8. India at last - Delhi

I have been in India just over a week.  I'll be honest - I am falling behind in posting this travelogue.  There is so much I see and experience and learn that is new and exciting that I can't remember it all, much less record it. That, and as I begin to make new travel friends and share experiences together, escaping for solitary documentation seems so contrary. But I am trying, and I do post the occasional photo to facebook if I can't wait to share.  Maybe if I switch to bullet form, it will make it quicker to write, and maybe even easier for you to read...? Let's give it a shot (photos follow).

Prelude

On the plane from Milan via Vienna, I watched "Million Dollar Arm", a western film about a North American guy who knows nothing and goes to India to get the answer to his needs. Seemed relatively appropriate. Halfway through, though, the film broke, froze in mid-frame. Seemed relatively appropriate. I was feeling quite unsure of myself, excited - sure, but surprisingly anxious as well. I have no idea what to expect, how I will come out the other side, and in fact, exactly what I hope to accomplish by leaving all my loved ones behind. Then, touchdown in Delhi.

Delhi

Day 1

• Palaak paneer & roti (OK, one of the only Indian dishes I remember the name of - gotta start safe) = 85 rupees or $1.50
• Pistachio popsicle 40¢
• Subway 30¢ but with A/C!
• Old guys pissing on the sidewalk
• Cows wandering the highway at 1AM
• Cell plan ~$7 / month
• Beep-beep: In Delhi, vehicles ohonk at every possible opportunity.  Maybe this is because they are frequently making illegal moves and want you to know to get out of the way now. 
• There are no public garbage cans in Delhi, hence...
• So far I am the oldest traveller I've met among 20- and 30-year-olds, except for one father who was only at Moustache temporarily until his family came, and Eva, a woman from Mallorca who came to India on a whim.
• 3 meals today, and so far everything's solid ...if you know what I mean. Some were delicious. Others were... interesting. Tip is to go to street vendors with lots of locals.

Day 2

• Lotus Temple  - see photos below
• Krishna Temple - I got a flower garland which made me smell great despite the hot, humid weather. Well, at least to me...
• Bought an Indian SIM card for my Nexus S. An Indian number is apparently required to order train tickets online.
• 4th meal (delicious Papri Chaat, although someone told me afterwards this was 'Indian junkfood') - all still good intestinally!

Day 3

• Finally was at Canadian Consulate when they were open. It was unfortunately useless. I had already registered my travel plans online, and they only gave me a print-out of the online travel advisories. They do not provide travel consultation. Not surprising really, but I wasted several tuk-tuk rides going there and back.
• Finally made train ticket reservation to go to Amritsar through Cleartrip and the Indian Rail Transportation site.  Unfortunately, only wait lists are available in the next 4 days.
• I had planned to go to Sufi singing with someone I met from the US, but the plan fell through.  I went on my own and found the location, the crush of devotees & beggars, and the ceremony to be overwhelming.  While being pressured in a language I didn't understand into acquiring a skull cap, a robe, and plates of devotional flower petals, and then afterwards, some formal looking gentlemen demanding information about who I was and what donation I was to make to each of the temple's 5 charities, I found my cell phone had been stolen from my pocket.  I wrote 9 pages about this experience in my journal, and also the trials and tribulations to get a valid train ticket and to actually board it on time (my mistake; I ended up waiting in New Delhi station until 2:30 AM to buy substitute ticket for a 4:30 AM departure. But I really don't weant to recount all of that and lambast Delhi. It all worked out, and in fact, I met some great people on the 4:30 train going towards Amritsar, so it worked out well!  I met a man in the middle of the Sahara who once told me "the more you bring, the more you can lose" (he was traveling through the Sahara with his zebra-painted Vespa, a bedroll, and his girlfriend.)  Don't focus on the negative, John.

The one reservation before getting to India was to have a place for when I arrived to this huge city in a new country at midnight. The Moustahce Hostel was welcoming and friendly.  There were plenty of interesting backpackers from all over. The hostel usually has 30. I met Brits, Welsh, Irish, Kiwis, Aussies, Chinese, American, Russian, Germans, a Finn and another Canadian - I'm sure I missed several.  One evening we went to a pub and eventually had a discussion where we lamented various worldwide conflicts. We asked ourselves if our talking together, sharing viewpoints, listening with openness, and proposing progressive approaches was our action to overcome continued division in the world, or if it was escapist and ineffective.  The jury's still out on that one.  Prosit! / Cheers! / На здоровье! (etc.)

