9/23/2011 Day 18 + traveling day(s)
I find that many of the men in Delhi find it completely ok to blatantly stare at a woman. While in the subway car in Delhi yesterday, there were several times where someone right in front of us, and I mean literally RIGHT in front of us, would just stare and stare and stare in a completely obvious fashion. I kept being tempted to just stare right back until they got weirded out and looked away. I never did test out this tactic, though. Anyways, this happened a lot yesterday in Delhi. It must just be a cultural difference, but it's something I couldn't get used to.
Since my camera is busted, I have no pictures of what I did yesterday on my own camera. I did, however, commandeer Mairi’s camera a few times (with her permission of course), so hopefully I’ll be able to acquire those sometime soon. For now, though, I’ll use some google images.
We spent the whole day in Delhi. In the morning I went to the Red Fort (which had a very similar architectural style to the buildings at the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort) with Ellen and Mairi, and spent the rest of the morning shopping in Old Delhi.
I found Old Delhi to be a bit too much for me. It wasn’t just the huge amounts of people pushing past you everywhere you go, but also the incessant harassment by street vendors. You couldn’t walk down a block without having to dismiss and get away from 10+ vendors. It was incredibly tiring. I did find some fantastic T-shirts, though. There were these one kinds of T-shirts that were EVERYWHERE. All they said was “Being Human”. I had to get one. I also found a ridiculous one that just said “I’m Cool”. I couldn’t resist silly tees – especially when they came out to cost near the equivalent of three American dollars.
I found Old Delhi to be a bit too much for me. It wasn’t just the huge amounts of people pushing past you everywhere you go, but also the incessant harassment by street vendors. You couldn’t walk down a block without having to dismiss and get away from 10+ vendors. It was incredibly tiring. I did find some fantastic T-shirts, though. There were these one kinds of T-shirts that were EVERYWHERE. All they said was “Being Human”. I had to get one. I also found a ridiculous one that just said “I’m Cool”. I couldn’t resist silly tees – especially when they came out to cost near the equivalent of three American dollars.
After lunch Maria took us to Ugrasen Ki Baoli – a stepwell (an undergroud structure for the storage of water). It was pretty awesome.
We also went to Jantar Mantar, which is a collection of architectural astronomical instruments built by Maharaja Jai Singh II. The observatory “consists of fourteen major geometric devices for measuring time, predicting eclipses, tracking stars’ location as the earth orbits around the sun, ascertaining the declination of planets, and determining the celestial altitudes and related ephemerides". It was SUPER COOL.
Later Maria took a few of us girls to Fab India to go shopping. I didn’t originally think I was going to buy myself an outfit (salwar kameez), but I found a super cute one. It's super comfy.
Yesterday was our last day in India. We spent the day in Delhi and headed to the airport last night around 8. I (and four others) had a 6 hour flight last night (starting at midnight Delhi time). I forced myself not to sleep during the first flight so that I can hopefully sleep the majority of the way through the long ~12 hour flight. I'm now in Hong Kong, it is ~11 AM Delhi time, and I didn't sleep at all last night. Very soon, though, we’ll board our flight to SFO and it’s GO TIME. I even wore the Aladdin pants I bought in Leh for the flight - as comfy as pajama pants. Even as I type now, I find that I keep nodding off for a split second at a time.
I’ve had a really good time in India, but I am also extremely excited to get back in the states to the temperate climate of Palo Alto, Western Style toilets, and my comfortable (comparatively) bed.
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