Dehli - A Whole New Ballgame!

Laura and Eric at Humayun's tomb.

Our flight to Dehli, India, was almost a bit of an adventure in itself. We flew out of Cairo and had a layover in Bahrain, where we hung out in the airport for about five and a half hours. People were dressed in traditional garb even more than in Egypt, so we saw many men wearing the old school long white shirts and headgear, and more women dressed all in black with nothing showing but their eyes, and sometimes, not even that. We wondered how they checked in for their flight. Do they show their faces then? We wrote a bunch of postcards, then sat down for a nice meal at TGI Friday’s, although they had no vegetables, mashed potatoes, ribs, pork of any kind, or reasonable prices. So we sat down to our dinner of chicken crispers and a hamburger, each with a side of French fries and sautéed mushrooms. Yum! Then off to the next leg of our trip, India, which we arrived at early in the AM. One more note…Flying over Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan felt really weird. Never before was I worried about what would happen to me if the plane crashed and I LIVED, haha.

Dehli is a CRAZY place. India is an extremely intensive assault on your senses, through and through. It is hot and humid. Everything smells…sometimes good, sometimes bad. The car horns and the sounds of human voices filll the air. As for taste…well the food is just outstanding, and extremely flavorful. Drving is almost as crazy as Cairo, but there are more motorcycles, carts, and tuk-tuks, so the traffic moves slower. We saw all sorts of poor people everywhere, sleeping by the side of the road, in alleyways, you name it. We saw poor families sleeping together beside mounds of trash. These people are literally “dirt poor.” There are SOOO many people here, period. There are open sewers and piles of trash around because everyone litters. Everyone litters because there are no trashcans. One funny story: We went to McDonald’s for dinner on our third night in town, and they had a cleanup guy there. The place was small by McDonald’s standards, but this guy didn’t stop mopping. Every time he would finish, he would start again with a new round, just to keep the floors looking decent. The street food is cooked with bare hands. This is a very different place, indeed!

We also get stared at, as though we are the emperor with his “new clothes” on. We walk around and sometimes feel like a freak show or something. After a bit, you get used to the staring, but it can be a bit shocking to be in a subway car or restaurant, and EVERYONE is staring at you. Sometimes even the kitchen staff will come to look through the window at you. At train stations, we will have groups of 50 people surrounding us, all staring and speaking just a few words of English. Its pretty crazy, especially to think of some of the things we have seen over the past week. Nobody stares at the people doing their business on the side of the road, but an American walks into a restaurant and the record skips.. Ha-ha.

India is very spectacular as well as shocking. It is a comletely different place from anywhere else in the world, which makes it interesting. The history is rather impressive, as well as the melting pot of different religions and invaders that had carved the Indian culture. The Mughal architecture, which includes the Taj Mahal and most of the famous mausoleums and forts around India, is breathtaking. Hopefully you will see a lot of this in the pictures following.

We arrived in Dehli at 6:30 AM, with almost no sleep, and went directly to the hotel, where we checked in, turned up the power on the A/C, and crashed for a few hours. That afternoon, we headed out for some dinner and shopping in the Palika underground bazaar, where we were constantly verbally assaulted by shopkeepers wanting to show us their goods. One $2 t-shirt later, we grabbed some ice cream and headed back to the neighborhood of our hotel, where we found a nice and clean, but affordable restaurant. Oh yeah, one more thing, on our way out of the marketplace, we were accosted by a man trying to sell us a vibrating hairbrush, so you could brush your hair, then massage your back. The man wouldn’t stop rubbing the brush on Eric’s shoulder, until we had to literally yell at him to get him to go away.

The next day, we set out to find the memorial of the place where Gandhi was assassinated. We thought we were heading in the right direction, but none of the locals seemed to know where it was. We started to get hungry, and wanted some food, but it took us a while to find a good place. Finally, we found the park where he was later cremated, and then finally a picture gallery of his life, which was interesting. Apparently, the place he was assassinated was about 7 miles away, but at that point, we were too fed up with trying to talk figure out where the place was, haggling with non-English speaking taxi drivers, and just plain too tired to want to go anymore. So we went to the bazaar instead, accidentally ending up in the hardware section. In countless shops, there were pvc pipes, bits of steel, nuts and bolts, tools. We paid a bicycle rickshaw driver $4 to take us to another bazaar where they sold clothes, so he pedaled us around for a half hour over hills, across potholes, and a bridge to finally get to the bazaar. That was the dirtiest place we had ever been. Things were cheap, but there were dogs and cows walking around eating garbage, people everywhere selling things, small alleyways with miles and miles of shops, and lots and lots of dirt. Laura bought some new clothes, suited to help her to be cooler in the India weather, and so she will fit in more, which is cool. We also got some henna tatoos and a few other fun, random souveniers!

Our third day we spent sightseeing. We started at the National museum, where we saw statues, carvings, paintings, and artifacts from the entire history of Indian civilization, including some as old as 5000 BC, from the Indus Valley. Our next stop was the India Gate, a huge park and memorial to the 90,000 Indians who died in WWI. After that, we went to Humayun’s Tomb (built in the 1500‘s), a mausoleum of one of the great Mughal emperors, who died by falling down some stairs while high on opium. Whoops! It’s a really beautiful building though, and Humayun is buried there, along with his family, including his wives, children, and brothers. We had a small picnic there of nan (unleavened bread - Indian style) and pea and cheese sauce. Our final stop was the Lahore Gate of Delhi’s Red Fort, built in 1648 by Humayun‘s great grandson Shah Jahan. Its is huge! That night, we had some “take away” (take out), washed some clothes, did some sewing, and prepared for a new city the next day.

Oh yeah, and no more tissues like Arabia. They sometimes use napkins here…sometimes…

Here is a little list of crazy and wild things we have seen since arriving in India three days ago:

People sleeping everywhere - there was one guy in a train station, sleeping in the middle of a crowded walkway, with people walking all around and stepping over him.

Cows walking freely in the streets and eating garbage.

A vibrating hairbrush.

Guy dropping a deuce by the side of the road.

Being accosted 3 times in 2 minutes….while in a taxi. One guy selling books, another asking for money, another a little girl who could do contortionist tricks. We gave the little girl 2 rupees (4 cents).

A man employed to “push” people onto the subway, so that the maximum amount can fit on each train. Before the doors close, he pushed more people on and crams everyone in. Ha!

Monkeys on side of road - yes they just sit there and look for food.

Lots of beggars and dirt poor people.

Namaste!