so basically what i did today is get off the plane in new delhi and start looking for the bus. it's hard to find any directions at all to anything because anyone you ask will try to take you somewhere elsewhere they can make money. i eventually got to the bus and went to caugnnaut place (sp) in the middle of the city. this made me thinkthat maybe delhi isn't so bad. in actuality it is really quite crazy. things got kind of frusterating trying to find pahar ganj, the placewhere i am now. everyone was trying to take me to a fake tourist office (not the official government one, even though they all printout fake "official government" cards and stuff). i was determined towalk there and not yield to the unrelenting, aggressive solicitations of the rickshaw drivers. the city changes drastically from street tostreet. the circular street that confines cannaught place is not badat all. every street branching off from it, and the streets branching off from them, are a crapshoot. some just have trash and corpse-like beggars strewn about. one thing that doesn't change from street tostreet is the congestion. humans, dogs, cows, cars, buses, bikes, andrickshaws flow down the streets in one unorderly flow. indians seemto liberally employ their car horns, not in anger, but to let peopleand other cars know they're right behind them. it's complete chaosbut it somehow retains a feeling of fluidity. i gave up at one pointand went back to cannaught place to regroup and duck into a cafe i hadseen in order to get my head together and consult my guidebook. ihave confirmed with other travelers that service in indian eatingestablishments takes forever. i just ordered a coffee and it tookabout 15 minutes for him to bring it to me. the next try at findingpahar ganj was pretty much just me committed to walking around until ifound it, but on that attempt, probably my 5th, i made it to thebustling bazaar of the main street, where rickshaws, bikes, cows andpeople all go at the same pace and occupy the same narrow dustycorridor lined with walls of cramped "hotels" and stores sellingpretty much anything you can imagine. i say "hotel" because it's notquite what you would imagine. there are no freestanding structures.it's like there's just one long building that occupies an entire sideof the street for a mile - a building has been sliced up as many timesas possible to allow the maximum number of establishments in the leastamount of space. my hotel is in a small side street, almost an alley,so i'm not right on the main crazy street. there's a restaurant onthis street that is quite good. i suppose delhi is really dirty butit doesn't bother me at all. nor is it as bad as many accounts hadmade it out to be. although there was a mouse and a huge cockroach inthe restaurant, as there is a mouse in this cyber cafe. outside atangle of power lines hangs just above the heads of pedestrians.a big meal cost $2, my room cost $5. it's going to be really cheap totravel here.i'm meeting a lot of cool people from around the world.i think my plans are as follows:- stay here for 1 or 2 more days and see some sights around new delhilike the red fort, india gate and so on- head north to mcleud gang (home of dali lama) and possibly rishikeshbefore it gets too cold- head back south and go to agra (taj mahal), jaipur (pink city),jodhpur (blue city), udaipur, and jaisailmer, a desert town where ihope to do a 2 or 3 day camel trek- head to varanasi, or delhi if rancha is there then- go to the wedding in lucknow- don't go to nepal anymore (i was talked out of this by veterantrekkers who said it will be too cold in december/january)my small pack is a big hit...this one girl wanted to take a picture ofme with it. people seem to wish they had done it that way.that's about all i can think of for now. i'll try to call youtomorrow morning, which will be night for you. i'm definitely havinga blast and am amazed that i am on the other side of the planet,absorbed in such a totally different world. it's amazing to think ihave experienced so much and i've barely scratched the surface andhave been here less than 8 hours. in spite of all the chaos, i do feel safe here.
