Delhi

Lise's Notes: Week One

Finally a post: sorry, sorry, sari!

On my second night here, I wrote a long detailed entry about how I'd spent my first 2 days by myself. Then I hit the "post" button, and I lost everything I'd written. Very vexing!

Peggy arrived in the middle of that night, and we've both been too wiped out at the end of each day since to do anything but crash. Complete sentences were beyond reach.

So here are the highlights to date:

My flight: Left Dulles on Qatar Air at 9:45 pm. I tried to be on Delhi time right away by staying awake for as long as possible. I finally saw Cowboys & Aliens! I saw the sunrise at some point over the Atlantic. Three hours later, I saw it set. Saturday literally flew by. Got to Delhi at 3 am Sunday.

Sunday: Focused on staying awake for daylight hours between bouts of napping.

Monday: Feeling very ambitious, I went to the bazaar in Old Delhi. Narrow lanes lined with tiny stalls, and crushing crowds mixed with bicycle rickshaws, motorcycles, random dogs, occasional goats, monkeys on the overhead wires. Didn't buy a thing.

Tried to go to the Red Fort, which turned out to be closed Mondays.

Took the metro to the Craft Musuem, which turned out to be closed on Mondays.

Walking back to the B&B, I found the Museum of Science & Technology, which turned out to be open! Not listed in any guide books, but it said there were dinosaurs, so I went.

Lots of hands-on exhibits. Part natural history museum, part science sideshow. My favorite was a gorilla arm mounted on the wall, elbow crooked, so you could arm wrestle! I lost.

I could hear the dinosaurs growling before I walked in over a tippy log bridge. Dark room with dramatic spotlights on scarey toothy maws; slowly moving purple and green lights across the ground. The dinos looked like huge sock puppets with legs. Wonderful stuff! A natural history haunted house! I'll post photos as soon as I'm at a computer instead of my phone.

Took a tuk-tuk back to the B&B. A tuk-tuk is a covered cab on a 3-wheeled motorcycle body. Driver in front, room for 2 behind. Drivers of all vehicles use their horns instead turn signals here. Very noisy!

Bicycle rickshaws are at a huge disadvantage with only a bell. Nonetheless, Peggy & I (white-knuckled, eyes clenched) returned home tonight in one that crossed 3 lanes of heavy traffic going one way, and plunged  into the three lanes going the other. Apparently, we survived.

Tuesday & Wednesday: With Peggy here and a friend of hers from Tokyo, Zita, we covered historical sites, tombs, & several museums. We also visited a bird hospital that's part of a Jain temple. The inpatients are all  vegetarian birds. Meat eaters can only be treated as out-patients. The Jains are pretty far out there. Worth googling.

The trip has been worth it for the food alone. I never knew it was possible to feel transported by eggplant! (I have the recipe.)

In between all that, and Sufi singing, I've been getting to know one of the B&B owners, Janis, a Boston architect who married an Indian MIT architect (the other owner), moved to Delhi, then designed & built this wonderful B&B. I've fallen in love with their 3 year old, Summer. I have her finger-paintings saved in the brushes app on my phone.

Thursday:  Our last day in Delhi, so hard choices must be made. No! to the toilet museum, because it's an hour away. I said No! to the Ghandis, because 1) I've seen the movie, and 2) I'm from DC where I've seen enough monuments already. But Peggy said Yes! to the Ghandis and off she went. Zita and I piled into a cab and headed south to Qutub (pronounced like YouTube with a Q) Minar (pronounced like Minar).

We got the headphone explainers to ward off volunteer tour guides, and spent some time trying to photograph the gorgeous green parrots against the red sandstone structures. The red sandstone structures were pretty fabulous, too, even without birds.