for about four hours at the airport, I thought it would be ok since it's an international one, there might be lots of stuff around, but it turned out that there was not much to do. Things got worse, when we arrived at the hotel, the owner told us that there's only one room left so we had to share a room(so much for the reservation!) Anyway, we wouldn't call it a nice start. The next morning, we decided to treat ourselves a nice breakfast (plus we couldn't find anything else cus it was too early), so we spent 15USD each and ate in the Park Hotel. We had couple of hours before the work, so we went to India Gate and spend some time taking photos.
We aso took the chance and visit Taj Mahal. To get to Agra, we needed to take the train, and it wasn't easy to find the ticket booth cuz there's only one place for foreigners to buy tickets. Once we got to the train station, lots of people wanted to help us. However, the scary thing is that they all gave us the different direction. One guy even wanted us to follow him, after about 100 meters, we decided to turn around...Few mins later, we found the ticket booth in the completely opposite direction. For those who wanted o buy tickets in the Delhi Train Station, if you are facing the main entrance, it's on the second floor of the left hand side.
It's not as bad as it sounds tho, I actually enjoyed the trip a lot. We saw a lot of things (and bought a lot of stuff, too. Love the scarves in India!) Besides, when I saw the Taj Mahal, the dreaming kind of feeling really made me forget about the bad impressions. Agra is quite different than Delhi, it's more lay back. After all, it's not a big city and it has to be more tourist friendly. We stayed almost 2 days in Agra, and we also hired a tour guy to take us to a few sight in Agra. The first stop, of course, gotta be the Taj Mahal. Even tho it was not high season, still packed with people, took us a while to get in. The tour guy was really nice, he slowly guided us to Taj Mahal with stories, and when I finally saw the building, it was really amazing! It almost felt unreal, like it's not there, but it was! The milky building totally stood out, the color brought out a huge contrast to everything that is around her, and somehow it doesn't make me feel odd but absolutely harmonious. Besides Taj, we also saw the Fatehpur Sikri, which I found the carvings inside was incredible as well.
2006年11月，Percy第一次因公出國，這次跟著小嬋兒一起來到新加坡以及印度。由於這是個緊急的決定，所以沒有辦法到跟小嬋兒一樣從頭到尾坐新加坡航空。取而代之的是台北-新加坡(華航)，新加坡-印度(印度航空)，去程都還好，不過回來的時候，那印度航空著實的讓我有嚇到。
第一次到新加坡。由於公務行程在第二天，因此我下午一到就不浪費時間，東西一放就馬上出門。首站聖淘沙，然後烏結路，最後到夜間動物園。最讓我覺得值回票價的就是夜間動物園，雖然入場券有些貴，不過在晚上逛動物園還真的別有一番風味。之後來到了嚮往的印度。到了德里國際機場，因為要等小嬋兒的緣故，所以得在機場附近逛四個小時，原想說國際機場應該會蠻不錯逛的...沒想到甚麼東西都沒有...。到了旅館，老闆居然說今天晚上只剩下一間房間，原本定的另一間房間先被入住了。有了個不太好的開始，隔天一早又因為時差的緣故，早上5點就離開旅館找早餐，想當然爾，甚麼也都沒有，到是陣陣傳來刺鼻的尿騷味。走到了Connaught Place的另一頭，發現了Park Hotel，問了早餐的Buffet，一個人要15USD，一方面旅遊書上都說一定要再好一點的飯店或餐廳吃飯，另一方面想說要對自己好一點，所以就給他撩下去了。當天趁個公務前，我們順道前往印度之門拍了幾張照，天氣還不錯，乾乾的冷空氣還算舒服(如果不提到空氣品質的話)。
這趟旅程，我們也給自己放了兩天的假，去了一趟阿格拉看八大奇景之一: 泰姬瑪哈陵。從德里要去阿格拉，坐火車要差不多3~4個小時，不過要注意的一點，就是在買火車票的時候，持外國護照的人士只能到一個地方買，而這個地方是在火車站的2F(如果面對車站正門口，他是在左手邊的2F)。為什麼要特別注意? 就如同旅遊書建議的一樣，如果有人要跟你兜售東西，或者是很熱情的說要帶你去你要去的地方，一定要三思。我們兩個就碰到了。當我們在尋找票亭時，有很多人都跟我們指不同的方向，其中有一個看起來很熱心的人，要我們跟著他。走了大約50公尺後，我發覺不對，就跟小嬋兒假裝停下來拍照，那個人也停了，並且再看我們有沒有跟著他......幾分鐘過後，我們再另外一個方向找到了票亭。
一直說來，好像都是很負面的感覺，其實應該說是文化衝擊。現在回想起來，我還蠻喜觀這趟旅程的，看了很多的東西(也買了很多的東西，超愛印度的披巾)。此外，當一看到泰姬瑪哈陵的時候，那種如夢似幻的感覺，就會讓你把這一些負面的想法忘得一乾二淨。阿格拉跟德里不同，畢竟不是大城市，所以感覺有樸實些。我們在阿格拉待了將近兩天，透過飯店的介紹，第二天就請了一個導遊。導遊人很好，不過為了賺錢，沿途還是帶我們去了一些觀光客的點。第一站就是泰姬瑪哈陵，光要通過入口就得花點時間，載不是旺季的期間，還是人擠人。不過等待是值得的，透過導遊引導式的介紹，慢慢的透過一個門隱約的看到一個乳白色的建築。一通過了門，看到了陵寢，陵寢的白帶著一種和諧的格格不入感，真的有一種奇妙如夢境的感覺。除了泰姬瑪哈陵外，我們也去了一個在郊區山坡頂上的一個景點-Fatehpur Sikri，廣大的布局以及精緻的建築雕刻也是很令人稱奇的!
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