06/08/14 - 6/11/14: Delhi, India
Our flight from Hanoi to Delhi was delayed for many hours. Fortunately, Katie’s father had provided us an airport lounge pass that we were finally able to take advantage of during our Hong Kong layover. I spent that time snacking on free mini samosas and mentally preparing for India. By all accounts, India is a country of extremes. Everything we’d experienced in South East Asia was about to be amped up to 11. The heat. The poverty. The food and water safety. The culture shock. As one acquaintance put it, India will be the hardest trip of your life, and possibly the most rewarding. We were about to find out.
Katie and I were travel-weary after nine months on the road, the last three of which in 100° weather. So naturally, we chose to visit India during the hottest part of the year. Apparently we wanted a real challenge to cap off our RTW trip!
Concerned about the difficulties ahead, we tossed out our usual self-researched, self-guided approach and instead signed up for a three week group tour with G Adventures. We’d opted for a tour for several reasons. For one, booking transport of any kind in India has to be done months in advance. Yes, months. In a nation of 1.3 billion people you’re always competing for a seat. And two, our good friends from Los Angeles, Joni and Anne, would be joining us on the other side of the world. What better way to enjoy a trip together than not having to sweat the details? And it was true! Not having to think about the details was a godsend. There was no way to avoid the sweat, though.
Our flight to Delhi was incredibly late and marred by an extreme acid reflux-induced coughing fit by yours truly. It scared the living daylights out of Katie. We both blamed the mini samosas. After my near death experience at 30,000 feet, we discovered our driver wasn’t on the ground to greet us upon arrival. It was 1am, so I couldn’t blame him for not waiting around. After several calls to the hotel, and overcoming language barriers, we learned our driver had left. Well, yes, that much we’d sorted out. But was there going to be another driver? No? OK, then, a taxi it is!
The late hour didn’t prevent intense heat from smacking us in the face when we exited the airport. We were approached by several drivers but refused them all, determined to go through the standard procedure of waiting in the taxi line. Through research and experience we knew it to be the safest way not to get ripped off, or worse. We didn’t have to wait long given the time of night.
Despite having a population of nearly 18 million, Delhi felt eerily still and dark as we crossed its threshold. The visions we saw on that drive felt plucked from a dream: taxi drivers asleep on the roof of their cars; elephants loping down the street. Our driver didn’t speak English but eventually communicated that he couldn’t find our hotel. I called the front desk again and handed our driver my phone.
You may be wondering how we were feeling as circumstances unfolded: the delayed flight, the new country, the late hour while a lost driver led us into the night. I won’t deny there was a level of unease, but our travels had taught us to relax into the newness. Don’t get me wrong, we were always alert when arriving someplace new, making sure our belongings and each other were close at hand. And that’s all you can do. Pay attention. Stay together. Deny the paranoia gnawing at your mind. There’s no reason to stop enjoying your trip when nothing bad is actually happening. And nothing bad did happen. After a time, our driver finally dropped us off at 2am in front of our accommodations: Hotel Perfect (which was anything but).
Unlike all previous accommodations, our hotel choice was not based on research. It was chosen by G Adventures and would be bookending our journey through Northern India. The good news: we could leave a bag of heavier clothes and other unnecessary items at Hotel Perfect since we’d be coming back in three weeks. The bad news: we’d chosen a tour called “India On A Shoestring.” We were about to find out just how short that shoestring was.
Our room was small and hot. There was an old air conditioner wedged into the only window. It lowered the temperature to barely tolerable. The tap water was blazing; I could barely wash my hands in it. The lighting was dim and dingy so we couldn’t get a sense of how clean or unclean our room was. As a result of that, and the general anxiety of the night, I slept wrapped up in my travel sheet clinging to the subconscious comfort it offered.
The morning light shone no kinder on our room due to the aforementioned air conditioner blocking the sun. We ventured out for a complimentary breakfast and were met with a gloomy hall of mustard linoleum. Clothing racks lined the hallway. We deduced a fashion show was happening nearby and vendors were staying at Hotel Perfect. Being fashion, you’d expect women to be present, but you’d be wrong. The vendors were all men. And they stared at us.
We entered the breakfast area and found more welcoming gloom. A buffet of unknown foods lay before us. The length of time those dishes had been sitting out was unknown. Questioning not only the safety of the food but the content, we decided to retreat back to our room and eat our stash of crackers. Besides, the only other people eating breakfast were men. And they stared at us.
Around 1:30pm Joni and Anne arrived. We were thrilled to see them and happy to have familiar company. They, naturally, were extremely exhausted from their 24 hours of travel. After a brief greeting (and eating some of Joni’s delicious Samoa cookies), they checked into their room for some sleep before our first G Adventures meeting that evening. Hungry and wanting a break from “perfection,” Katie and I searched online for a nearby restaurant. We exited the hotel determined to find good food and ignite some excitement for our burgeoning Indian adventure!
