His View 

India - Feliks' perspective

 

Delhi 

I was really excited to see India as I’ve heard a lot about the temples and the hugely populated cities. We arrived at the airport in the evening and had a decent way to go to our AirBnB. Delhi has a pretty big public transportation system so getting there was relatively easy. It was so busy, and we got our first experience of what everyday people have to do. 

 

We had to take the metro from the airport to the Delhi station, which was easy and cost about $2.50. Most other times we traveled by metro it was closer to only 25 cents. When we got to the Delhi station, the tempo really changed. The metro from this station was much busier and if you hesitate for even a fraction of a second someone will cut in front of you. When we were trying to get onto the train, people did not wait for others to get off first. You just had to push and shove your way through, and multiple times we saw someone not able to get off the metro because the people pushing in blocked their way. I saw one occurrence where a metro worker actually grabbed a guy inside the train and pulled him out. 

 

We got to our AirBnB, which was a short distance south of the city. It was a nice little studio apartment on the roof of a residential building. The room was really nice and the view was awesome. One thing that we found out about Delhi is that all motorists like to honk, at all hours of the day. It never stopped. I counted the seconds between the honks that I could hear on the roof and never made it past four. 

 

We were really close to the nearby market and made our way to explore the area. The market was packed, even at 8pm. There were actual stores on the perimeter of the market with stalls of all kind of goods in the middle. For a suburban market I thought it was pretty big. There were lots of places to get food. There were only a few signs in English so we had a smaller understanding of what to order, but the momos were my favorite. They were basically chicken dumplings with a spicy red sauce, and I probably had five orders while we were there. Caywood fell in love with the street potatoes, which were baked first over open fire then diced and mixed with spices. 

 

At this market we also got our first experience of the homeless dog situation in the city. There was a homeless dog at least every 30 feet scavenging for food. It was a very sad thing to see but there was nothing we could do, as if you give a dog some scraps you get a shadow for the rest of the time begging for more. 

 

We signed up for a free walking tour that went through Old Delhi and to Jama Masjid, a massive mosque. The walking tour was really good as we were the only ones participating so it was very personal. We walked through a lot of Old Delhi and our guide shared a lot of good information with us about the city’s history and culture. Unfortunately most of it escaped my memory and the only images that I can remember are the things I saw on the street. My opinion of Old Delhi is not a bad one, but a very sad one. I cannot imagine living in the conditions that some people were in. Children walking around barefoot on streets filled with trash. Young men taking showers on the side of the road in their underwear. Rickshaw drivers sleeping in their own rickshaws. Homeless dogs with wounds, mange, and a general appearance of death. There is no other way I can describe this. There were many more images that I am afraid will never leave my mind.

 

The tour ended right in front of the Red Fort, which came with an audio guide so we were in. The Red Fort was really huge. The walls themselves were impressive and seemed to go on forever. There were lots of buildings inside with good stories behind them, a very nice green area, and one of the most elaborate fountain systems I’ve ever seen. It was dry due to the remodeling but I could imagine what it was like to see all the water flowing throughout this place. The place was also inhabited by chipmunks, which really liked the noise of a bag being crumpled up. I think I had around 30 surrounding me at one point. We did score a very nice souvenir on the way out for half the price of what the owner initially proposed. 

 

Our last stop for the day was the Raj Ghat, a memorial to Gandhi. It was like a giant park with a simple memorial in the middle. This seemed like a nice place to come and relax as there were a lot of locals doing just that. Some were even practicing backflips and handstands. A very peaceful area. 

 

We spent the next day at the AirBnB just relaxing until we had to leave and go to our hostel in New Delhi. When we arrived it was like walking into a movie set. There were lights everywhere, people yelling at you to take a Tuk Tuk, motorcycles flying past you just to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision with a pedestrian. The street that we stayed on was hotel central; every other building was a hotel with some really original names such as Arizona Hotel and Hotel USA. Our hostel was pretty nice but the room had no window, so even at 10am it felt like it was still nighttime. 

 

Our first night in the hostel, I got what one local described as “Delhi belly.” I will leave it to your imagination but fortunately it only lasted a couple days for me. Others were not so fortunate but that’s not my story to tell. 

