My first trip away

I spent a weekend in Delhi- here's how it went:

Upon arriving in Delhi, I latched on to my co-worker so he could show me where Pahar Ganj was.  I discovered that it is right where people said it was... across the street from the train station.  I probably would have gotten lost without him.  As soon as I saw the street that people referred to as the backpacker/hippie ghetto, I latched even closer to my co-worker and told him I'm staying where he was.  A phrase that rolled through my head every time I walked down this undesirable street was "Pahar Grunge."  Not too clever, but it's what I came up with.  This street is seedy.  There was garbage everywhere and unidentifiable feces to match.  Salesmen with horrible, horrible souviniers (like a crappy drum or a wooden snake) accosted us although it was nearly midnight.  Shady young men accosted us to stay in their hotels/guest houses/caves.  It was accosting.  To summarize Pahar Ganj, over the next few days I heard the following phrases non-stop whenever I was on this street:

"Baksheesh, Babu!" = old ladies begging for money

"Hey, man! Where you from?" = untrustworthy men trying to get me to buy something or go to an emporium (more on this later)

"Hash? You want hashish?" = kid outside my hotel with a very interesting sales pitch.  He doesn't say this directly to you, but says it so you hear it.  If you want hash, you perk up and listen.  If you get mad, he wasn't talking to you.  If you ignore him (like me), he keeps asking.

So, Friday, I got my feet wet in Delhi.  I saw the India Gate (it's a big gate), the houses of Parlaiment and the President's house (empty because of the holiday), the Lodhi Gardens (quite nice, actually), and the rooftop restaurant of my hotel where I had an excellent Chicken Kiev and some French onion soup - those of you who know my history of French onion soup in India will laugh- it wasn't that good here, either.

Saturday was my extreme tourist day.  I started out by swearing off all emporiums to my co-worker I ran into in the hotel.  For those of you out of the know, an emporiums are crappy, extremely over-priced tourist shops that all sell the same things.  On Friday, I was unexpectedly dragged to two of them by auto-rickshaw drivers.  Exiting the hotel, I was strucked up a conversation by a guy on the street (figure out the proper way to phrase that!).  He said he'd show me the Indian bazaar with Indian prices.  I was in no hurry and I do need glassware for my house still, so I agreed.  I found out the guy is a dancer and is studying to be a doctor.  He's also a dirty liar who brought me to an emporium.  Confound him!

I then hopped into a rickshaw whose driver agreed to take me around.  I saw Humayan's Tomb, went to an emporium, saw the Lotus Temple, was brought to a jewelry shop (emporium), then was dropped off at the metro station to make my way to Old Delhi.  Old Delhi is a mess of transportation, chaat, and chai.  It's one part alluring, one part overwhelming, and two parts repulsing.  I saw the Red Fort and hopped in a rickshaw to see the Jamma Masjid (the largest mosque in India where I was forced to pay 200 rupees for a camera I didn't want to use) and a Jain temple, which was great until the guy running the place demanded 100 rupees for showing me around.  After being robbed by practitioners of most of India's religions, I was spent.  Upon getting to the spice market, I just asked to be brought to the metro station.  When I got back to the hotel, I realized I hadn't eaten all day, so I grabbed an excellent pasta salad, a mediocre veggie sandwich and a refreshing lemon iced tea from a nearby cafe.  Not wanting to look like a pig but still hungry, I returned to the rooftop restaurant where I had a decent caesar salad (with huge strips of luscious parmesan cheese) and fried date-filled pancakes with honey and ice cream, which was reminicient of Mexican fried ice cream.

On Easter Sunday I slept in.  In my half-asleep mind, I rationalized that I had celebrated Easter a week prior and... I didn't know where a church was.  I made up my mind that I was to see a movie and enjoy good food for the day.  Eventually I made my way to a movie theatre where I saw the International, which was mediocre and cliched, but watching Clive Owen bust up the Guggenheim Museum with an Uzi while sitting in an air-conditioned theatre munching popcorn was just too great.  I left my first movie in three months with a big grin on my face.  I wandered around the nice shopping area of town and bought a few ties, thinking I can get shirts made to match back in Mussoorie.  I returned to the cafe near my hotel and had a satisfying smoked salmon sandwich with potato salad and a sublime Greek salad (with olive oil and balsalmic vinegar!).  I wrapped up my night by watching a bad British horror movie followed by 28 Weeks Later.  Sunday was definitely my most Western day, but it was the vacation I was looking for.

Despite the bad taste I have over Delhi now, I am grateful for the vacation.  I rather enjoy the weather in the mountains, the relatively clean streets of Mussoorie and the lack of an assumption I am an Australian hippie hash-smoker.

And now that I've written a small book on my blog, it's time for bed- Parent-teacher interviews are tomorrow and I'm excited to ask my students what they did over break they don't want to tell me about!