Lepors, stray dogs, and smog. New Delhi-- Day 1

It's 9:30 in the morning, my second day here.

New Delhi Airport looks like any other airport-- very clean and reasonably orderly.

I started to know something was very different when I walked out the gate and there were crowds of people trying to get my attention for a taxi. The guesthouse I was staying at arrnaged for a pickup, so I found the young man wearing a hot pink jacket and holding up my name and out we went.

It's dark (I left I night and India is 10 1/2 hours ahead, so I missed a whole day!), but I can still see the smog. A stray dog runs out from a pile of motorcycles as we're trudging to the taxi. We try to talk, but I can't understand him, so we just smile and nod.

I get into the front seat and we jerk onto the street.

THERE ARE NO TRAFFIC LAWS HERE. It is crazy. People swerving in and out, honking, gesturing with their hands-- my taxi shares the road with bicaclists, motorcycles, large cars holding tons of people, auto-rickshaws, and cow drawn carriages. Yes. Cow drawn. Whenever we stop, bicycles, cars, vehicles of all kinds pile into every empty corner. I aam amazed there is no accident. Harrowing, but thrilling.

I get to my guest house-- I'm staying in Manju-ka-tilla, where many Tibetain refugees live. It's right next to the highway. The streets are narrow-- to cars here. The enterence is down an alley, I walk in, check in, and go to sleep.

Next morning (yesterday)-- there's a really good restaurant, so I eat breakfast with a buddhist scholar from the Netherlands who is here for a conference. It's the end of his trip. He tells me he doesn't care for Delhi-- too much pollution, it makes him dizzy. As he says this a wave of dizzyness passes over me.

I finish and decide to go outside. The first thing I see are two teenage boys waving their miss-shaped limps in my face saying "friend? friend?" I walk down the street- crowded and noisy. Stray dogs. More-- are they lepors?-- it's hot, smoggy, and noisy. Moks and lamas share the streets with vendors and beggars. I'm out for a half hour and I go back to my room to cry for ten minutes. I call our Indian friends, Purbayan and Jaya, who live in Kolkata, and whom I'll be meeting up with later, and they make me feel better. I pull myself together, go back out and get a taxi from a long line of people trying to get my fare, and ask him to take me to the Red Fort.

The drive is as harrowing as the last time. The Red Fort is a sprawling palace complex built by the last Mughal emmperor-- the grounds are huge, with many marble buildings, dried up fountains, crumbling walkways, chipmunks, parrots, and crows. The crowd is mostly Indian, some western travellors. I get a lot of stares, being alone. Several times, young men asked me to sit by them-- they say a few words to me in English and then just laugh.

On my way out of a museum, a young man is sitting with a large group of people. He says hi, and introduces me to his entire family. Inexplicably, he wants to take a picture with my camera. Alright-- snap-- several shots later, he says goodbye and walks away.

I'm hungry for companionship so I shimmy up to a western guy who looks like he's alone. He is, so we decide to go off to the mosque across the street.

We wander into the bazzaar-- it's everything you would expect and also completely unexpected. Crowded narrow streets-- scooters careening through honking at pedestrians. The streets are lined with store fronts-- really mre holes in the wall-- first they are all selling fireworks, then they all seem to sell sari materials. I saw another cow (score!). Finally, we make is to the mosque. It is huge and impressive. We have to take our shoes off and pay an extra fee to bring our cameras. It looks like a red version of the taj mahal. People still pray here, so it is closed in the evenings. After taking it in, it's back to the packed alleys of old delhi. After getting slightly lost, we emerge on the other side at the train station. Me and my friend part ways-- he needs to find the metro (which is apparently surprizingly clean?), so I find a cop and ask him the best place to hail a cab. He smiles, tells me he's eating, then gestures for me to sit outside. OK..I sit and wait, then just hail a rickshaw to take me back.

Another harrowing drive back. I have to take an overpass to get across the street, and there are about five or six beggars with scales (??). I'm back in Manju-ka-tilla, but in a different area. I seem to have stubled upon a group of small temples. I step inside one and there's a monk chanting. I find my way back to my guesthouse. It's 3:30. I lie down and don't get up (except to buy some bottled water-- no drinking from the tap here) till 4AM the next day. It's 9:30 now. I'm about to venture to Connaught Circus-- a central part of Delhi with..shopping? I'm acutally not sure.

This is a bit rushed, I know, but I want to get it down so I can remember as well. I'll start posting pictures once I figure out how.

Much love to the US.

--Harry