Arrival in Delhi

I am in Delhi! Wow, where to begin?! We left at 6:30 this morning and arrived at 8:30am. We had arranged for our hotel, Ajay Guest House, to pick us up at the airport, but (typical India) they never showed. We flew Kingfisher Airlines (I have never seen better service than with this airline!) and a man who worked there not only called the guest house to see if they were coming, but then he found us a taxi and arranged for us to get to the hotel. To be honest, my first experience of Delhi was of annoyance. The taxi ride was stop and go the entire way with a gazillion people everywhere. It was a bit much, especially when I wasn’t feeling well (nothing bad, we just both caught colds from the kids, so I have a sore throat) and we were exhausted from sleeping very little last night. However, we arrived at Main Bazar (the market area where our hotel is located) and I saw more of the India I am used to. The hotel is nothing what I expected to be, but I love it! We are paying 700 rupees a night for a room with a big bed and a/c. It is located right in the center of the market with shops surrounding us. There are quite a few foreigners here, more than I have seen in India before. They are mostly European, but we had lunch with a guy from Australia who let us borrow his Lonely Planet India book and helped us figure out some sort of a plan.

It is hard to describe our hotel. We got dropped off in the middle of this market where our hotel was not visible. Sarah and I were looking at it each other wondering what the heck was going on. The driver took us down a little alley way and there was our hotel! In the photo above, it is through the alley way where the guy is leaning over. No doors or walls or anything to the front check-in; just big open space surrounded by shops and a cute little restaurant. I will have to take pictures, my explanation doesn’t justify it! We napped for a bit and then went exploring. The Main Bazar is a few streets of market area, selling clothes, shoes, food, souvenirs, etc. It is very dusty, very cramped, full of cycle and auto rickshaws and to be honest, quite hard to breathe in between the heat, the dust, and the smog. There weren’t as many beggers as I had anticipated (I expect to see many more in the more touristy areas) but the level of poverty was much worse than I have seen before in India. It is very dirty here, garbage lines the streets. The beggars that we did see looked very poor. We gave our leftover rice from lunch to two street boys, around 8 or 9 years old. They were malnourished in a way that I haven’t seen since Haiti.

We took a cycle rickshaw about 5 minutes away to a movie theatre and spent our afternoon there. We saw Kites, a Bollywood film featuring the famous Indian actor Hrithik Roshan. It was really cute (and corny, in the typical Bollywood fashion). It is a love story between an Indian man and Mexican women. The movie kept switching back between Hindi, English, and Spanish. I understood two of the three, so that helped! No subtitles for the Hindi part though, but we managed to understand the full thing (it was mostly in English) and we both loved it! The theatre was really nice. It cost 150 rupees to get in, and then we bought popcorn and drinks. They security check everyone who comes in and made us take out the battery of our cameras and they held on to them until the movie was over. Another thing that was different was that they have intermissions; a 10 minute break half way through the movie! We walked around the plaza of the movie theatre for a bit more, and found a cute little book store we spent some time in. It had mostly books set in Asia; a lot from India, some from Pakistan, China, etc. There was also a selection of American books. A big section for books about yoga, another for human rights. I didn't end up buying anything, but may later. We did buy some snacks for our hotel room, where we are sitting now, watching TV and relaxing. It will be an early morning as tomorrow we are heading out to work with Project Why for the day; I am really excited about this organization!