On the morning of my flight to India, I realized I was sad to leave Thailand. I would miss the giggly thai people who I had come to admire a lot. I never really connected with any of them though. They seem shy, or reserved when it comes to interacting with foreigners, unless you are forced into a 1-on-1 situation, like in a cab or having a massage. Then they seem totally ready and willing to engage in a service-mode kind of way. Otherwise, they tend to stay at a distance. But I really admired how happy and completely non-judgemental they always seemed, and how they seemed unfazed by anything around them. I wondered if it was the buddhism or just something in their genes.
About Buddhism, the trip so far has been pretty eye-opening. Call me stupid, but I was under the impression that Buddhism was kind of a boutique religion (which it is in the U.S.). But, no, if you add up all the people in Asia, most of whom seem to be either practicing Buddhists or Muslims, its got to be up in the top 2 or 3 world religions.
So after taking the 6am Skytrain and then the Metro subway to Suvarabhumi airport, I said my final and genuine “Krap Koon Kha” (thank you) to the smiley thai ticketing agent at the India Air counter, and was ready to take on India.
There were plenty of Indian people in line for my flight at the ticket counter. The first guys I noticed were wearing gold chains and shiny leather shoes and were fussing over a brand new appliance in its box that they wanted to check onto the flight. They were treating it like a holy relic and wrapping it in shrink wrap before they’d let anyone else handle it.
Then, while I was next-in-line waiting to get frisked at the gate, an Indian woman blatantly and unapologetically inserted herself into the line right in front of my face. It was so beyond rude! The woman she was with came up from the side and seemed poised to do the same thing, but I put my arm out to stop her and motioned that clearly I was next, not her.
These annoying people, coupled with my experience trying to get an India Visa in the U.S. (one of the most frustrating experiences of my entire life) and the bureaucracy of trying to get train tickets online, made me start feeling like I hated India and all of its people before I’d even left the Suvarabhumi airport.
(by the way, while in Bangkok I did manage to find another way to circumvent the Indian bureaucracy of buying train tickets online. I remembered my U.S. Indian friend Preeti and emailed her for help. I basically needed an Indian phone # to be sent a one-time-password. Preeti emailed right back saying she was in India currently—Chennai-- and I could use her phone # and she’d email me the OTP when she got it. And Voila, I can now buy train tix online! Take that, bureaucracy of India!)
On the flight, I had a window seat and knew we were getting close to Delhi when I could no longer see down to the ground due to the smog. When we landed, it was a good news, bad news situation. The bad news was that the level of air pollution was astounding. It looked like a S.F. fog. The smog even came into the airport— the large spaces had a haze in the air. It smelled different from the smog of S.E. Asia though, more like there was smoke mixed in. The great news was that the temperature in Delhi was actually a bit chilly! I was SO relieved to be out of the 90-100* temps of Bangkok. Praise the Lord!!!!
I was expecting the Delhi airport to be like Grand Central Station, but actually it was chill and easy. When I got to immigration, I was horrified to see a hopelessly long log jam of sad-looking Indian people waiting in the domestic passport line. But just beyond that was the line for folks with an e-visa (me) and praise the lord a second time, there were only 4 people in that line! White privilege triumphs yet again. Sigh.
I had a pick-up service from my hotel (called Cottages Yes Please, a Lonely Planet recommendation) which I found easily and I was off. It was a 45-minute ride to the hotel. I had sporadic conversation with the taxi driver on the way. His unsolicited theme seemed to be that india has a population problem, few jobs, little space. He himself had gone to the online university, as do lots of Indian people, and had many impressive and seemingly unrelated degrees (Civil Engineering, History, and a few others I forget). But there are no good jobs available so he has to drive a taxi.
The neighborhood of my hotel could be described as a charming pit. I guess its what you might expect being so close to the major train station. Narrow dusty cavernous streets, with all manner of activity happening on the street. Dogs sleeping in piles of trash, street vendors selling peanuts and popcorn, rickshaws, tuk tuks, taxis, cows pulling carts, people strolling on foot or just hanging out and chatting. The storefronts lining the street are all dusty and dirty too, but once inside, as with the hotel Im staying in, everything is sparkling clean and well-cared for.
I checked in to Cottages Yes Please, and then went looking for food. Right across the street were a couple vegetarian restaurants. I went into one and ordered spinach with cheese (I forget the indian name for it, but I should get good at indian food names by the end of the trip), garlic naan and a mango lassi. It was VERY good. I did notice there was a lot of cream/butter in the spinach and the naan had lots of butter on it too.
While I was eating, I noticed a somewhat young but very very thin woman going around to people outside on the street asking not for money but for food. Everyone was shoo-ing her away. Although I was far from the window (probably 20 feet), she seemed to catch my eye and then she posted up right outside the door to wait for me to come out. When I left I didn’t give her anything (lest I become like the pied piper of Delhi with people following me everywhere) but I realized I was going to have to come up with some kind of policy for how to deal with people wanting something from me, as the majority of people probably would. This neighborhood, and Delhi in general, and probably India as a whole, seems very poor.
I talked to a guy at the hotel desk for a while about my next plans (he wanted to sell me train tickets) in which i got some good info and some maps but didn’t buy tickets (ha ha, because I can buy them online myself!) and then I went to bed on the early side.
I woke up a few hours later and barfed up my first indian dinner (sorry for the overshare). It wasn’t a big deal, I just woke up, barfed, and felt better and went back to bed. But I decided I probably wouldn’t go back to that restaurant again.
