Well it has been quite a while since my last post, but believe it or not I am still in India and I swear I haven't forgotten entirely that I should be writing about it. The past two weeks I have actually been away from school, the first of which producing very little write about, and then the past few days suddenly there is a lot to report. Two weeks ago I started to get pretty sick, and low and behold I came down with more or less my first Indian illness. I figured it was only a matter of time, since the Jubilee kids all started getting sick at the same time, when season changed. After all, I am really doing the same thing that they are- trying to build up the immune system to handle a brand new place. So I spent about a week battling off both a bacterial and viral infection, thus producing very little of interest to write about.
Lucky that the sickness happened when it did though, as the next week would bring the trip to Delhi we have been planning for a while. It actually worked out perfectly, with me getting rid of all traces of microscopic invasions just before we left for our trip, which I had been looking forward to since I got here. We left early Monday morning, along with Ben and Brian's cousin Nikita, who hadn't seen the Taj yet and jumped at the opportunity. We reached Delhi in the late morning, and headed straight to our hotel. As always I was excited at the prospect of driving around a new city for a bit, trying to get my bearings and pick out some differences. Right away I noticed that Delhi felt much less dense than Bombay, and the roads, which can be such a huge problem, were actually in fairly good condition. Because Bombay is located on an island, it needed to be tightly packed and built as tall as possible, sort of like New York City. But Delhi doesn't have this constraint, so it is not nearly as vertical as Bombay. There are still a lot of really big modern buildings, but most of those are longer and wider, so you don't exactly feel like you are being surrounded on all sides, as in Bombay.
We reached the hotel, which was right in the heart of a street market. My Mom had flown in early that morning, so I was excited to see her for the first time in months. We all met up, and decided to head out for an early lunch before starting off the day. Usha had business that day, so she was more or less orchestrating our first day from afar; texting us how to get to good restaurants and which sights we should be seeing. She guided us to a great restaurant just around the corner, and we got our first taste of Delhi food of the trip. If there is one thing that Delhi is known for, it is probably paneer. Every meal had at least one, if not two, paneer dishes, and while absolutely delicious, I can pretty confidently say we will be evading the bags of dense cheese in our own freezer for a few weeks now.
From the restaurant, the six of us drove to our first few sights of the day. There was a noticeable shift the closer we got to India Gate, as streets that were once densely populated by locals transformed into floods of tourists, just like ourselves. The once unfamiliar attention Michael and I get in places like Jalna and Aurangabad has become so ordinary, that at first even I have to adjust to suddenly having foreigners all around me. It actually helps me understand the tendency that locals have to stare, as even I found myself wondering what these travellers were doing in India. What brought them here specifically? Is India just another place on their list of vacation destinations? But people watching, while at times pretty interesting, was not what had brought us here in the first place. As soon as we started walking around, my attention was pulled from my fellow sight-seers, and towards the magnificent structures around us.
India Gate is surrounded by the buildings of Parliament, built in the time of the British. We walked for a while between massive buildings built of a sandy red stone, and at the end of the avenue we reached the President's house. It was gated off, so we couldn't get too close, but the intricacy of the stonework and massive lawn was impressive nonetheless. At the other end of the road we reached our main attraction- India Gate. India Gate is a massive stone archway, built to commemoration Indian soldiers from various wars. When you see video clips of processions in Delhi, they are probably set right in front of the Gate, so it was a fairly familiar site. Of course, as one of the city's most popular tourist destination, there was an immediate onset of touts, pushing their trinkets and souvenirs. I have become pretty familiar with the rush of various touristy must-haves, but I think this was the most aggressive pushing of goods I have ever experienced. One woman who was doing henna actually grabbed my hand and tried to forcibly apply the designs to my skin. I don't really hold it against any of them though, and in the end I still got to see an amazing monument.
The rest of our afternoon was pretty relaxed. We went to a shopping area called Connaught Circus, which was just a series of little shops built into the original British buildings. I always think it is so interesting when the original architecture is preserved and modern things like stores take over the interior. So I enjoyed checking out the buildings as we wandered around for a little bit, before Brian left to pick up his and Ben's cousin Mike from the airport. The rest of us went back to the hotel and decided to check out the surrounding market. I think there is something very unique about the experience of walking around street markets. It is an experience that I have often missed in the United States, because it feels so much more involved than the generic shopping mall. So I had a great time looking at what the stalls had to offer, and of course observing the people around me. There ended up being a couple of things I was interested in, so I also got to experience one of the most iconic parts of a street market- haggling. Of course, being white and speaking minimal Hindi doesn't make it too easy, but I ended up dropping the price from 350 to 250, and it was definitely something new, so I left pretty happy.
