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drab hotel in Delhi













I'm starting this blog not knowing how far I'm going to get with it, and how easily I will be able to upload images along the way. I arrived in Delhi at 10:30pm on September 15, 2009, and miraculously, a man was waiting at the airport for me with a sign with my name on it. I had booked my hostel and pickup ahead of time, but was fully anticipating needing alternative transportation. But there he was; for a mere $10, a man was waiting for me in India. Amazing. The ride to the hotel was hot, dusty and smoky, with the windows down, along mostly unpaved roads into town. The traffic was much like Bangkok--crowded and congested, even at this late hour. The cars weave in and out of lanes. These lanes seem to be only for decorative purposes, because they certainly don't mean anything to the drivers. Horns are used liberally, as in Thailand, as a way to warn other drivers that they are passing around.

The area where I am staying, the Paharganj, is the tourist ghetto, like Khao San Rd. in Thailand. When I arrived late last night, the main street was vacant and closed up for the night except for dozens of men sleeping on carts and many stray dogs. It was a bit of a frightening experience; again, I was very glad to have had someone picking me up at the airport and delivering me to my hostel.

My Delhi hotel is drab and plain, but clean and quiet. The breakfast they serve is the most 'white' meal I've had in a while--cornflakes with milk, white bread, banana, omelet, and tea. I guess that's what tourists eat.

After waking up, I went to the train station up the street to buy my train ticket south. After finding out that no trains were available from Agra to Varanasi in the next couple of days, I decided to go straight from Delhi to Varanasi on a very long train ride of 13 hours or so. While I was buying my train ticket, the man who was helping me paused like he was going to sneeze, and then slowly and casually got a blank train reservation form from off of his desk, and stuck his head under the desk and blew his nose (from a distance) into the piece of paper. He did this for maybe 30 seconds, making sure he had gotten everything out, and then calmly returned to typing on his keyboard.