Couchsurfing in India – 1 week with an Indian family

Some people have already called us crazy for what we are about to tell you!! Wasn’t India a cultural shock big enough, as soon as we landed in Delhi, we went directly to the Haryana state, which is, from what we’ve been told, a cultural shock for many and many Indians!! We didn’t know that…

That’s right, our first stop in India was for 5 days in Haryana, the state right above Delhi, with a local Family. ‘But… did you know them?’ No, we stayed with an Indian family that we had never seen or talked to before! Sounds strange, we know, but it was such an unbelievable experience. Thanks to Couchsurfing, this amazing community.

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Ticket bought! Let’s CouchSurf

We have done couchsurfing twice, once in Ghent, Belgium (the couch virginity as she said) and then in Rotterdam, Netherlands and everything went perfectly, we had such good times and made friends for life, and we thought: ‘Why not try in India?’ That’s what we did, right after booking our tickets to New Delhi (with no return ticket), we started sending requests for couchsurfing… The first one, to a guy called Robin, was super legit, with lots of good reviews and pictures with the surfers… so he was our first choice! And guess what? We didn’t have to request anyone else, Robin accepted us straight away!! But you will not believe what he said in the first minutes after we connected. He could accept us but… we would arrive on his wedding day, which meant that we had to join it!! Can you believe it? What an easy answer: ‘YES Robin, count us in”! Who in this world hasn’t ever desired to be in an Indian wedding, right??

Related: How does Couchsurfing work? [Full Guide]

Bye Home… Hello India!

After a 24-hour journey with a stopover in Russia, we arrived in Delhi at 6 am, we knew we had to be fast because the wedding was about to start in Panipat, a village in Haryana State, 100 km from Delhi. As soon as we stepped out of the airport we were approached by tons of taxi and tuk-tuk drivers and from that moment to the point when we actually arrived in Panipat we were a target for 5/6 schemes! Everyone was trying to “help” us, always indicating us to fake places, where the trains and buses were already full for the next days! Inducing the only way out was their “cheap” taxis (hundreds of euros!), insane, right!? Fortunately, we are not that beginners so we never gave up and, after two hours of misinformation, we finally found a local bus direct to Panipat!

The Reception!

Two hours later, when we finally arrived in Panipat, Robin’s family and two other Spanish guys (who were Couchsurfing in Robin’s place as well) came to pick us up! These two guys already knew Robin and his family so they were trying to prepare us for everything that was about to happen, but… even though they tried hard, wasn’t possible! You can’t imagine our reception!! All the kids immediately started to run in our direction,  the women’s expressions staring at Matilde like they had never seen a woman like her before… so different from them… like Matilde was from another world (after all this experience, Robin explained to us that they haven’t). We turned out to feel this every day, with everyone! Not in a bad way… They spent every single day doing everything they could to make us feel as good as possible (like home!)!

‘In India a guest is a god’ – The indian family kept saying

First Impressions

Since the first day, we understood that everything was completely different from all we had ever seen or experienced! We could see, straight away, the outfit differences, well of course we would never dress up like this at a wedding in Portugal (we are backpackers, don’t forget haha), but you can see even the groom and bride outfits completely different! Full of props, colors, and, in the men’s case, Money! Check out his necklace, it’s done with rupee notes!

Actually, from what we experienced, there are many habits around money! They offer money (between family members) when they meet, the wedding was full of money gifts and, later on, when we visited the rest of the family, they even offered us! It didn’t make any sense to us so we were always trying to reject their gifts… But always unsuccessfully… After some days we realized that it was offensive not to accept their offers, so we gave up! Cute of course, but can also be pretty awkward sometimes!

