New Delhi is, hands down, the craziest city I have ever been in. How can I even describe it?! It's noisy, filthy, dusty, colorful, smelly, and teeming with more Indian people than I have ever seen in my life. It's a sea of moustaches. There are 20 million of them here, and it seems as though all of them have at some point asked me what my name is, where I am from, where I am staying, how long I will be in India, etc. It's a real exercise in willpower to refrain from responding politely to every tug on your sleeve, but if I didn't ignore it I'd be locked in conversation (or someone's dodgy scheme) from morning til night.
Some things here are nice-- people are generally courteous (hello madam thank you madam) and the weather is sunny and temperate. I'm staying in a great big bazaar, so I went out and bought all sorts of special treats for unfathomably low prices. For example: sending an international postcard costs... 15 cents. Everything under the sun is for sale and it is all super cheap. Silk saris, car batteries, bushels of bananas, sticks of incense, bags of herbs and spices, bootlegged DVD's, monkey leather handbags, hashpipes and wallets and brassieres and vegetables and big glasses of milk and every single other thing one could ever imagine. I indulged in some comfortable shoes, a pair of sunglasses, some conservative clothing (sounds like the perfect disguise). It's important to wear long pants and keep your shoulders covered here, and my skinny jeans and tank tops weren't cutting it. Now I can go out into the light of day again!
Other things about New Delhi are decidedly not nice. The pollution is god-awful and the sunlight just sort hangs in the air in a smoggy, stinking haze. They weren't kidding about all the homeless little kids mingling around; it's really hard to say no to a hungry four year old, but there are just so many of them and there's only so much you can give. The common street scene in general just isn't all that pleasant: cars, scooters, and rickshaws barreling through crowds of people, kids running through the legs of cows carrying loads of bricks, lopsided cripples, people thrusting wristwatches and zipdrives into your face, women begging with nude babies in their arms, men urinating in a sidewalk urinal, food being cooked and eaten on the ground, lots of shouting and talking and laughing, stray dogs sleeping or dying right in the middle of it all... It's a sight to behold and a hard thing to get used to. This is India!
Actually not true; I keep running into other travelers that all say that New Delhi is the worst of it, and that it's a completely different experience than the rest of the country. With that in mind, I've decided to take a trip north for a week to Rishikesh, a town at the base of the Himalayas and on the banks of the Ganges River. Apparently, it's a very holy pitstop for Hindus who make a pilgrimage to the mountains. For me, there are assorted ashrams where I can stay for a week and do yoga, meditate, read and write, work on my inner yogi, etc. The Beatles went there in 1968 and loved it! I thought I'd give it a try, since J isn't coming for another two weeks (much to my great annoyance) and I don't want to spend all that time waiting for him in this dense shithole of a city. There are way more men than women out in public; at any given time, I'm surrounded by men, and most of them are staring at me. Being a woman alone here has been a little more daunting than I expected, and I imagine it will be easier once I get out of the urban sprawl. My mom is somewhat miffed about the whole situation, but I've been skyping her nightly to let her know that everything will be alright, and I'm feeling better about it every day. I miss J, but it feels good to miss him, and I'm looking forward to the day when he comes to New Delhi and we resolve our differences and kiss and make up and begin our Indian odyssey together.
Until then... Who knows what the days will bring! It's good to be alive!
7:36PM
New Delhi, India
Some things here are nice-- people are generally courteous (hello madam thank you madam) and the weather is sunny and temperate. I'm staying in a great big bazaar, so I went out and bought all sorts of special treats for unfathomably low prices. For example: sending an international postcard costs... 15 cents. Everything under the sun is for sale and it is all super cheap. Silk saris, car batteries, bushels of bananas, sticks of incense, bags of herbs and spices, bootlegged DVD's, monkey leather handbags, hashpipes and wallets and brassieres and vegetables and big glasses of milk and every single other thing one could ever imagine. I indulged in some comfortable shoes, a pair of sunglasses, some conservative clothing (sounds like the perfect disguise). It's important to wear long pants and keep your shoulders covered here, and my skinny jeans and tank tops weren't cutting it. Now I can go out into the light of day again!
Other things about New Delhi are decidedly not nice. The pollution is god-awful and the sunlight just sort hangs in the air in a smoggy, stinking haze. They weren't kidding about all the homeless little kids mingling around; it's really hard to say no to a hungry four year old, but there are just so many of them and there's only so much you can give. The common street scene in general just isn't all that pleasant: cars, scooters, and rickshaws barreling through crowds of people, kids running through the legs of cows carrying loads of bricks, lopsided cripples, people thrusting wristwatches and zipdrives into your face, women begging with nude babies in their arms, men urinating in a sidewalk urinal, food being cooked and eaten on the ground, lots of shouting and talking and laughing, stray dogs sleeping or dying right in the middle of it all... It's a sight to behold and a hard thing to get used to. This is India!
Actually not true; I keep running into other travelers that all say that New Delhi is the worst of it, and that it's a completely different experience than the rest of the country. With that in mind, I've decided to take a trip north for a week to Rishikesh, a town at the base of the Himalayas and on the banks of the Ganges River. Apparently, it's a very holy pitstop for Hindus who make a pilgrimage to the mountains. For me, there are assorted ashrams where I can stay for a week and do yoga, meditate, read and write, work on my inner yogi, etc. The Beatles went there in 1968 and loved it! I thought I'd give it a try, since J isn't coming for another two weeks (much to my great annoyance) and I don't want to spend all that time waiting for him in this dense shithole of a city. There are way more men than women out in public; at any given time, I'm surrounded by men, and most of them are staring at me. Being a woman alone here has been a little more daunting than I expected, and I imagine it will be easier once I get out of the urban sprawl. My mom is somewhat miffed about the whole situation, but I've been skyping her nightly to let her know that everything will be alright, and I'm feeling better about it every day. I miss J, but it feels good to miss him, and I'm looking forward to the day when he comes to New Delhi and we resolve our differences and kiss and make up and begin our Indian odyssey together.
Until then... Who knows what the days will bring! It's good to be alive!
7:36PM
New Delhi, India
any updates of your wherabouts????
ReplyDelete