India - New Delhi

We flew into New Delhi from Bangkok, and were picked up by someone from our hotel, which was a nice surprise. New Delhi is one very large construction site. They are hosting some sort of games there and the construction has to be done by November, so literally every street is dug up. Aside from some women's clothing, it was not as colorful as I had imagined. It was very hot and we had to cover up as to not be rude. Aside from covering up though, indian people do not have good manners. They spit all the time, burp, and smell. They also throw up whenever they want to, usually when walking down the street. They are extremely pushy and yell a lot, even if they aren't angry. The smells in India are wonderful and terrible. Most of the time I try to breathe out of my mouth, but every once in a while you smell something really really good and take a deep breath but by the time you're done breathing in the smell had changed to something putrid and it stays with you for 5-10 minutes.

We walked around a market close to our hotel where there were a ton of people selling things on the street and in stores. Many of the stores had people dressed as clowns outside trying to lure people in. As if that was going to make me go anywhere near that store, haha. We decided to buy some colorful tunics at the market which made us feel very festive. All of the women's sari's were beautiful and looked very nice on their dark skin.

The food was instantly great, as indian flavors are nothing like any other country we had been to. In my whole life indian food is probably the food I have eaten the least of, so I was very curious about their flavors and adventurous in my ordering. Eating with my right hand is not easy and I always forget. Luckily most of the restaurants we went to in New Delhi had silverwear so it was as huge a faux pas as when you have to eat directly with your hand.

Our 2nd day in New Delhi we went on a tour of New and Old Delhi. We saw Gandhi's last house and where he was assassinated, Indira Gandhi's house, the first Indian Woman Prime Minister, the President's house, and the Lotus Temple, all in New Delhi. Our "tour guide" turned out to just be a driver with an opinion about where we should go. At the lotus temple, there were many people whose jobs were just to tell other people to be quiet and escort them out if they were not being quiet. It looked like the worst job in the world and you could tell they agreed because everyone doing it was in a terrible mood. Our driver kept making up excuses for not taking us to old Delhi but we finally convinced him to. We went to Jama Masjid, a very large mosque in old delhi. Because we were white and not muslim, they made us put on these over-sized pink and white spotted clown, moo moo robes. All the indian people laughed at us and took pictures of us in a mocking way. It was the least flattering thing I've ever had to wear in public, maybe in private too. Before we entered we were told to take off our shoes and place them on the side. When we left a man was standing next to our shoes and made us pay him the equivalent of 50 cents to get them back. I don't think he worked there and I pictured my dad doing the same thing to tourists so I was ok with it. Besides, I had come to realize that everything in India is a scam in one way or another and everyone is going to do their best to rip you off and even when you think you're not getting ripped off, you still are. Old Delhi is much more crowded and dirty than New Delhi. It is pigeon heaven also, so if any pigeons are sick of New York City, they should make the pilgrimage. There is so much traffic, and just like south east asia, very few traffic laws that I could see and it was really a miracle that everyone doesn't get extremely injured when they get into a car or attempt to cross the street. In vietnam there was a lot of traffic, but people walked across the street slowly and calmly, knowing traffic would go around them. In india, everyone runs across the street, knowing if they are a step too slow, its over. One day we took the subway, which wasn't as dirty as I imagined, but just as smelly and crowded. You have to wait on a very long line to buy a token. Then you have to wait on a very long line to go through security. They you have to wait on a very long line to go through the turnstile. Then you have to wait for your train. Then you have to push as hard as you possibly can to get on. They you feel like you're getting molested by everyone on the train. Then you have to push your hardest to get off the train. Then you have to wait on a very long line to get out through the turnstile. By the time we got off and walked to the restaurant we were going to I was mentally and physically exhausted.

We went to a Revolving Restaurant on the 24th floor of a building in Connaught place called Parikrama. One full revolution takes an hour and a half and there are signs that you arrive at inside the restaurant telling you what you are looking out at. The food was good, but a bit expensive, and its obvious you're paying for the experience more than the meal. The next day we took the subway to the Red Fort, in Old Delhi, which again was just too overwhelming for me. We met up with DJ, a boy who Ashley had been emailing with about us maybe staying at his parents house up north, which she had found through work away. He informed us on our meeting that they could not host us, and then could not tell us anything about the red fort, except that once he lived there when he was a kid, which I don't believe for a second. We only had a little bit of time to walk around because we were going to an expat reggae party that night who we had heard about from a friend of a friend of Mimi and Ashley's. The party was fun and the music was good. It was nice to be around people who spoke english and it kind of felt like a safe haven in India, and if the music hadn't been so loud I would have liked to ask everyone there what they were doing in New Delhi. We finally got in contact with an Eco Village and decided to take the trip and stay there for a week, getting ourselves out of Delhi.