The temperature was 118 degrees. I know because when I researched the temperature in Delhi that day and I learned it was a record high that wouldn’t be surpassed until 2019. My eyeballs cooked in their sockets. People were everywhere: stalls lined the road, motorcycles roared, tuk-tuks honked. The air burned with heat and exhaust fumes.
The ratio of men to women was 50 to 1. The male gaze drilled into us with curiosity and sometimes outright hostility. My exposed calves drew looks of shock, disapproval, and possibly arousal. Maybe I was reading their expressions wrong, but I decided to fully cover my legs for the rest of India to be safe.
We oriented ourselves in the chaos and searched for the restaurant. A few blocks later we found the restaurant to be closed. At that point we both decided we’d rather eat crackers again than be looked over by every man on the street. It felt severely uncomfortable and a little unsafe. Not that I felt in imminent danger, but I certainly didn’t want to continue our search when I didn’t know where it would lead. So we made a U-turn and headed back to our “perfect” hotel. Even there, all eyes trailed our progress through the lobby. That’s because 100% of the hotel staff were men. And they stared at us. We were happy to re-enter our hole and eat crackers.
That evening we met our G Adventures coordinator, Aura. He was a handsome Indian man who talked with expressive hand gestures. It was no surprise his first love was acting. He’d make an excellent leading man. With his friendly attitude and clear communication, I felt more at ease knowing Aura would be leading us for the next three weeks. I also loved how honest he was, conveying the difficulties of our journey ahead. He explained there was a heat wave throughout India. The annual monsoons had yet to come and cool down the climate, so we should expect extremely high temperatures. My burnt eyeballs could attest to that.
We sat in a large circle and introduced ourselves. There were a total of sixteen of us - fifteen women and one man. Everyone besides us were in their early twenties, nearly all of them from England. When Aura asked our reasons for choosing G Adventures the most popular answer was safety. Being mostly women, it wasn’t a surprising response. India is traditionally a patriarchal society, which explained the lack of female visibility on the street (and the continuous gawking as though we were aliens). Based on our brief experience, I’d say we all made the right decision.
Afterward, Aura escorted us to a group dinner. It was such a relief to know that he’d be choosing or recommending our restaurants from here on out. He knew which ones would be safe for us to eat at and I was happy to follow his lead. Because of the age gap between us and the rest of the group, we started calling ourselves the “old ladies” and didn’t really mingle that first night. Were we being antisocial? Sure. But we hadn’t seen each other for nine months - there was a lot to catch up on!
It was at that first dinner where we discovered Anne’s love affair with lassis. We, as in all of us, including Anne. Anne had spent some time in Niger when she was younger, and she’d enjoyed a yogurt drink there that she hadn’t been able to find since. Fast forward fifteen years to her sitting in Delhi drinking her first lassi. “This is it!” She exclaimed. The taste was utterly familiar. Her search was over. It had been a lassi all along. Lucky for her, they’re sold throughout India. Needless to say, Anne drank every lassi she could get her hands on during those three weeks.
(Side Note: If you don’t eat Indian food you may not know what a lassi is. It’s a chilled semi-thick yogurt-based drink that’s commonly mixed with mango. You can get a mango lassi in pretty much any Indian restaurant in America. Anne was more interested in the plain lassi - no fruit required.)
The next morning was the official beginning of our tour. Aura had a full day planned for us in Delhi. Our first order of business: hopping on a tuk-tuk. This became our daily ritual in India. Aura would wave over a series of tuk-tuks. We’d then break into groups of three, possibly four, squeezing the most bodies into the fewest tuk-tuks. Then we’d hit the streets, no seat belts required (or available).
South East Asia had prepared Katie and me for the madcap traffic. India was Vietnam on crack because, not only were there an insane amount of people and no rules, there were also all manner of transport on the roads: trucks, cars, motorcycles, tuk-tuks, rickshaws, carts drawn by various beasts of burden, the occasional elephant, and of course the ever present cows who roam free.
The key to survival is… Well, there is no key to survival. You have no control. Rather, the key to staying sane is to let go and let God. It helps that congestion and the divergent speeds between engine and animal amounted to never going over 40mph. Trust me, it feels plenty fast under those conditions.
Our first stop was at a non-profit organization called Salaam Baalak, which stands for “Salute to the children.” This organization helps street kids by housing them, feeding them, providing an education, and locating their families. We were greeted by one of their wards, an 18 year-old young man who was on the cusp of leaving the shelter to make his own way in life.
