Due to popular demand, I have decided to do some blogging about my travels in India and China. Sadly, these travels are not on a bicycle. Also, I will not be wearing any bow ties while on the trip. So the title of this blog doesn't really make any sense for this, but I figured it was easier to just post back here rather than setting up a whole new blog, so deal with it.
So... INDIA!
I have been in India for two full days now. At the moment I am staying with my friend Sarit (who I met while studying in Switzerland all those years ago) and his family (his mom keeps me full with delicious indian food!) on the outskirts of New Delhi. Since he has been working the past two days, I have spent most of those days wandering around Delhi on my own.
My first day was pretty crazy. I may have made a mistake in going to Old Delhi on my first day here... but hey, it's better to just dive right in to the deep end, right? The winding bazaar of Old Delhi is one of the most intense places I have ever been. The narrow streets, with even narrower streets off of them, are filled to the brim with people selling, buying, walking, biking, motor-scootering, carrying, cooking, eating, and even pissing (I think it's safe to say that I've seen more public urination in the past two days than in the rest of my life combined...) I was very tempted by all the delicious looking breads and curries and things being cooked, but decided that it would be silly to get violently ill on my first day, and that I should probably let my stomach get used to local food in a more gradual way than diving into street food in the Old Delhi bazaar.
In the middle of Old Delhi is Jama Masjid, the largest Mosque in India. Apparently it can hold around 25,000 people. I did not get a chance to actually go in, due to the fact that it was prayer time, and visitors are not allowed during prayer time. I did, however, get to hear the call for prayer, and sit for half an hour and watch a constant stream of people pour out of the streets of Old Delhi and enter the mosque. I will try to return some other time when I can actually go inside...
My second day was much more relaxed than the first. The craziness that is Old Delhi certainly does not reach the same magnitude in the rest of the city. Much of today was, in fact, quite calm and peaceful. I spent the morning wandering around Jantar Mantar, which is a bunch of structures made in the 17th century, or so, designed for astronomical observations. I can't really describe all of it. I have pictures, but don't have a chance to upload them right now. I'll just let you know that the center piece of the site is a sun dial that is 70 feet tall! One of the most exciting things about this site is learning that there is a similar site in Jaipur which is even bigger!!! I'm really excited to see that one.
After wandering and napping around Jantar Mantar, I continued to wander around New Delhi and stumbled upon the Indira Gandhi Center for the Arts, which was having some sort of cultural festival of some sort. I don't really know what it was about, but there were lots of performers dancing and singing and doing cool things. Plus there was a food court. So I spent the afternoon watching and listening and eating! Awesome!
My first impression of India is confusion. I don't get it. There are people on the side of the street selling individually wrapped candy. And I'm not talking about a sidewalk vendor in the middle of the city. I mean on a road in the suburbs. These vendors aren't on a side walk, or anything, just on the side of the road. As far as I can tell, they rely on customers stopping on their bikes, or cars, or motorscooters, or whatever their riding, just to spend a few rupees on a candy or two. Do they really get enough business for that? And it's not just candy. You can stop and get some fruit here, or a calling card there, or even get a shave and a haircut!
There's also a strange discrepancy in safety issues. Take, for instance, getting on the Metro. Entering the station requires walking through a metal detector, getting pat down from security officer, and putting any bags through a scanner. Many buildings or tourist sites require the same. I had at least 5 pat-downs yesterday. Clearly they are concerned about safety.... but compare that to the traffic! I hesitate to even call it 'traffic' since to me, that would imply some level of order. Lines on the roads are either absent or completely ignored. Even driving on the correct side of the road seems to be merely a suggestion. The roads are filled with a mix of cars, rickshaws, bicycles, motorscooters, and pedestrians all seemingly going in different directions. It seems to defy the laws of physics, but somehow I have not seen a single accident or even an instance of one person/car even slightly bumping another. I really don't know how it works.
Ok, that's enough for now. More to follow later in the week!
Also, hopefully i will have some pictures next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment