Delhi

I was really excited to come to India and see a new culture, especially because I love Indian food. I pretty much expected it to be a bit more run down than China. I knew it was a poor country but this place is crazy. I don't know how people live here. Everybody is desperate to make money. As foreigners, people look at us and see dollar signs. We are constantly hassled the second we leave the hotel room by beggars and tuk tuk drivers and pushy street sellers. It is also ridiculously filthy. Just walking around we start to feel so grimy. There is garbage and noxious smells everywhere. China seems clean and pristine by comparison.

We hired a car for most of our trip but decided to go around Delhi for two days on our own and use the metro. We traveled all over Asia but it is really overwhelming here. Since the metro is more expensive than tuk tuks mostly only wealthier people take the metro and we got hassled less inside. The thing that struck me most about the subway here is there are hardly any women. I think most women just stay at home and their husbands work. There is a special car for women only to take so you don't get groped on the subway.... how reassuring. Delhi is apparently the rape capital of the world. Since the women's car also is often half as crowded as the other cars I've been taking it and Danny goes in the regular car closest. The morning rush hour is way later here; most people don't go to work until 10:00 am. Shorter work days would be nice; it is longer in China than in the states. Another weird thing about the subway here is the security checks at the subway entrance are really intense like airport security. Also in random spots around the station there are stacks of sandbags and armed police officers that stand behind them. When I say armed I don't mean little pistols the cops carry in the states. They have giant rifles, I’m not sure why but I found it scary. I’ve been told it has to do with threats of terror attacks.

We also tried taking a few tuk tuks. They are ok but it is kind of funny riding around the city in a golf cart. The drivers all try to rip off foreigners and offer prices triple what it says they should be online. There are a ton of them so my strategy is mostly to just walk away and find another tuk tuk. Most of the time they are only overcharging you by $2 but it is more the principle. I'm really glad we hired a car for most of the trip but it has been an interesting learning experience taking the subway and tuk tuks around Delhi.

I think our hotel is a pretty standard mid-range hotel for India. The hot water only works on rare occasions and the bellboys shamelessly wait around for tips. One of them carried our bags up and two more came to "tell us about the room" in hopes of getting a tip. The heat doesn't work but it is only a tiny bit chilly at night right now. Danny thinks it is the worst hotel we ever stayed in because of the lack of hot water.

For our first meal in Delhi we went to a McDonalds after our plane landed quite late. If only McDonalds at home had spicy paneer burgers. I have to say, I'm sort of excited to be able to eat at fast food places. It doesn't happen at home. We also tried a veggie snack burger from KFC. Also amazing. The restaurants even have separate ovens for meat and dairy. The food is definitely the best part of being here. India really is a vegetarian culinary paradise. Now I know how great it is getting food everywhere we travel for Danny. We aren't eating any street food though in an attempt to avoid stomach bugs. We tried a nice Indian restaurant called Moti Mahal for dinner one night, we aren't exclusively eating fast food. Our second night we tried a place down the street from our hotel called R1 which was also really yummy. I think our stomachs are slightly less happy with Indian food than we are but fortunately we packed some Tums.

For our first full day in India we went to Red Fort and Jama Masjid.

Red Fort is a UNESCO site, which at one time was a residence for Mughal emperors that housed about 3,000 people. It is sort of Delhi's version of the Forbidden City. It was built with red sandstone and has a lot of beautiful man made water canals that are kept empty today. When there was water running all around it must have been breathtaking. We got the audio guide which has a few mildly amusing bits of information.

Jama Masjid is the largest mosque in India. It was a pretty building. It is supposed to be free to enter but there is a 300 rupee ($6) camera fee. There is also a minaret at the top with a decent city view that is 100 rupees to climb but is included in the 300 for the camera fee. Since Danny and I only had one camera it should have only cost 400 rupees total but the guys who sell the tickets are total scam artists. First they told us 600 and Danny paid it before I checked the price and then they refused to give us back the other 200. Then we got to the top where the minaret was they tried to charge us again. I said I wasn't paying and we would just leave, then the guy changed his mind and said we could go up. The thing that pissed me off even more was that they insisted I wear this incredibly filthy shawl because they decided I wasn't dressed modestly enough even though the rule was that your legs and shoulders need to be covered and mine already were. I wore it half opened the most of time and the time and Danny and me bickered about whether it was disrespectful of me. I think it is a stupid patriarchal rule that deserves to be broken. Rules like that always leave me wanting to put on a tube top and hold a protest. Women should be allowed to wear what they want.

For our second day we went to Qutub Minar and DLF Emporio. 

Quitab Minar is also a UNESCO site. It is sort of a memorial complex built for unknown reasons. It was the world’s tallest skyscraper at the time it was built in 1290. It also had Delhi’s first mosque. Some of the structures were ruins and some were still in perfect condition. Danny was really excited to see wild parakeets, which seem to be indigenous to the area. Forgive my ignorance but I never realized previously that most of the historic architecture in India was built by Muslims. Pretty much everything we saw in Delhi was a Muslim sight built by the Mughals.

The DLF Emporio was according to wikitravel the fanciest shopping area in Delhi. We were pretty unimpressed. It mostly left us wondering if there actually is a nice part to the city. It did have a few nice shops but it was mostly a half empty shopping mall and the streets outside weren’t well maintained. We had a pretty yummy lunch in the food court though. There was supposed to be an art museum inside one of the malls but it turned out to be closed. A lot of stuff was closed because of Republic Day, a national holiday which had just passed.

In the evening we went shopping near our hotel at an area called Karol Bagh. It was kind of cool and we got hassled less than most areas we walked around. We bought a few gifts and some Indian spices.