Delhi

In Delhi we stayed with Pareena’s parents apartment.
The apartment was located in what seemed to be a 20-30 minute drive from the center of the city, the area they lived in had row after row of apartment complexes, each neighborhood seemed to have identical buildings –sort of what “Communist Russia” style residential housing. The neighborhoods or whatever you would call them were often gated communities, including the one they lived in.
The apartment was very luxurious in a sense, it had something like 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, a living room, kitchen, dining room etc. but with so many of us (20+) it was fairly cramped. The decorations were mainly Indian many of the common Hindu God statues and colorful pictures. The furniture was very much the same you would find in the U.S. couches, tables, TVs, big king size beds. The bathrooms and showers and everything looked the same.


The first night in Delhi we went to a fancy restaurant, it had sort of a buffet thing going on. I’m not sure what I ate. (I sort of hate Indian food –which was part of the reason I wanted to go to India –to test myself) Despite the rest of the people at the restaurant having a more buffet style thing going on, we sat at tables and seemed to be waited on. The waiters brought us types of food which we would pick and choose from and then from our response would know whether to bring more or not.
The majority of the dinner me and some of the students I had been hanging out with most, goofed around. We were sort of through with acting responsible and mature. (it was the end of the trip- and we were savoring the moment) I think most of the group was this way, so we were unusually loud. We arrived later than most of the other people at the restaurant so it didn’t seem to bother anyone.

The next day we went last minute shopping to get everything we were going to have (it was the last day). They took us to a market area. Near by were parks and open spaces, along with regular buildings.
The first part of the market were regular open faced stores, and people who had set up tables full of goods. In the space between people would walk around with handfuls of things, jewelry, toys etc and try to sell them.
On the tables was a lot of jewelry and cheap goods, (things you would find at a dollar store) combs, tooth brushes, cheap jewelry, small items.
The stores behind (open faced because they didn’t have doors, often if they did have doors that would close, they were more like gates that could open out and clothes or goods were hung off them.) The majority of the stores sold clothes and cloth goods. Towels, scarves, shirts, saris, blankets, etc. These stall/stores were set up usually with shared walls and one long roof, but if you went around the block it would open up in to more alley ways with more stores. We got lost walking around. There would also be stores with electronic goods, high price jewelry, stores of bangles (Indian bracelets) –stores that sold bangles usually had row after row of colors and sizes and were entirely dedicated to the one product.
Eventually we went around one corner and found some more normal looking stores, we went in one that sold higher fashion. It had white walls and techno pop playing. The store employees were wearing tight jeans and tops (not very Indian) at the store they sold a lot of the cheap girl accessories, pink watches, purses and scarves. But also expensive jeans and jackets.
Across the street from this store I noticed they were selling shirts I had seen (a friend bought one) at Target. The shirts were exactly the same only about a 5th of the price 3-5$.
We had become fairly crafty at buying things so we knew what kinds of deals we could get…
Anyway I think in total this market area might have been something like 3-5 square blocks of stores and stalls. The goods were similar to products seen elsewhere in India. The Target shirt made me realize that a lot of these goods were probably the same as elsewhere in the world (I’m not very good with name brand fashion).

That night I one of the students got bit by a rabid dog, which the security guard kicked.
She went to the hospital.
The rest of us ate Chinese/Indian food. Mostly a lo mein style dish and a fried rice. This is like Americanized Chinese only with Indian influence. So it is spicy, but with Indian spices not Chinese spices… I assume it has some similarities to food in southeast Asia or Indonesia, but since I am not a fan of “exotic” food I’m not really sure. Actually the rice tasted similar to a rice dish I had in Tanzania once, only with different ingredients.. but the east coast of Africa has had a lot of Indian influence through trade… so it is possible that rice and spice dishes crossed over.

We left later that night.

Flying to Bangalore and then to London where I got off.

In the Indian airports they screen men and women separately. Men are patted down and wand-ed in the open after going through metal detectors. Women are taken behind a curtain (same procedure, by a woman) after going through the metal detector.
The airports themselves are run very similar to European or American airlines, except that in certain cases the luggage is taped shut at the airport in front of you (a sign that it has been through security).

Some of the female Indian flight attendants wear saris slightly adjusted to make them tighter so that they don’t get caught on things while they are working.

I guess the areas of Delhi that we got to see weren’t all that fascinating. The city looked fairly modern in comparison to some of the other cities, more like Bangalore than Kanchipuram.