Horn Please
Of course there's a ton to observe about India, but what immediately rushes to mind when thinking of this five-thousand year old civilization is the traffic. It's madness out there: traffic lights provide little more than a suggestion of who should stop and go, it's not uncommon to see a goat hauling a refrigerator the wrong way on a divided multi-lane highway, and it seems to be the only instruction of driving school that all unoccupied space on the road must be filled up immediately. The auto-rickshaws (similar to the tuk-tuks of Thailand, in other words, a passenger lawnmower) and many commercial vehicles have hand-painted recommendations to fellow drivers: "Horn Please" and "Keep Distance" seem to be the favorite -- I can affirm from three days of first-hand experience in Delhi that of those two requests, the first is very dutifully followed and the second blissfully ignored.
Modern Delhi is pretty damn ugly. Ramshackle goat stables in the median of a busy road, piles of gravel spilling two lanes into the street in front of abandoned construction projects, and skyscrapers so ugly they make Soviet apartment blocks look like objets d'art. The latter we took in from a revolving restaurant on the 25th floor in the heart of New Delhi, atop one of the worst sinners in this category -- unfortunately, the beautiful temples, forts, and tombs were all a bit too far to be distinctly visible through the smog. To that end, the old monuments here make quite the contrast. The Red Fort, the old mosque, Humayam's Tomb: so much beautiful, well-proportioned, stately architecture that's somehow survived the ravages of time but had little to no influence on the architecture of today.
I'm pleased to report that our stomachs are holding up like champs. We've eased into non-cooked cuisine slowly, starting yesterday with some irresistable deep-fried spinach leaves that were coated in the most delicious yogurt I've ever imagined. Today we munched on a raw cucumber. Tomorrow, who knows what culinary adventure awaits! In any event, the food here has been wonderful so far: the richness of the flavor, the subtlety of spices are just at a different level.
Gotta run to dinner, but I will make a last note about having a big dollar sign on my forehead. It's sure nice to be able to afford anything you can want, and in some ways, like having a dedicated driver for the whole day, it's a shocking luxury. On the other hand, at a bathroom in a hotel today, a man squirted soap into my hands and then had a cloth towel at the ready. Worse, in Connaught Circle yesterday, in the heart of New Delhi, a few dozen people came up to us within the space of about an hour asking where we were from and if we knew where we were going, obviously trying to lead us to some shop or taxi or hotel. I'm just not sure if I'm comfortable with obsequious service -- I'm more than mindful of India's colonial history -- but I guess I'd rather toss a bit of change at a guy who stands in a broom closet in the gents' restroom than swat away touts. Ah, travel.
Tomorrow: Taj Mahal, then onto Jaipur, where we've got to figure out what to do for New Years.