Delhi, Delhi, Delhi

So, I promised you a story about an eventful flight from Bangalore to Delhi, so here it is.  We were flying Jet Airways, which is a nice airline, but it being an Asian airline, there is not a whole lot of legroom.  Furthermore, and I’m mostly joking here, but Jet Airways is owned by Naresh Goyal, who I came across several years ago when I was interning at the US-India Business Council, and who I fondly dubbed the Indian Super Mario, because, well, not only is he super short, but his face is kind of reminiscent of Super Mario.  Take a look for yourself.  

Indian Super Mario a.k.a Naresh Goyal (Image Source)

Okay, are we all in agreement? Fabulous.  Anyway, the whole point is that Mr. Goyal did not adequately equip his planes with legroom because he doesn’t really need any.  Needless to say, somehow Dad and I got stuck in the very back row of the plane, and although we both had aisle seats, the ride was anything but comfortable.  First of all, I had never before sat in the back row of a plane, but it’s awful! It never occurred to me that the level of traffic at the back of the plane (due to proximity to the lavatory) would be so much higher than elsewhere on the aircraft.  Furthermore, since it’s the back row, you can’t put your seat back, and OF COURSE the dude in front of me put his seat back.  I barely had space to open my book in front of me!  To top it off, there was limited space in the overhead compartments, and so the last several people to board the plane were having trouble finding space for their carry-on bags.  Now, normal, sensible humans would suck it up and have their bags checked, but not these lovely Chinese businessmen.  They were beginning to get frantic and pushy.  One guy actually stuffed his bag under Dad’s seat! Without saying anything.  Just being rude.  Now, at this point, there was no one sitting next to me, but I made a comment to Dad, “Look, I bet these jerks will be sitting next to me.”  And sure, enough, I was that lucky girl!  Not only were they engaging in an annoying and loud conversation, but the man sitting next to me was spreading his legs to take up my very little but dearly coveted leg room!  Let me tell you, I spent the majority of those two hours trying really hard not to punch him in the face. FACE.  As the flight went on, they just continued to be obnoxious to everyone – especially to the flight attendants!  Even when they were serving dinner, one guy was affronted that they gave him a vegetarian dish (even though they had given him a side of meat) and the other guy asked for an additional serving if there was extra! Jeez!  I only felt slightly vindicated when we were hit by potentially the most violent turbulence I have ever experienced while one of the obnoxious guys was in the lavatory. HA!  Anyway, needless to say, it was an uncomfortable and annoying flight.  Longest 2.5 hours of my life.

Our gorgeous hotel -- it was an Oberoi

The next morning, our guide met us at the hotel for our long day of sightseeing.  We discovered pretty quickly that we were not a huge fan of him and were relieved to discover that he was only our guide for Delhi, and that we would get a new guide in each of the cities we visited.  It’s not that our guide was unfriendly or ill informed.  It was mostly, as Dad said, “he’s SO boring!”  And he was. Pretty boring.  It also didn’t help that his English was kind of hard to decipher at times, and for some reason he was more or less incapable of addressing me or looking me in the eye.  Anyway, our first stop was at Jama Masjid, the biggest mosque in India.  Of course, I was improperly dressed for the mosque, and generally, all women entering the mosque had to put on this full-body robe type thing (think hospital gown).  Mine was a bright fuchsia, which, as you all know, absolutely thrilled me. Also, it was SO HOT under there.  I mean, we’re talking lots of sweat. Yuck.  Additionally, I seemed to be the only person who had to wear it tied in the back, so that it was completely closed.  All of the other women managed to luck out and wore it open in the front so they could at least get some air up in there!  The mosque was gigantic.  The courtyard alone can fit 25,000 people for prayer on special occasions.  The mosque was gorgeous and architecturally striking, although I didn’t care for the massive number of birds flying all over the place. Birds are gross and sometimes lethal. That is all.

Jama Masjid

Prayer flowers

Pedicabs waiting outside offering to give tours of Old Delhi

Child scampering down the steps from the mosque

My super attractive bright pink robe

Birds

Woman washing her hands at the mosque

More birds

Next, we headed to Raj Ghat, which is a memorial to Gandhi, and was built on the spot where he was cremated.  His actual ashes were spread in the Ganges, but they built a park to memorialize his place of cremation.  It’s a nice enough park.  And there’s a man who keeps a flame lit to honor Gandhi.   

Raj Ghat

Flame honoring Gandhi

 We then headed to the India Gate, which looks a bit like the l’Arc de Triomphe.  There is a road that runs from the India Gate to the Presidential Palace called the King’s Path.  Along the road running between them are many ministries and government buildings.  The Presidential Palace itself was modeled after Buckingham Palace and is flanked by the North and South Blocks which house the Defense and Finance ministries.  The architecture of all of the ministry buildings is gorgeous, unlike in DC where some of the government buildings (like the DOE and DOT) are kind of hideous, giant block buildings.  