He led us down the street along piles of trash being picked over by stray dogs. Electrical lines hung from rooftops in large knots, stretching across alleyways like tangled clumps of hair. These images weren’t unique to that part of town, nor Delhi as a whole. They were a permanent fixture of India. With its massive population it’s hardly shocking that garbage disposal is a serious problem. It’s also remarkable that electricity, wifi, and other utilities reach people without causing a city block to burn down. Especially when you have rats gnawing on the lines, as demonstrated by the fried rodent we saw dangling from a cable above our heads.
Our young guide called our attention to points of interest along the way. For instance, a stone wall inlaid with tiles depicting religious symbols from around the world: Jesus, Hindu deities, saints, and revered spiritual leaders.
“Why do you think these tiles are on this wall together?” He asked. We attempted a guess.
“Is this a religious building?”
“Did an important religious event happen here?”
“Is this a shrine?”
No, no, and no. He explained that people used to relieve themselves in the alley, urinating on the wall. Someone put these tiles up to deter people and it worked; the public toilet was abandoned. In their culture it’s bad luck to deface images of faith. I mean, can you imagine peeing on Jesus? No way. A very clever solution.
We were provided a quick tour of the shelter itself, which included a room for kids to lay if they’re sick, a small office, and a classroom where the children receive school lessons and watch movies. It was in that room where a group of young men and boys, ages 6 to 14 (approximately) greeted us. They sat in rows awaiting our arrival and enthusiastically waved when we entered. We were then told we had 10 minutes to hang out with them.
Let me pause for a moment and explain that the itinerary for the day said we’d be led on a tour by a young man from Salaam Baalak. If memory serves it wasn’t clear what the tour was going to be. Katie and I assumed it was going to be our anticipated tour through Delhi. It wasn’t until that moment that we realized the tour was of the NGO he represented and now we’d found ourselves standing in a room full of boys being asked to engage with them. Up until this point Katie and I had decided not to volunteer at any orphanages as part of our tourism. Many articles advocated against it, saying that volunteering for only a week or two was not healthy since children bond with the volunteers and it's painful to have them leave again and again. Yet there I was, thrust into a situation where I was essentially visiting an orphanage being asked to bond with children. What could I do? All I could do was embrace it.
I was the first to enter the fray. A group of boys bounded up to me and started introducing themselves, each one shaking my hand. Then they asked my name. With that out of the way (and it being the only English they knew), we quickly reverted to the universal language of games. Arm wrestling, thumb wrestling, and paddy-cake were their diversions of choice. I let each of them beat me at arm wrestling and gave them high fives. (OK, fine, some of them probably legitimately beat me.) Katie was at the front of the room interacting with one child while I was surrounded by 8 boys spinning in a whirlwind of energy that stopped as quickly as it started. It was time to go.
I had mixed emotions about the experience. On one hand our presence is beneficial to the organization because G Adventures gives money to them on our behalf. Also, the boys seemed genuinely excited to have some new playmates. In retrospect, I decided not to dwell on the fleeting nature of the experience. Instead I chose to focus on what it was - a moment’s distraction for kids who live a difficult life. Like eating an ice cream cone. It won’t last long so enjoy it while you can.
From there we traveled by tuk-tuk into the heart of Delhi. Aura took us to the largest mosque in India, Jama Masjid, meaning “Great Mosque.” It can hold up to 25,000 worshippers. It was built in the year 1656, commissioned by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan who is better known for building the Taj Mahal. Unlike the Taj Mahal, the mosque was built with red sandstone, giving the building a warm red hue. It also soaks up heat from the sun. Not ideal when no shoes are allowed inside the mosque and it’s 115° outside. Which is why I bought a cheap pair of slippers to walk around without burning my feet. Katie braved it, running across the hot stone to patches of shade. Thankfully, thin strips of linen stretched between the main areas of the mosque, keeping her feet from being cooked.
The mosque was square in shape with an immense courtyard filling the center. The Mihrab, or niche of the structure indicates the direction of Mecca and, therefore, the direction for prayer. Domes and minarets rose up from the outer walls representing the vault of heaven and offering the call to prayer. The architecture was beautiful, if a bit rundown. Understandable given its age.
Visitors gathered under overhangs or beside walls to keep in the shade. Meanwhile, the four of us strolled around wearing thin robes covered in floral prints. It wasn’t a fashion choice. The robes were required to enter the mosque. So there we were, four women in ill-fitting robes, shuffling around in slippers, looking like pale housewives who just woke up from a nap. I’d say no one noticed, but trust me, they noticed. They all were staring at us. Again.
(To save time, just assume everyone is staring at us until we leave India.)