We ended the night with dinner back at Connaught Circus, at a place called Kwality Restaurant. While in the United States I would probably take this title to be blatantly sarcastic, and guard myself against glaring fluorescent lights, plastic booths, and intestinal bombardment, in India that is a perfectly respectable name. Indian shops and restaurants are frequented by cutesy spelling and puns, which actually helps them to stand out, rather than forcing them into the American realm of tackiness. Once again we were treated to plenty of delicious Delhi food, and left very satisfied. We opted for an early night, as the next day would of course, be very busy. But I think our second day in Delhi will require its own post, because the current length of this post is threatening to thoroughly overwhelm any reader. Don't fret, I wouldn't dare put you through the intensity of a post four times this size. But believe me, this was just the beginning of our Delhi adventures!
Lucky that the sickness happened when it did though, as the next week would bring the trip to Delhi we have been planning for a while. It actually worked out perfectly, with me getting rid of all traces of microscopic invasions just before we left for our trip, which I had been looking forward to since I got here. We left early Monday morning, along with Ben and Brian's cousin Nikita, who hadn't seen the Taj yet and jumped at the opportunity. We reached Delhi in the late morning, and headed straight to our hotel. As always I was excited at the prospect of driving around a new city for a bit, trying to get my bearings and pick out some differences. Right away I noticed that Delhi felt much less dense than Bombay, and the roads, which can be such a huge problem, were actually in fairly good condition. Because Bombay is located on an island, it needed to be tightly packed and built as tall as possible, sort of like New York City. But Delhi doesn't have this constraint, so it is not nearly as vertical as Bombay. There are still a lot of really big modern buildings, but most of those are longer and wider, so you don't exactly feel like you are being surrounded on all sides, as in Bombay.
We reached the hotel, which was right in the heart of a street market. My Mom had flown in early that morning, so I was excited to see her for the first time in months. We all met up, and decided to head out for an early lunch before starting off the day. Usha had business that day, so she was more or less orchestrating our first day from afar; texting us how to get to good restaurants and which sights we should be seeing. She guided us to a great restaurant just around the corner, and we got our first taste of Delhi food of the trip. If there is one thing that Delhi is known for, it is probably paneer. Every meal had at least one, if not two, paneer dishes, and while absolutely delicious, I can pretty confidently say we will be evading the bags of dense cheese in our own freezer for a few weeks now.
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| One of the government buildings. |
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| India Gate! |
The rest of our afternoon was pretty relaxed. We went to a shopping area called Connaught Circus, which was just a series of little shops built into the original British buildings. I always think it is so interesting when the original architecture is preserved and modern things like stores take over the interior. So I enjoyed checking out the buildings as we wandered around for a little bit, before Brian left to pick up his and Ben's cousin Mike from the airport. The rest of us went back to the hotel and decided to check out the surrounding market. I think there is something very unique about the experience of walking around street markets. It is an experience that I have often missed in the United States, because it feels so much more involved than the generic shopping mall. So I had a great time looking at what the stalls had to offer, and of course observing the people around me. There ended up being a couple of things I was interested in, so I also got to experience one of the most iconic parts of a street market- haggling. Of course, being white and speaking minimal Hindi doesn't make it too easy, but I ended up dropping the price from 350 to 250, and it was definitely something new, so I left pretty happy.
We ended the night with dinner back at Connaught Circus, at a place called Kwality Restaurant. While in the United States I would probably take this title to be blatantly sarcastic, and guard myself against glaring fluorescent lights, plastic booths, and intestinal bombardment, in India that is a perfectly respectable name. Indian shops and restaurants are frequented by cutesy spelling and puns, which actually helps them to stand out, rather than forcing them into the American realm of tackiness. Once again we were treated to plenty of delicious Delhi food, and left very satisfied. We opted for an early night, as the next day would of course, be very busy. But I think our second day in Delhi will require its own post, because the current length of this post is threatening to thoroughly overwhelm any reader. Don't fret, I wouldn't dare put you through the intensity of a post four times this size. But believe me, this was just the beginning of our Delhi adventures!
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