Delhi, take two...

So travelling in touristy India is a little more intense than visiting a village in Maharashtra, as we discovered during our trip to Old Delhi on Tuesday. We started with a lovely calm breakfast on the roof of our hotel in “Sam’s Cafe” and met up with Josh and Anna to head to the famous Red Fort in Old Delhi. Catching a couple of rickshaws, we found our way inside then wandered around the beautiful fort (after paying the foreign tourist price of 25x more than the local tourist price!)  

 We left the fort, and decided to take a stroll to look for food before going to the mosque. What a stroll! Shoulder to shoulder people, pushing in all directions, getting yelled at by street vendors trying to sell you stuff... it was intense. You know how bad I am with crowds... the Whitley swot-vac supper crowd makes me get a little panicky when people start bumping me... this was like a million times worse but I knew there was no point freaking out, I just had to push through the emotional barrier and keep walking. Several blocks into it, I had tuned out all the street hecklers and managed to navigate a fairly clear path through the swarms of people.  We found somewhere to eat and had amazing ‘thali’ (rice, bread, two curry/dal dishes, yoghurt) then braved our way back through the streets in the exact same direction (to my disgust) because we hadn’t made our way any closer to the mosque. We’d saved the leftover bread from lunch so I gave it to a man lying in the street with flies everywhere... he didn’t really stir when I touched his arm but he nodded when I said “chapati”, so I left it on a rock within his reach... I hope he wasn’t too disappointed when he found out it was naan, not chapati. On a serious note though, it’s so sad. I have never before been exposed to so much poverty and injustice. It’s just so shocking that there can be people who are the richest of the rich, and then those who are the poorest of the poor. I wish there was something more we could do.

At the gates of the mosque, the 5 of us girls put our long sleeves on and wrapped our scarves around everywhere but our heads, and headed up the steps to the entrance. We took off our shoes and then walked past the man telling us to pay to put on gowns to cover up. The sign said “semi-clad women must wear a gown” but none of us were by any means semi clad... we just walked past him while he was serving someone else. Then he lost it. He chased us into the mosque courtyard area, screaming at us in Hindi or similar. We told him we weren’t paying to put anything on. A crowd formed, and a man stepped in to try to take our side. Another man stepped in and explained to us we had to pay for our cameras (200 rupees = $5) and also put on the gowns free of charge. He searched our bags and pockets for cameras (not Josh) and made us pay even when we said we wouldn’t take photos. Then he made the five of us put on these ghastly bright blue or orange gowns that covered us from neck to toe. They were ridiculous, and boy did they draw attention to the ‘tourist girls.’ I have never felt so humiliated in my life, nor as frustrated, especially because we had made the effort to dress appropriately. The mosque itself was unimpressive, not even worth taking photos of, but I did just because I’d paid for the camera. I was so disgusted by the religious bureaucracy and hypocrisy that they were using religion to exploit and discriminate. You know what happens when I get tired and frustrated and angry... I had my first real cry of the trip. I knew it was bound to happen...

In order to regain composure and restore a little of our sanity, we took a rickshaw back to familiar New Delhi and got a coffee at a chainstore. It did wonders!! Then Hye Jin and Anna Lien went back to the hotel, while Anna T, Josh, Kate and I wandered around the inner circle looking at shops. Anna bought a few little bangles because a man chased her more than a block with the bangles she’d refused to buy because they were too expensive. He met her price.  

We went out to a lovely place for dinner, the four of us, and then headed to bed. It was quite a big day for all of us, especially for Anna, as it was her first day in India.

Anna Lien said goodbye at 8am, and so the 5 of us, yesterday, decided to steer a bit clear of Old Delhi, and went to the Baha’i Lotus Temple, keeping our fingers crossed we wouldn’t be exploited again. We had nothing to worry about, the temple (and the Baha’i faith) welcomes people of all faiths and backgrounds to sit in the silent temple hall and pray or meditate for as long as they like. It was really nice to sit down in silence and just pray. I’ll have to find more places to do that.

We then went to Hanayan (I can’t remember his name)’s Tomb, and we were stalked and pestered by school groups and even teachers for our photos. They were more interested in us than in the tombs themselves. The main mausoleum looked like mini Taj’s. Cute.

Anna and I broke off from the other three to have a late lunch with just the two of us, and it was really nice to chat to her in person, although it made me realise how much I’m actually missing everyone at home, and how said I am that she and Josh are doing very similar sightseeing stuff to us, they’re just going a different way. So she’s so close (same country) but yet so far! It’ll be a great adventure for all involved! Lots of learning to do!!

Hye Jin, Kate and I caught the 7pm night train in sleeper class (the lowest, I think) where we had three lightly-padded planks for bed and not enough room above to sit up straight for 12hrs. It was awful... I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t get comfortable... I was paranoid someone was going to cut through my chain and steal all my stuff... it was cold and noisy and.... *sigh* it was a pretty cool experience to survive though. We arrived in Udaipur at 7am this morning, caught a rickshaw and then went into a hotel (after being pushed inside another by our rickshaw drivers) and crashed on the beds. We didn’t allow ourselves to sleep though, went and had breaky on the roof to revive ourselves. After sending back my boiled eggs twice because the white was still runny (turns out the guy wrote part-boiled, not hard-boiled) we finished breakfast and then wandered down to find ther city palace. We stopped in at a temple, donated some money for food for the poor/needy, and gt convinced to go with this guy to look at his school of art that he’s taking to Camberwell, Melbourne on the 22^nd December. “You no pay, I want no money, just look.” He was fine, but then he handballed us onto a teacher who proceeded to show us his students’ works and telling us that he’d normally sell them for this much, but we should name our price, from the heart, student to student. I think we paid more than we should have, but Kate and I got a nice little one each. It’ll become a present, so I won’t tell much more about it. Except that it’s really nice.

Then we went to the city palace and got student discounts to the museum. We pretended to have only one camera between us so we wouldn’t have to pay, and hid them from the not very thorough bag searchers. Hye Jin took charge of the camera. After being mobbed again by school kids (a girl even sat on Kate’s knee) for photos, we bought tickets on a boat to see another temple. The temple wasn’t much, but there was a film crew in the centre of the temple, filming for an Indian TV series. Lunch at about 4pm, then a quick nap before catching a rickshaw to try to see the sunset from “Sunset Place.” We missed it, and the rickshaw driver ripped us off, but it wasn’t that bad. We’ll go tomorrow, and we’ll know not to pay that much.

For those playing at home, we’re leaving Udaipur (in Rajasthan) for Ajmer on the train and then a bus to Pushkar. Staying 2 nights there (I think) then onto Jaipur for 2 nights, Agra (Taj Mahal) for 2 nights then back to Delhi on Christmas Eve until Kate and I fly out on Boxing Day for Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It’s going very quick.

Happy Birthday to Mitch Blizzard (yes, his real one this time) for today!!

Much love to all, prayers and your news would be appreciated.

Xx Hay