These guys surprised me by running over your bare feet (shoes always off inside a house). They're harmless though.

And Moustache's added bonus: rooftop ping-pong (marble tabletop) above Delhi's busy noisy streets!

Delhi has about 16-17 million inhabitants. Two Delhi's together is equal to the population of Canada.  Only Canada is 3 times bigger than all of India.

On my first day, I walked my new neighbourhood and took the Metro downtown.  It's efficient, pretty clean, safe, super cheap (~$0.30 a ride) and air-conditioned!  Every day 25 million people ride the Delhi Metro. And they are building several new lines.  Unfortunately, half the maps show these proposed stations, so several times I walked to the Metro only to find cement pillars where the future station would be.

This is Indian money.  Only usually it's older, more faded and like-coloured, and not worth much compared to the dollar and the Euro.  Simply, 1 Canadian dollar is worth a bit more than 50 Rupees. Never forget Gandhi's message: non-violence and peaceful resistance in the face of injustice. 

Not sure if you can see this but to understand Delhi is to see and hear it's busyness.  A photo doesn't do it justice, so I captured 30 seconds of life riding in a tuk-tuk.  This is not the best I saw, but it's enough for a North American to see how different it is! Indians don't follow lanes,honk incessantly, dodge people and cows and dogs, and rarely crash - amazing.  It looks like chaos, but I think it's more like a semi-choreographed dance, as does a chattering of starlings, or a school of herring.

No explanation necessary

Itinerant monkey in downtown Delhi. S/he stared at me for some time as if to say "What you want, Bro?"

This is a panorama of Chawri Bazaar. Again, trying to capture the pace of Delhi. I was so overwhelmed, and didn't know which branch to explore - no street signs - in this more Muslim area of town, that I took a rickshaw driver to the nearby Red Fort where I could getmy bearings. (Oh, we've found that Indians are notoriously poor at providing directions; maybe because there are so few street signs, house numbers, grids, or landmarks.) Although the Fort was closed in preparation for the PM's live speech tomorrow on Independence Day, I walked Chadni Chowk in the evening and was mesmerized by the lights, smells (some wonderful, others really bad - that's India - did I mention there are no garbage cans in India?) and bustle. The best way I can describe it is as India's version of Times Square.

Here is a collective effort I saw on Chadni Chawk to make some sort of decoration for Independence Day, just one of many cool things I saw. 

On my 2nd day, I visited the Lotus Temple with Nick from Wales. This is the main temple of the Ba'hai faith, which welcomes all believers in God but has virtually no doctrine, or rules, and - especially - no history of trying to force others to accept its faith.

This is a panorama showing the inside of the Lotus Temple and the of the temple above. On this day, a woman was chanting.  The acoustics were fantastic.The lotus represents beauty and non-attachment.

What's the weather like? Well, it's late summer, but the temperature still reached 41 C, and there's little wind and lots of humidity.  I have to say bringing all quick-dry synthetic clothes has helped a lot. Yes I sweat, but I'm not too sticky, and washing a shirt for the following day is easy.

It's hard to see, but with buses and traffic whizzing by, there's a guy painting the underside of the overpass at top right of this photo. The poor guys underneath are getting dripped in paint as is the road itself. I also often saw the stripes being painted on road dividers like the ones you see here.

I find this interesting because, with all of India's infrastructure problems, with open sewers and garbage everywhere, with "chaotic" driving that ignores all directions in the name of expediency and urgency, India still spends lots of time painting things.  In consultant parlance, we call that "putting lipstick on a pig".

There are big expectations from Modi, the new economy-focused PM, but while I wondered how western economies could possibly compete with India and China's low wages, upon seeing India, I'm beginning to wonder if the opposite is true: how can India possibly reverse its culture of "good enough"  execution and deliver goods and services that meet the increasing expectations of global customers. That and an entrenched and debilitating bureaucracy make Modi's challenge immense from what I can tell. It will be very interesting to see where India is in 10 years, 20 years, 50 years.