Man days are starting to blur together. I've forgotten what I have written and I feel like time has stopped and all that matters is what we are doing and what we are doing next. Life is good. I really love the people on my trip. I'm enjoying being around sarcastic English speaking people again. Most of the other people are from Australia or living there currently, there are also a couple from the UK. Everyone is very easy going and excited to do so many things. Another advantage of this trip is that everyone on it has done a significant amount of traveling in their lives. Travel both by themselves as well as with other groups and organizations. I feel really comfortable around all of them and I also find myself looking up to them. They each have an air of confidence that I admire. Something about traveling to different countries or feeling like your life is part of something much grander.
I left arrived in Delhi 4:30pm to get into a taxi and arrive at our hotel (buget hotel). My room was small, I have a new roommate and I felt out of sorts. I had been so consumed with ignoring people around me that it was weird to tap back into my extravert personality. I was so wiped out by the first night at dinner I was half falling asleep. Lets say I slept really well in the un air conditioned room. Very hot.
9am start, not bad, but I had been getting up early to see the sunrise in Varanasi so I got a little done by catching up on emails and making calls to my parents. Found out my sister fell from a great height and sprained her ankle and dislocated her arm....She'll be alright though. Very tough.
We went straight to the metro like a heard of goslings (our group is about 14). We white people stand out like sore thumbs here in India, it is hard not to notice who the tourist are. We went to Old Delhi to explore Jama Mosque. We got a introduction talk about how we pray? Answer we pray in our minds. Next question Why if we pray in our minds do we need a religious establishment? Answer they were created so that we could share knowledge with other people that share the same beliefs. But of course there is always the greedy people that want all the power and the original intent was thus useless. That got me thinking about how we use power and in what forms it is taken advantage of. We greedy humans have such potential for a bright future, but we always seem to find the best way to screw it up. Don't we want positive things to happen? How could sharing knowledge so everyone is on equal footing be a threat?
We left the mosque and headed across the street for a sweet shop. I tried loodo and a mango bite. Very tasty. The large group split at this point and most of the "youngs" stayed together to have lunch at a very very slow restaurant. We gathered our energy and started off for our next adventure. We were on our own and it was monday, which means a lot of places are closed. The Quitar Minar was closed as well as the lotus temple so we decided to head to the India Gate (which is a gate so can't be closed). The tuk-tuk drivers were trying to put a sheet over our heads and take our money so we decided to walk 15min to this gate. I think this is one of the most memorable moments of the day. As we 7 tried to figure out how to cross a 5 lane busy street...bikes, tuk-tuk, cars, bicycles everywhere and no one seems to leave a gap. We saw a couple of locals looking like they wanted to cross the street. We inched our way closer to them and waited to see what they would do. Following their steps we realized we were in the game of frogger. HOping to make it across but not hesitating long enough to find out if we don't.
The gate was large, and there were a lot of people around it trying to sell things and admiring the beauty of the structure. I was attached...with henna. Some lady grabbed my hand and didn't let go when I tried to take it back. I told her I wasn't going to pay (knowing when she was done she would demand gratification of her work)...And I was right, when she was done she followed me around demanding money. An argument started and a lot of men/boys started to surround us and made me feel very insecure. I was waiting for someone to make a move. I eventually just started to walk away and make my point. I got away scott free. We haggled with some tuk-tuk drivers to take us to the Red fort. That was closed too. We wandered around old Delhi and made it back to our hotel just before dinner.
Dinner was fantastic! We ate at a vegetarian place with Talhi. A bunch of small bowls filled with a lot of sauces and curries. We got three kinds of bread. The one with the sugar and sauce was my favorite. We had drinks at the bottom of the hotel, with those that decided to stay up a little later, telling tales and sharing dreams.
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