Part One
Tourists on Speed in Incredible India

This trip to India will take several days to write so I will break it up into several parts.

Many of you know this about us but some of you may not. Years ago Ron classified vacations into three categories: vacations of obligation (you visit family), tourists on speed (you try to see and do everything because you may not come this way again in this lifetime) and PMB-Park My Butt (you sleep in, eat, read a novel under a palm tree on the beach, eat, take a nap, well you get it). So this trip to India was our last while in SL. Our Indian visas expire this week. We pretty much were tourists on speed.

We flew to New Delhi (three and a half hours) on Thursday arriving around 6:00 p.m. We had arranged for a car and driver for the entire trip to take the stress out of being in a large city and planning a three-day road trip. It took close to an hour to get to our conveniently located hotel in New Delhi. We ate a very mediocre meal there as it was late and we didn’t know the neighborhood. The next morning we were driven to Old Delhi (OD). New Delhi (ND) was planned and built by the British so the streets are quite wide and much less crowded than OD. It is also much greener in ND. It was relatively cool as it had rained and was overcast. In 1996 the city changed all buses and trishaws to Compressed Natural Gas to reduce the pollution, as Delhi had become the most polluted city on the planet. We drove past the massive Red Fort and visited the Jami Masjid, the oldest mosque in India and the final architecture extravagance of Shan Jahan (most well known for building the Taj Mahal). The mosque was completed in 1658. It is built from red sandstone and white marble, I think. The courtyard of the mosque holds 25,000 people. From there we took a rickshaw ride (a bicycle operated vehicle generally holding one or two passengers but remember we are in India now). One hallmark of India is overloading whatever vehicle you had. We saw bicycles stacked four and five feet high with loads of flattened cardboard, donkeys overloaded with bricks, every truck size imaginable and every one of them overloaded with whatever they were carrying. Consequently you see frequent breakdowns from tire irons breaking, springs are completely flattened, and tires gone flat. This is due to overloading, using a tire way beyond its lifetime and really bad roads in some areas.

Sorry I digressed. We took a tour of Chandni Chowk, the heart of OD where shopping by the locals occurs. The streets were jammed, just like in the movies. There were Indians in rickshaws, motorbikes, on foot, in cars (not many) and trucks. I’ve never been in a more congested area nor had so much fun. I felt I truly was having ‘the Indian experience’. We left the main drag and went into the rabbit warren area of tiny alleyways filled with every kind of merchandise. One street had ribbons-that’s right, the entire street had only ribbons and the beads that are sewn onto saris. Another street was dedicated to wedding saris. We stopped to inquire about Hindi devil masks and lo and behold the merchant had one of his staff take us across the street into a warehouse up three flights of stairs. We hopped over piles of beads in plastic bags and watched as the young man climbed up the shelving that was about 10 feet up and started to hand down various masks until we found one we liked. It was $8.00.

From this experience we went to Humayun’s Tomb built in 1530. We were shocked and astounded to see the classic six-sided Jewish Star of David on the monument. This is a classic example of Mughal architecture and this building is a precursor to the Taj Mahal. We learned from reading that the six-sided star was considered a cosmic symbol at the time. The Mughal Empire ushered in the golden age of building, arts and literature in India. Their rise to power was rapid but their decline was equally quick. They ruled from 1527-1707. They originally came from Kabul in Afghanistan and were Muslim. Now you see why the six-sided star that we saw on many of the Mughal buildings we visited astounded us.

Next we visited the Raj Ghat where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated. I always tear up at memorials to Gandhi. It is in a lovely park setting and is a simple block of black marble. From here we went by the India gate, the Secretariat buildings and the president’s home. This building was completed in 1929 when the Brits were still ruling India and it is a blend of Mughal and Western architecture styles. Prior to Independence it was Mountbatten’s residence, the last viceroy of India. The number of servants needed to maintain the 340 rooms and its extensive gardens was enormous. There were 418 gardeners alone, 50 of them boys whose sole job was to chase away birds! I don’t have current stats on the number employed to maintain the residence.

Throughout the day we saw lots of tour buses carrying Indian tourists. They would be parked along the road and many of the tourists would be taking a rest. They would put down a mat or piece of cloth (or not) on the sidewalk and sleep or visit with others in their group. Some were preparing food. At first I thought they were homeless but our driver explained that they were tourists. Life is so different here in so many ways. It is such a privilege to travel to this part of the world.

We ended the day with a little clothes shopping at FabIndia and crafts shopping at the largest crafts store I have seen outside of Japan: five or six floors of crafts from all over India. It was beautiful and overwhelming. We rested then went a to revolving restaurant atop at 24-story tower in New Delhi for dinner. Delicious. More tomorrow.