India Gate

View of Presidential Palace from the India Gate

Presidential Palace

Just for KMM

View of India Gate from the Presidential Palace

Raj Path = King's Path

Ministry Buildings

Presidential Palace

Our next stop was Qutub Minar, which was built by the Muslims.  They destroyed all of the Hindu and Sikh temples in the area and reused the materials to build their own buildings, part of which was a giant tower.  Of course, my camera died at this point, but luckily we didn’t have too too many more places to see afterwards.  While at Qutub Minar, our guide explained to us exactly why cows are so sacred in India.  For those of you who have never been, cows are somewhat of an institution in India.  They roam freely along the streets, not only walking in the middle of the road, but sometimes even sitting down smack down in the middle of the road. They get away with this because they are considered holy. Lucky them!  Basically, they are considered holy because, when a mother cannot produce milk to feed her child, cow’s milk can be used in place of the mother’s milk to nourish the child.  That’s pretty much it.

Qutub Minar

So, during one of our guide's super long boring monologues, these birds
started going at each other and seriously fighting. And I guess I kind of
got distracted?

Dad and me in front of Qutub Minar

Intricate carving

The giant tower

COWS!

And water buffalo -- in the middle of the road!

After suffering several sights with our guide, we managed to get a brief reprieve by stopping at a Kashmiri handicraft shop.  The shop owner took the time to explain how Kashmiri hand-knotted rugs are made (we also got to see a demonstration!).  The owner explained to us that there are two different kinds of knotted rugs: single knot and double knot.  Now, contrary to what you may think, single knot rugs are actually higher quality and more expensive.  This is because the rug is woven one knot at a time; it takes 9 months for a rug weaver (working approximately 40 hours/week) to make one rug – that’s crazy… Talk about dedication.  The double knot method involves weaving the rug two knots at a time, so the process is much faster, resulting in a cheaper quality rug that only take 4 months to complete (still a huge amount of dedication if you ask me).  The weaver uses three tools: the loom, a knife to cut threads, and a scruncher, which is used to tighten the proximity of the knots.  All of the tools are also handmade, which means that the entire process, from start to finish, is done by hand.  This also accounts for how expensive Kashmiri rugs can be!  Before the weaver can start on the rug, he is given a pattern that uses a numeric system to dictate what the design will look like.  It actually seems like a pretty complicated process.  The owner then explained that Kashmiri rugs can made of four different kinds of material: sheep wool, goat wool, silk wool, and yak wool (in quality order from low to high).  The yak wool rugs are particularly unique because they are made by tribal peoples up in the Himalayas that use their own tribal designs.  And because the designs were so so unique, we actually ended up buying one!  It was pretty hilarious because the owner told us they could wrap it up so that we could carry it onto the plane like a “flying carpet,” and they actually wrote flying carpet on the outside!  While we were learning about the different kinds of carpets, they served us tea made with cinnamon, cardamom, and saffron, which is apparently a Kashmiri specialty.  It was beyond delicious.  Lastly, Kashmir used to be a popular tourist destination, in part because it was well know for its handicrafts.  However, over the last several years, lots of fighting has broken out and there is a lot of terrorism within Kashmir.  Particularly, Pakistan and India are fighting over the region, and the dispute falls along religious lines, between Hindus and Muslims.  As a result, tourism had pretty much stopped in Kashmir.  Since such a large percentage of the population’s livelihood was dependent on sale of handicrafts, the Indian government relocated several Kashmiris to various locations throughout India to help support them.  The Indian government has also passed a law that allows for Kashmiri products to be sold tax-free, in order to stimulate the handicraft industry – all good things.

Kashmiri rug being woven

After lunch, we saw the Lotus Temple which was pretty cool looking.  It’s a Baha’i temple that was built in the 1980s.  The temple itself was packed when we went, which seemed odd since the religion doesn’t have a huge following.  Next we stopped at Humayun’s tomb.  He was the second Mughal emperor.  His tomb, like many others that we would see over the next several days, was made of red sandstone.  The tomb was nice, but we were really hot and tired by this point, so didn’t actually spend an inordinate amount of time wandering around.  Also, we were pretty eager to get rid of our tour guide!

Lotus Temple

Humayun's Tomb - outside entrance

Humayun's Tomb

Birla Temple - Hindu Temple

Birla Temple

On our way back to the hotel, we passed by lots of boys and men wearing orange carrying these odd contraptions over their shoulders.  They were actually Hindus undertaking a pilgrimage.  The pilgrimage can only be done during the monsoon season, and based on the people that I saw walking, looks like only men can participate.  Basically, they head up to Haridwar, in the Himalayas, and fill up two buckets with water from the Ganges (considered to be holy water).  Then they walk all the way home.  It’s pretty crazy.  According to our guide, if you attempt the pilgrimage once in your life, you must do it at least one other time before you die.  I can’t even imagine what that must be like, and lots of people were walking barefoot!  They all were wearing orange because it is a Hindu holy color.   

Pilgrims from Haridwar

 Overall, the day was relatively interesting, but we were ready to head to Agra the next day to meet our new (hopefully more interesting) guide, but according to Dad: “Is it really possible for someone to be worse?”  Let’s hope not!

Over and Out.

-- Priya/Pri/P/Preesh/Pixi/LPJ/P-Money/Baibiya