Today's Thoughts...
After a mildly harrowing taxi ride from the airport, we arrived smack dab in the middle of Main Bazaar, in the Paharganj neighborhood aka backpacker-soulsearching-on the journey tomyinneryogi hangout of the city. Already spent, sweaty, and starving, Allison and I deposited our belongings in shady, sheisty, just plain sketchy digs that went by the name of Hotel Downtown. It was downtown alright. Grimy walls, rickety stairs, stained hallways that screamed something from a slasher film—yep, that was our place which Allison assured me (pause for the gentleman at the desk who hacks a loogey in her direction, er, to the trashbin at her side) came highly recommended as a sweet cheapie by a close previous companion (who a few days later, bless her heart, came down with a nasty case of bed bugs from another sweet cheapie down south). So I shrugged, albeit hesitantly, and chalked it up to my ignorance of South Asian mores and anyway it was a steal and anyway all hostels in the country sort of make your skin crawl. Eh, a little grime never hurt anyone, right?
We half stumbled our way down the small alleyway the hotel was located in, out to the main street. I promptly dove behind a cucumber pushcart to avoid the large wildebeest hurtling my way. Correction—cow. The large COW hurtling my way.
Shaken, though not broken, I clung tight to Allison as we picked our way through the main drag. No fewer than six motos nearly ran me down, two taxis actually struck me (going at about 10kmh, mind you), and three more cows stepped on my foolishly exposed toes. Steel-toed boots next trip? Check. Sort of like a game of Frogger, we danced across the street, zigzagged around the corner, and found ourselves in front of a dilapidated building. Allison reconsidered her guidebook. We were in the right place. We made our way up the five flights of stairs, I slipped twice on unknown substances, and finally arrived at a quaint and tasty-looking rooftop restaurant. We downed two sweet lassis a piece, a basket of garlic naan, some chicken tandoori, and a delectable bowl of curried chindi paneer (chickpeas and fresh cheese). I nearly melted out of my seat. Most of India was much the same—a culinary banquet at every meal. I may have had three bad meals during my entire stay. Gotta hand it to them, Indians know how to rustle up some mighty good grub. No complaints there!
Reluctantly, we stumbled our way back into the city (spent most of this trip stumbling and bumbling through the country), swathed our faces in moist scarves to keep from hacking from the billowing clouds of construction smoke (all prep for the Common Wealth games in October), and dodged wayward streams of saliva as we headed back to our humble (homey? homely? unholy?) abode. The next morning found us, satiated from an oversized breakfast-brunch-lunch, heading out to meet fellow traveling companions on what we expected to be a whirlwind tour through Rajasthan, the western desert state of the North. Instead, evening found us, sweaty, exhausted, shopped out, and lamentably friend-less as our would-be companions had taken off on their own whirlwind tour the day before without us. With a pout and a sigh, we bought train tickets to Jaipur, the pink city of Rajasthan, and prepared our own bootleg Indian desert (so smart aren’t we in hot season?) adventure. Well, at least the hotels would be cheap, bed bugs and all.
Five Things Mama India taught me my very first day:
1. Cleanliness is overrated
2. Culinary-ness is next to godliness
3. Dodging cars, cows, and streams of saliva that reach inhuman distances= Olympic sport
4. Beauty is skin deep, and hair deep, and sari deep, and Indian women deep
5. Rooftop refuge is a must.
And as a bonus— one hell of a way to spend my birthday. Desert sands, here I come!