 

Our first full day at the hostel we decided to finish our tour of the area as we were running out of time. Our first stop was the Lotus Temple. I’ve seen it in pictures, TV shows, and on Google; it seemed really cool. When I saw this thing for the first time from the metro window it really looked awesome. As we walked up to the front the awesome factor started to multiply. It was not until we walked inside that it really revealed its jaw dropping effect. This thing looks like an engineering work of art from the outside, and the inside was more like an epic work of art. The way the leaves sit on top of each section and let the light bounce in creates a very unique and tranquil atmosphere. They also had a strict silence policy which really let you soak in the feeling. 

 

Not too far away was the ISKON temple that you can actually see from the Lotus Temple. This was a completely different type of temple with a completely different atmosphere. As we approached this area we could instantly hear music playing. Inside was a small group of men sitting on the floor playing instruments and singing. As we sat on the floor to listen and observe the people, a man handed us an orange pastry ball the size of a golf ball. It tasted like something made with pumpkin and coconut or something like that. As we made our way around the temple we saw different variations of what looked like dolls set up in different scenarios all across the world. They were pictures from when they traveled to those places. There were also other statues there depicting different gods that were very interesting to admire. 

 

Our next stop was the Lodi Gardens, a huge park area with some ruins that were pretty cool. The park had lots of locals just hanging out, playing games and having picnics. Caywood and I enjoyed a nice stroll through the area on the way to our next stop, Safdarjung’s Tomb. Pretty sweet looking tomb, huge and designed very beautifully. The fountains were not on, but we got the general feeling of what it’s like. 

 

Our last stop was Jantar Mantar, a really old astronomical clock tool thing. It was a bunch of structures that were all red and looked like they were designed by an abstract artist. There were some circular structures that looked like miniature colosseums but no seating inside. I guess they used these to track the movement of the planets and sun.

 

Overall, Delhi was an eye opener. There were a lot of beautiful things to see around the city. There were tons of awesome places for exploration, just be careful with the food. On that subject, most of the street vendors do not use gloves when handling food. We literally watched a guy turn some veggie patties with his fingers on a frying pan, take some money and return change, then take the patties out and put them on a bun, all with his bare hands. Also, stay away from anything that looks like water, especially if it’s a sauce. I really enjoyed the sightseeing in the city; they all had some very unique features about them that we had not seen before. 

 

The eye opening part was really the state of some of the neighborhoods that we ventured through. There were some nice areas for sure; downtown was pretty nice, and we saw some nice areas while on the metro. Unfortunately we saw much more poverty-stricken neighborhoods than anything else. I would rather not describe in detail everything but take my word for it, do not take anything in your life for granted. Not even something simple like water. 

 

 

Agra 

Not much to talk about here but that we only saw the Taj Mahal. You’ve seen it in pictures I'm sure, probably on TV, maybe in one of those “Must see attractions” lists on Facebook. It is awesome. I mean “awesome” in the “that thing is massive and made out of marble” awesome. Just the walk up to it was misleading because there was a fountain along the path and I thought we were almost there but we were really only halfway. The fog in the background made it difficult to get a scale on its actual size, so I was very impressed. Again, it is made out of marble. The outside was way better than any picture that I have seen but the inside is what really blew me away. 

 

In the marble was a pattern that looked like a tile from the early 20th century that was hand painted. As I watched others take a flashlight closer to the walls I noticed a surprise look on their faces. Out came the cell phone and the builtin flash light. There was no paint on the wall, it was actually all stones. Look at the pictures and try to understand that each one of those flowers consists of little stones that sit flush with the rest of the marble. They first had to cut each little stone into shape, then cut the same pattern out in the marble, and fit those stones in perfectly. Seriously I cannot express how simple it looked at first but how tremendously difficult it had to be to do. Some of the marble blocks had to be at least 3 feet in width and depth and maybe 5 feet tall. I would think that they did the carving after the blocks were in place for alignment of the patterns, so I can only imagine how much pressure the masons were under to get it right. 

 

Overall, awesome! Pure awesomeness!