As soon as we arrive our cousin started feeding us. Sweets, tea, and dinner. It was 5 or 6 different things and rice and roti. I ate a decent amount but I think they were slightly offended I didn’t eat more. I was dog assed tired so I took my pain meds and passed out and didn’t wake until the morning. From my understanding friends and family arrived from all over to visit and stayed until 1:00 AM.
When I awoke around 7:00 or 8:00 the food really started off with 4 pieces of toast with 4 tablespoons of Butter and Chai. Shortly after this I had 2 Aloo Paratha. I am sure I have already had more calories than I have in a normal day. We then packed up and did some sightseeing.
Nothing is close to each other in India. And I didn’t mention earlier but the traffic is the craziest thing you have ever seen. There doesn’t really seem to be any rules other than don’t hit the other guy and if the light has been red for awhile, you probably shouldn’t go. Other than that, there are bicycles, buses, auto-rickshaws, trucks, and moped all sharing what should be 2 maybe 3 lanes but they are usualy 4 wide with vehicles. Also everyone honks, ALL THE TIME. I am told it is used to inform others of where you are so they don’t merge into you but sometimes I think our driver just did it because he hadn’t in awhile.
Our first stop was to the Parliament and India Gate. The Parliament is pretty nice, lots of beautiful architecture and color. The president’s home makes the white house look like something you see in a trailer park. Security is pretty high around this area for obvious reasons and you have many soldiers standing around with M16s(or their equivalent), not unlike when you cross the border in Tijuana. India Gate is really close to the parliament area. It reminds me of the place in France that you always see on TV. Our cousin told us this was the place the English hung the freedom fighters during the wars India had with England for their Independence. Unlike most memorials of this type it didn’t have any erriness to it. Something interesting happened when we started sight seeing. People would stare at Priyanka and me. Not only would they stare they would take pictures of us walking, so you may see pictures of me somewhere on the Internet in the future. When Vatsala carried her in her arms no one paid attention to Priyanka, I guess with me she was a beautiful white girl and with Vatsala she was a light skinned Indian girl!?
From India Gate we went to the Lotus Temple. Like most of the tourist stops they are just kind of jammed in between all the chaos of Delhi. The temple is definitely worth seeing though there isn’t much to do here but it is quite a sight.
From India Gate we went to Qutb Minar, from what I have been told is one of the 2 Original 7 wonders of the world that are in India, with Taj Mahal being the other. It is pretty awesome to see and amazing that it was built in the 12th century. This was the first place where I was discrimenated against for being a non-Indian. First all many of the Tourists sites that charge a fee have a different fee structure for non-Indians. Our cousin bought the tickets and bought me a non-Indian ticket. Well when we entered the gate the guy at the gate didn’t believe I was Indian and also questioned my wife and brother-in-law. They told them they live in India and even spoke in a village dialect so he couldn’t say anything but I was another story. On top of that, since I was holding my video camera this other guy who was doing nothing decided I need to pay a fee to use my camera. We told them we wouldn’t use it but they insisted we pay the fee. This was a bullshit fee and part of that form I signed in Mumbai stating I wanted to be ripped off everywhere I went. We ended up calling the driver and gave him the camera because even the “police officer” agreed we had to pay the fee. We didn’t let the incident spoil our visit and as I said it was pretty cool to see.
Again people were staring at me carrying Priyanka. I thin the women were jealous that they had to hoist there kids on their side and the men thought it was funny that the guy was holidng the kid. We had people ask us multiple times to take her out to take pictures with them but I refused because Priyanka doesn’t like strangers and it is a pain getting her out of the carrier.
I had mentioned to our cousin I need a 3 prong adapter for my netbook. We stopped at a market area. The best way to think of these markets is the “permanent” shops at Denio’s. Each one specializes in one type of item. We had to go to 4 shops to find the adapter which cost a whopping 20 ruppes (roughly 42 cents). Our cousin then took us to our first restaurant in Delhi, Haldiram’s, a snack type place, very hygenic according to our cousin. All vegetarian but really good snacks. I had Vegetarian Chow Mein and Aloo Tikki. It was good but became too spicy for this white boy. I finished my meal with “ice cream cake”, a scoop of ice cream and chocolate cake. What were you expecting?!?
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