Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
IndiYAH!
We arrived into Delhi airoprt and were relieved to see our pick-up was still waiting, considering it was 4am and our flight was delayed for over an hour. We arrived at the hotel at 5 and since our room wouldn't be ready until about 7am, we were taken to the "breakfast" room, which was a tiny, interrogation-styled cubicle with no window, but sure made up for it in florescent lights! We fought sleep while we watched Indian infomercials until we were given the Go Ahead. We crawled to our rooms and straight to bed for the next 6 hours.
At 5pm, we were up and ready to explore Delhi. True, we wasted most of the day, but what could be more exciting than Delhi by night?! We fought our way through traffic to the metro and both did a double take when we noticed the security set-up inside. We proceeded to the line-up where we placed our bags on the x-ray conveyor belt, went through the metal detector and (my favorite part), got frisked. Wow, all this just to go downtown. Olive and I were so taken by everything we saw from the window of the train, the buildings, the shanty towns, the people and animals, 18 stops later, we realized we had gone 16 stops past ours. We made our way back and by the time we got out of the station, it was black outside and Delhi does not have, lets say, an overabundance of street lamps, and crossing 18 lanes of traffic is slightly daunting at this time of night. But heck, we felt invincible. Bring it on!
We hopped into a took and had a nice little chat with our dear driver Miresh while he scooted us around town and eventually to the India Gate. We were so glad to see it at night as it was fully lit up and looked magical. Our fantasy was cut short as the whistles, then more whistles blew. I looked up to see the outline of a military man with a giant rifle come running toward us. Uh-oh. I'm used to getting screamed at and called a stupid foreigner in nearly every language now, but never by someone with a rifle. Crap. Eventually we realized it was because we were walking on the walk-way instead of on the GRASS where we were supposed to be walking... What were we THINKING?!
We started feeling a little peckish and decided to ask (act out) a nice rifle man where the nearest restaurant was. I lovely lady walking by, came to our rescue, and instead of calling us stupid foreigners, actually offered to take us to one. We got as far as the traffic lights when two traffic guards walked over and began to talk to her. She looked at us, smiled and waved, and started to walk away, leaving the two traffic cops standing there grinning at us. They were taking over. These two delightful men, not only took us to their favorite restaurant, they sat down and had dinner with us. Turns out men in uniforms command respect anywhere in the world, because we were treated like Royalty. I mean, we literally stopped traffic... mainly because they would pull out their whistles every time we crossed the road. After the best Indian meal either of us have ever had, we made our way back to our hotel, marveling at what a fantastic start to our trip we'd had! So far we are loving every second!
At 5pm, we were up and ready to explore Delhi. True, we wasted most of the day, but what could be more exciting than Delhi by night?! We fought our way through traffic to the metro and both did a double take when we noticed the security set-up inside. We proceeded to the line-up where we placed our bags on the x-ray conveyor belt, went through the metal detector and (my favorite part), got frisked. Wow, all this just to go downtown. Olive and I were so taken by everything we saw from the window of the train, the buildings, the shanty towns, the people and animals, 18 stops later, we realized we had gone 16 stops past ours. We made our way back and by the time we got out of the station, it was black outside and Delhi does not have, lets say, an overabundance of street lamps, and crossing 18 lanes of traffic is slightly daunting at this time of night. But heck, we felt invincible. Bring it on!
We hopped into a took and had a nice little chat with our dear driver Miresh while he scooted us around town and eventually to the India Gate. We were so glad to see it at night as it was fully lit up and looked magical. Our fantasy was cut short as the whistles, then more whistles blew. I looked up to see the outline of a military man with a giant rifle come running toward us. Uh-oh. I'm used to getting screamed at and called a stupid foreigner in nearly every language now, but never by someone with a rifle. Crap. Eventually we realized it was because we were walking on the walk-way instead of on the GRASS where we were supposed to be walking... What were we THINKING?!
We started feeling a little peckish and decided to ask (act out) a nice rifle man where the nearest restaurant was. I lovely lady walking by, came to our rescue, and instead of calling us stupid foreigners, actually offered to take us to one. We got as far as the traffic lights when two traffic guards walked over and began to talk to her. She looked at us, smiled and waved, and started to walk away, leaving the two traffic cops standing there grinning at us. They were taking over. These two delightful men, not only took us to their favorite restaurant, they sat down and had dinner with us. Turns out men in uniforms command respect anywhere in the world, because we were treated like Royalty. I mean, we literally stopped traffic... mainly because they would pull out their whistles every time we crossed the road. After the best Indian meal either of us have ever had, we made our way back to our hotel, marveling at what a fantastic start to our trip we'd had! So far we are loving every second!
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