India- Day 1,2,3

I have been slow about posting about India, because I wanted to spend a little time thinking about the amazing experience before I articulated anything about the trip.


Day 1-2
I arrived in India after 1 short flight and 2 very long flights. I left Dallas at noon on October 5th and arrived in India at 10pm on October 6 (it is a 10 1/2 hour time change from Dallas). I was exhausted and my back was killing me (I put my clothes in a back pack instead of checking it, because of reported problems with baggage in Paris), but totally excited. Totally entertaining- I got my scissors through US security (you can carry on a pair of metal scissors if they are small), but they were taken in Paris. CRAZY.

Customs was crazy and really.. some people cannot handle power. It took nearly 2 hours, but Marcelle dutifully waited the entire time (along with her co-worker and the taxi driver). We got in and headed out. Even though it was midnight it was RIDICULOUSLY hot. Now- I am somewhat accustomed to hot weather, after living in New Orleans and Dallas (where even at 10pm it is still 95 degrees in the summer), but this was crazy. We were driving rather quickly, so the drive was basically a blur. Although- I did notice the large number of scooters/motorcycles that were present and how crazy their driving is. We finally got to Marcelle's adorable little flat (they are still very british- including driving on the left side of the road) and tried to get to bed. She rents her apartment in a fairly affluent neighborhood from a really nice family. It is small, but she has her own kitchen and more importantly a western bathroom. We were both sharing her very SMALL cot, but it seemed to work out fine.

Day 3, Saturday October 7
I should state that I did not take very many pictures on Saturday, because I quickly realized that I did not want to do anything that would draw anymore attention to myself.

We got up early to walk a bit in Marcelle's neighborhood. She lives in Jor Bagh, which is a really nice gated community. It is what is considered New Delhi. We hailed an auto rickshaw to drive us to Connaught Place. We wanted to book a trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal at the Delhi Tourism office. We were also interested in a trip to Jaipur, another little city about 5 hours from Delhi, but weren't sure if they could book it for us, or if we really needed to go to the railroad station. (Agra, Delhi and Jaipur are the points that make up the "Golden Triangle".) Marcelle negotiated with the driver a fee of 30 rupees (44 rupees=$1.00) for the 15 minute drive. Okay- the driving is CRAZY!!! No one obeys traffic lights or lane markings. You have a 2 lane road, but it will be 5 wide at some points. EVERYONE honks like crazy. I'm talking worse than New Orleans honking (if that is possible). I was hanging on for dear life. Here is a photo that Marcelle took of the autorickshaws.


We made it safely to the tourism office and booked our Agra trip, but due to poor planning on our part we were unable to book a trip to Jaipur through them. We had to go to the train station. Yikes. I should point out that after walking around for about an hour, I was VERY freaked out. There were a ton of people, personal space is a foreign concept, lots of poverty and everyone stares. Although- until you experience the staring, you don't realize just how bad it is and how completely unsettling it can be. We had to negotiate the metro in order to go to the train station. After searching for quite a bit of time, including someone trying to lead us astray (we aren't sure where he was leading us.. thank heavens we didn't follow his directions) we finally stumbled upon it. Delhi is NOT well marked. There are very few signs and unless you know where you are going, it can be awfully confusing. The metro was remarkably nice and very efficient. I would say this is one of the most interesting things about Delhi. It is a very "third world country" in some stuff (we didn't know if we would have water each morning), but in other things- fairly westernized (great Metro system).

The train station was not nice- neither was it well marked. But we were able to locate the foreign tourist office and book our trip to Jaipur. We would leave early Monday morning and return late Tuesday night. Afterwards we had a delicious Indian lunch and headed to the Central Cottage Emporium for some shopping. This place is a government run shopping center. You can get goods from all over India, but the best part is that the prices are set. No haggling required. We spent quite a bit of time looking around. Marcelle fell in love with the amazing shawls/pashminas. The workmanship was amazing and so intricate. Although they were a really good price $350 (I'm sure here they would be closer to $500 or so) it was still a little too much for me.

We headed back to her house and decided to spend some time in Lodi Gardens

Bara-Gumbad tomb


Shish-Gumbad Tomb


Mohammad Shah's tomb


It was so nice an peaceful. Lodi Gardens also has a ridiculous number of birds that live there. A sign is posted with all of the kinds of birds that can be seen.