Related: 20 Travel Tips for India Beginners

Continuing with all these different habits and traditions let’s list them:

Habits and Traditions

• Language

Even though English is the second most spoken language in India, in Haryana the language barrier was very big! Almost none of the girls could speak English as well as half of the boys! But you know what?! That made our experience even more special and unforgettable! In the beginning, it was really hard, but as soon as we learned how to communicate with our hands and expressions, it was so special to connect with each one of them! We learned some Hindi and Haryanvi, but the most important word that we learned was “buss” which means “stop/enough”, do you know why?! Because of every single meal [laughs] (Keep reading, you will understand!!)

India has 22 officially recognized languages written in 13 different scripts over the 29 states. Haryanvi, language spoken in Panipat, Haryana is one of the 30 languages spoken for at least 1 million people.

• Food

This was the reason we had to learn ‘buss’ (that’s enough) as soon as we could! Because they guaranteed we were 110% full every single meal! Talking about the food itself, of course, everything was different, new flavors, new smells, new spices, new emotions! As you can imagine, the food was spicy (spicy. No, you cannot imagine) based on Chapati (the most common form of wheat bread which is a staple food in the Indian subcontinent) and side dishes based on vegetable mixtures with spicy sauces (e.g.: dal). The meal variety was almost null, but we loved it! When it comes to sweets, they have a huge variety as well as a huge amount of sugar on it. That was hard for us to get used to, but of course, we never stopped eating haha (we are food lovers!). Ohh… and about the salt! One thing that shocked us (and our palate) was the way they eat fruit and drink fruit juices, let’s say it’s the salty way haha! They couldn’t eat or drink fruit without adding salt to it!

It was not only the way food was prepared or the flavor that was different for us! Even the way and where they eat was different! Since the first day we arrived, we started to eat with our hands (they would say HAND, they only eat with the right hand, but we weren’t at that level yet haha) always in the meditation position (this was and still is the hardest for us) and usually on the bed! Also, they have a tradition of giving food to other people’s mouths! For them, that means respect, love, and care about the other person!

• Daily outfits

The daily outfits are different as you know! So every day the women had lots of fun with me! I was like their Barbie, everyday they would prepare me from the head to the feet as a truly Indian girl! On the last day, the guys tried the same with Miguel and saw the result (for them, that’s being an Indian guy in Haryana! haha)

• Alcohol and tobacco

Completely restricted to men and even like that they would only do it in private, for example, inside of a car! The women never tried before and when they saw Matilde drinking with the guys for the first time, they acted like they saw an E.T., they just wanted to take pictures with her!! Crazy, right? Well, there was their reality! Is what they are used to… and guess what? One of the women tried alcohol with us, with her husband’s approval (of course!), and that was super funny to watch for us as well, it was exactly like a kid trying a drink for the first time! Their alcoholic choice was mostly Whisky (which was bad enough for us) that they diluted it with water which, we realized after, its common in India! Ok normally we do it with ice cubes, but they do it directly with room temperature water. Once again, it’s not what we were used to but, even like that, these particular nights were the funniest in India!

Related: Rajasthan Memories

• The music

They mainly listen to Punjabi music, at the wedding and not only! First hours in India and you can’t imagine how much we danced at the wedding :’) Indian music is really funny and it’s impossible to stand still! Even at home, they were always with the music channels on with this type of music (is one of the Indian music styles — our favorite we have to say!)

Punjabi music is very common around India. It is a very happy and energetic style of music, and its dance is categorized by the shoulders moves and fingers pointing up to the sky.

An experience to repeat!

If you can call us crazy? Yes, you can, but you know when different is good!? Well here is the perfect example! For sure we had our difficult moments trying to absorb all these cultural gaps, but this is our definition of traveling, immersing as deeply as possible in the local life! We ended up making very strong friendships. We got in as surfers and left with a new family!! See you someday Haryana family, it was full enjoyment (as you said so many times) and we will carry you in our hearts. We know India is a big country and all we live is not representative of the country or even of the state. This is our view of this super intense experience with a local family in this strong and mysterious state, Haryana.

Ps: If you want to see our first month in India, you can check our video here!