-- second e-mail --
well, today is going a bit better than yesterday. yesterday wasreally trying for some reason. i started by trying to take care ofthe chinese visa thing, which was a hassle of going to the chineseembassy, which wasn't where i needed to go, then going to the visaoutsourcing place in a palacial luxury hotel. it's interesting to seemost of delhi, so impoverished, and enter the lobby of this huge,$400/night hotel in delhi. it may be the nicest hotel i've everstepped foot in. like going from one world to another. anyway, ifound out i need:1. to fill out a visa application form2. to submit a (typed and printed) application letter3. to submit an itinerary4. to get a passport photo taken5. to submit a phoocopy of my passporti did the 2nd and 3rd ones from the "business lounge" of the hotel -where prices match the setting...200 rupees per page you print out.$4 per page...insane. i still need the passport photo. i didn't tryto do the visa yesterday because although they can do next-dayprocessing, they don't work weekends so i would have had to stay untilmonday (or leave my passoprt behind, which i can't do obviously).after i did the most i could do with regard to the visa, i wentsightseeing. i'm realizing how much more i'm paying forauto-rickshaws than i should. i thought i got a pretty good deal withan 80 rupee ride the other day. i've paid 100. drivers have askedfor 200 (i didn't give it to them), but i realized that i should bepaying like 20 to 50. by law they should be just charging you whatthe meter says, but they have it rigged so it is "broken" by the timethey see you coming. you can, in theory, report this to the law, butit's not worth the hassle. you just have to accept that there is aparallel economy here...one for indians and one for everyone else.
indians pay by what is on the meter...you have to haggle.so anyway, i took a rickshaw to jami masjid (the mosque that holds25,000 people). i originally said i wanted to go to red fort, like 2blocks away from jami masjid, then changed my mind, then the driverupon arriving tried to charge me twice as much because it was adifferent destination. sometimes you just have to hand them themoney, whatever amount (it'll always be more than they usually getfrom indians) and walk away, listening to their cries of "sir! sir!hello!" grow more and more distant, till they give up and drive away.jami masjid...what to say about this place? the structure itself isvery impressive. however, i don't think i've yet been sickened asmuch as by the surrounding neighborhoods of the old delhi monuments(red fort and jami masjid). there are children pooping right in thestreet, inbetween the myriad street vendors selling food that looksbizarrely clean and fresh. you have to step aruond quite a fewbeggars. it's amazing how emaciated some of them are...i didn't knowhumans could reach that state. imagine legs no thicker than my arms.the smells were overpowering. this is the bazaar street leading up tothe mosque. i entered the mosque and was instructured to remove myshoes. i left them with this guy, who put them in a pile under ablanket. i recovered them later, but inbetween i remember thinking ishould have just carried them, that guy is going to steal my shoes,which bothered me the entire time. the mosque is basically a walledstructure, walls enclosing a central open plaza, which is how so manyfit inside, but it is still impressive, and there are still manyinside areas. however, there were still throngs of people inside andyoure walking on stones covered with bird poop in your barefeet. most
of the people are indian and foreign tourists, but there are alsoquite a few muslims actually utilizing the mosque.i remember at some point starting to feel not very well, mentally,somehow. just depressed or something, maybe it was just sensoryoverload. i paid 50 rupees to climb a high tower, maybe a few hundredfeet, and got a really great view of new delhi. climbing the towerwas intersting - a high spiral staircase of stone, parts of which youcouldn't see your hand in front of your face, and so narrow you couldhardly fit in. things got really interesting when you passed someonetrying to come down. nothing to do but squeeze up against each otherand keep going. leaving the mosque, i got my shoes back from the guy,thankfully, and walked away from him when he demanded money.sometimes you don't know who's legit and who's not, but i figure ifthey don't chase you, they're not legit. as i was descending themosque stairs, a street kid attached himself to my forearm and startedwringing his hands on it. i pretended it wasn't happening and keptwalking. i was almost dragging him along. he was very little, but iremember being struck by how eerily mature his cries were, like thatof a wailing grandmother at a funeral. they were tearful, mournful,desperate, he seemed to be in agony. of course part of it must beshow, he appeared otherwise healthy, but i don't even really want tospeculate on the kind of hardship you must have to endure in order tosound like that as a child. it was chilling.so anyway, now i'm feeling really weird, like this is all too much totake in at once, and i go to the red fort. i had my sandals too tightand had the same problem as when i first started wearing them on thetrail - they rubbed a really sore spot on my feet, making it painful
