India ... Yeah!

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Here we are second day in New Delhi ... only 8 hours late .... heavy fog over New Delhi -- had to stay in Amman for 6 hours and when we arrived in New Delhi had to circle the airport for about an hour -- it was about 12:00 p.m. by then -- shouldn't have been fog anymore. Haven't been here for about 26 (or more) years but it stills seems very familiar. Unfortunately, the city is now one huge building site. The pavements are dug up, they are building stadiums, I think -- hard to say -- all sorts of big structures that look like they are being constructed with matchsticks -- for the commonwealth games in September. So it is very dusty, very crowded, very polluted and evidently, very foggy. Micha thinks that there is no way they will ever finish these projects by September ... that they need another 2 years (best case scenario) or maybe 20 years (worst case scenario). We are supposed to be going to Jaipur tomorrow -- but the train may be delayed ... because of the fog. Headed straight for Old Delhi yesterday. Had a nice meal and came back, the poverty breaks my heart. It would seem I am not as hard hearted as I was when young. There are a lot more cars now and no cows! Micha says people are less religious these days and have started eating the cows. Well, I don't know about that, on the way home today all the cows were out and about doing whatever cows do when free to wonder at leisure. I did notice that there are many, many private cars now, that there is a lot of young, upwardly mobile Indians, and that some men have earrings which I definitely didn't see before. We went to the National Museum today. I think that will be our dose of culture for this trip -- we did our duty. Also went to see the handicraft emporiums. Didn't buy ANYTHING. Maybe I don't like that stuff anymore ... or maybe we live in a global village and where ever you go these days you see the same stuff that they are selling just around the corner from where you live ... and often for nearly the same price. But I did see a monkey try and steal something from a stand and then ran off with people chasing him. There seems to be a lot of interesting food around ... so far I haven't been successful in my ordering ... everybody around me is eating great stuff and I get a bowl of ... something. So I ask the people what they are eating and they say something indecipherable and they are speaking English. Watched CNN India yesterday ... very interesting, fun trying to guess what they are talking about. We went to Lhodi Gardens this afternoon, they have 15th century tombs and monuments and a lot of birds in the park ... oh, and squirrels too, lots and lots of squirrels everywhere. We found a nice spot in the gardens ... only problem was that people couldn't see us clearly so they started climbing walls and jumping over fences and finally a sort of guard appeared out of nowhere, from a concealed tunnel and told us we were not allowed to sit there! we could walk but not sit. Seems they were worried that we might do something like kissing or hand-holding (or worse) and that they might miss it. Are they kidding? Married nearly 30 years now -- we will not be having any public displays of affection ... we weren't even sitting that close ...

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Photos

Transvestites
The group of dancers went from shop to shop. People gave them about 100 rupees -- a lot of money to give here. They seemed frightened of them.

Comments

[itamar]

Wow !!!
Looks good !

[itamar]

Wow !!!
Looks good !

[Russell]

Glad you and Micha have arrived safely. Other than being there I don't feel jealous so far. I am sure that will change as you get into your trip.

[Suzanne]

Good Blog
I like your descriptive blog Faith. Transports me to the place - I can almost smell the dust 'n spices. Interesting to hear about the changes that have taken place in India over a relatively short period of time.