From the mosque we travelled on foot through a series of narrow streets called Chandni Chowk, one of India’s oldest and busiest markets. Vendors sold a wide array of goods with a noticeable focus on weddings. Plumes of incense billowed from stalls, demonstrating their scents, while throngs of people milled through the market in a slow and steady grind. Even in single file it was a tight fit. That’s because we were competing for space with cows, carts, motorcycles and other pedestrians, all pushing their way through in both directions. My eyes watered and my throat scratched. I wrapped my bandana around my nose and mouth and soldiered on, marveling at the frenzy that I soon realized was India’s status quo.
Once through, we made our way to a Sikh Temple called Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib (don’t ask me to pronounce it). But before going inside we ducked into a small room tucked to the left of the entrance for some quick Sikh history from Aura. (Bonus: the room had air conditioning! Oh sweet, sweet relief!)
The Sikh religion is made up of both Hindu and Islamic teachings. From Islam it adopted the belief in one invisible God and from Hinduism it adopted the concept of Karma and reincarnation. Sikhs believe anyone can worship God anywhere, and that you can connect to God through music. It’s for this reason you’ll always hear music playing in Sikh temples.
Their spiritual masters are called gurus and their teachings are collected into an anthropomorphized book that gets put to sleep, woken up, fanned and worshipped within the temple. There were 10 gurus before the line ended with Guru Gobind Singh in 1708. He’s best known for creating the Sikh warrior community known as Khalsa. They are known as some of the country’s finest fighters. They always wear a ceremonial dagger or short sword on their hip and never cut their hair, so it’s common for them to wear turbans to keep their hair out of the way.
Now that we had some history under our belts, we all removed our shoes and crossed the stream of water that marked the entrance to the temple. That is, all of us except Joni, who decided to stay put in the A/C. Regrettably, the pungent smells of the market had triggered her allergies, so she needed a Benadryl and a breather.
We walked through the temple and sat at the back, all the while listening to live music playing at the center. The colors were rich in warm golds, pinks and purples. All are welcome in Sikh temples, so men and women of other faiths come there to worship since it’s considered a holy place where anyone may talk to God. It was a relaxing and enjoyable environment.
Aura then led us behind the main hall where volunteers prepared food for one and all. A man stirred monstrous pots of lentils while a group of women rolled out roti flat breads. It didn’t appear to be a sizable operation, so I was flabbergasted to learn the temple serves a staggering 20,000 people a day! All the food is donated and provided for free to anyone who needs it. In an adjacent hall visitors sat on the floor eating and conversing. Volunteers stood to the side washing dishes and running them back in where the process started all over again. It was a well-oiled machine and a highly impressive undertaking - all for free!
Joni still wasn’t feeling well and didn’t eat anything when we stopped for lunch at an Indian fast food restaurant. Katie and I tried thali, which was a sample platter of different dishes you dip roti into. Very tasty. We then boarded the Delhi subway, which was surprisingly modern and blessedly air conditioned. The best part was the women-only car at the front of the train. We all boarded it while Aura and Joe (the only man on our tour) got in the next car back. The subway cars had no real partitions between them. At their connections were wide open doorways allowing you to walk freely from one end of the train to the other. That is, if you could walk through. Our women-only car was quite roomy, at less than half full, but the rest of the train was jam-packed with men, thick as cattle in a stockyard. Yet again, this demonstrated how few women are out and about in Delhi. I contemplated this while ignoring the wall of eyes boring into our backs.
We got off the train in a posher part of town: Connaught Place. It’s a shopping area of concentric circles filled with storefronts and a park set in the middle. In the center of the park waved a colossal Indian flag. British architects constructed Connaught Place in the first half of the 20th century and it resides in the wealthier part of Delhi. It was definitely more modern than what we’d seen thus far but I can’t say it was flashy or exceptionally clean. The vibe was more outdoor mall than Rodeo Drive. According to Aura, real estate here was more expensive than Manhattan at one point!
All the standard stores and brands were in attendance alongside familiar fast food joints. Joni opted to wait in an air conditioned KFC while we walked around and shopped. However, seeing as the commerce matched what we have in the states, the three of us mainly chatted and discussed our travels. Unfortunately we found Joni not improved, having vomited several times - once after a rushed exit from the KFC and then into a bush. We all fretted. This did not bode well. That evening we were to board a sleeper train that would take us west to Bikaner and a camel ride through the Thar desert. We hoped and prayed her health would improve quickly.
(Spoiler alert: Joni’s health did improve quickly! Mine, on the other hand, took a nosedive. It seemed India had jolted us with a culture shock so intense it elicited a physical reaction. Please be kind to us, India. We have a long way to go.)
Below is a video of our day in Delhi, which really is a collection of impressions. Forgive us for it being so light on content, but the day was such a whirlwind we didn’t capture a lot of footage. Enjoy!