to walk. the red fort is pretty interesting, actually more sedateinside than in the mosque. there are huge grassy lawns, widewalkways, impressive and expansive architecture. i think i actuallyliked it a bit better but at this point i was *really* ready to goback to my room because i had just received the one element i lackedin order to be truly miserable: i suddenly noticed my t-shirt andpants were covered in birdshit. i believe this happened in thestaircase of the tower, where birds hang out in the small, squareopenings cut into the stone. i must have rubbed up against a bigconcentration of it on the walls. i'm normally not one to feel dirty,i don't really care too much about showers as you know, but for thefirst time in as long as i could remember, i needed desperately totake a shower, to buy a pair of clothes at the bizarre, to settle inmy room a bit and absorb what i had just seen, to remedy the state iwas in. so i get back and buy a pair of clothes - 120 (about $3)rupees each for pants and shirt. then i got into the shower. it'sfunny - of course there's only cold water, which isn't too bad becauseit's quite hot here, but the "shower" is basically just a showerheadcoming out of the wall of the bathroom. no tub, no curtion, no"shower" to speak of. you turn it on and everything - toilet, sink,floor, pipes - gets completely soaked. it drains from a drain in thefloor. so i cleaned myself really well, got into my new indianclothes...which actually looked a little ridiculous in my opinion.not totally absurd, but i was getting looks from the indians, at leasti thought i was, which made me feel extremely self conscious. i gavemy dirty clothes to the hotel but they said they wouldn't be washedfor 24 hours. i spent the rest of my night watching movies on tv with
english subtitles and ordering beers and food to my room.this morning i got up and got breakfast on the roof, then set out tobuy a different top, which was, in my opinion, what was wrong with myindian outfit. i went into a store in the early morning (a strangetime in the bazaar, the stores are mostly closed and there are a lotof cows hanging out, many more than you see during the day, i thinkthey stray to less crowded areas later on). there i met the nicestindian salesman yet. seemed very down to earth and educated...he sayshe works in sweden for part of the year. young guy, like my age. thestore was really colorful and clean. by "store", i mean it's one ofthose slices of buildings, no door or anything, no sign, open at thefront, just two walls, the merchandise, and the salesmen. i wasreally smitten with this hemp top, i thought it was extremely cool.but he said it was 900 rupees, almost $20, quite high but it did seemto be a high quality garment and a higher quality store than most. isaid: "hmm...i'll give you 500." he put it hand on his heart andlooked pained, and staggered back, as if i had just shot him. "thisis very bad for me!" he protested. i tried on some other things, but ikept coming back to that shirt. "you can't come down on the price atall?" - he looked grave and serious all of a sudden. he pressed hishands together. "i'll give it to you for 800." i tried on some otherthings. some time passed. "i'll give you 600 for that hemp shirt."he called in his boss, who said "ok...i offer you 700, this is not hisprice, this is not your price, this is the final price." i tried tolook noncommital and said "ok, i'll tell you what. i'll either giveyou 600 right now, or i'll walk around outside a bit, see if i see
something i like better, then maybe come back later." of course, weboth knew what i was doing, leaving him with no choice in the nicestway possible, and he loved it. he found it absolutely hilarious. hedoubled over laughing. he recovered and looked at his worker,pointing at me: "you listen to him!" he turned to me: "where you didyou learn that, where are you from my friend?" he seemed genuinelysurprised and amused at this display of haggling skills, which ididn't even know i had. he put his arm around me. they were the mostsincere people i have yet to meet. the young guy gave me some saneadvice about avioding scammers in the train station today when i go (ithink i need to get out of delhi). i hope to take an overnight trainto the hopefully more subdued mcleod ganj, home of the dalai lama.so now i look pretty good i think. i like my shirt a lot - i'mthinking about maybe getting one for amy. i have no idea where thepost office is though. the shirt i yesterday got but don't like somuch may fit mike, it's pretty huge on me (size large), but it alsomay shrink a ton in the wash. is there anything you want from here?here's about the prices of things here:big meal with soda: $1 - $2taxi ride: $1hotel room: $1 - $5 dependingand delhi is known as being as much as twice as expensive as the restof india. amazing.i wanted to write you because i'm not sure what services will beavailable when i get to mcleod ganj. i may not call or email for aweek, so don't worry. oh and if any of this sounds dangerous, it'sreally not. i believe most indians will steal from you in aheartbeat, but i wouldn't fear violence. the danger is theft, and itis admittedly everywhere. having a tiny pack you can always take withyou helps.well, i guess that's it for now. of course there's a lot more butthis is already getting pretty long. don't worry about me, i'm havingfun and being safe.
above: red fort
above: view of delhi from jami masjid tower
above: himalayas from the airplane
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