DELHI, INDIA

After a 6 hour flight I landed and set foot for the first time in "Incredible India" (note: "Incredible" subject to change). Waiting for my backpack in baggage claim, I spotted him: none other than THE Greg Zapf. We embraced. It was magical. So good to see my old friend. Specifically given my current location on earth.

Just after midnight we hopped in a taxi and were off. To where? We did not know. Apparently, neither did our cab driver. After about an hour of circling around at a snail-like pace in a vintage boat of a car from the 1940's, passing along a mud road with dogs, cows, and people sleeping on either side. For some reason it didn't seem like the right neighborhood for the hotel.

Fortunately (depending on how you look at it), it was our neighborhood. Turns out it was just what we refer to as a "ghetto" in the United States. But everyone knows that the ghetto is always where the adventure lies. So I was excited. We checked into the hotel and called it a night.

Wednesday, 1 July + Thursday, 2 July
DELHI, DAY 1: TOO MUCH.
Where to start? Let me start by saying that Delhi is too much. I can handle alot, but it's just too much. Too many people, too much traffic, too much trash everywhere, too much heat, too much humidity, too much in-your-face street peddling, too much unsanitary. (NOTE: while grammatically incorrect, "too much unsanitary" is the closest I can come to the intended meaning).

We toured through the Red Fort (cool), the entrance to the main Mosque (cool until a little girl latched onto Greg's arm screaming and crying for money... after we were advised not to give any money to the children... and when he didn't respond she latched onto me, continuing to scream and cry between us, as we continued to walk. Eventually we turned onto a shopping street where an old shop owner rushed at the girl as she was latched onto us, grabbed her, and hit her on the head. I yelled out at the guy to "chill out", but the whole scene was over so fast and she was immediately sent on her way. Both our hearts were torn- what to do? It's such a complex situation with the beggar children.

LOSTNESS
We continued through as the only foreigners in the area, getting lost in the narrowly winding network of streets that began to look the same. Eventually we emerged on a rickshaw, then hopped off in favor of walking the main streets. After much more walking than we had planned (due to a scale discrepancy when consulting the map) in 105 degree weather, complete with walking in front of a trash heap on the side of a main road with a dozen donkeys (some of them dying), we decided it was high time we let Delhi win this battle. Try as we might, we could not walk this city. We would be forced to travel by vehicle for the remainder of our trip.

THE MEAL THAT REDEEMED A CITY
A tuk-tuk drove us to Connaught Place, the tourist ring, and we found a sit-down Indian eatery. The food was absolutely exquisite. Among the best meals of my life. A paneer curry dish with fresh garlic Naan and a cold brew while escaping the infamous "Delhi Heat Stroke"- it was heavenly. Literally. I worshipped God while eating it. It was that good. Greg agrees.

LOTUS TEMPLE
The only thing that is nearly as good as that meal in Delhi is the Ba'hai faith Lotus Temple. I had studied this in my "Concrete Structural Engineering" course at Cal Poly, probably because my professor was Indian, but the building is masterful regardless. The form actually resembles a partially opened Lotus Flower, made entirely out of pour-in-place concrete. It's a work of art being inside the space- as well as the approach from a distance, specifically when you arrive at sunset as we did. This was a total highlight.


DELHI DAY 2: WHEN TOO MUCH REALLY BECAME TOO MUCH
The next day, Greg and I knew we had to get out of Delhi- no matter what. We checked out of our hotel and began Mission: Get Anywhere But Delhi. Unfortunately, this entailed us breaking Delhi's Golden Rule: never walk. We began to walk to the train station... with all of our bags... in 100 degree heat... and got lost... again. Eventually, we picked our way through the piles of trash enough to find the station. We boarded a totally surprisingly clean Metro train. Undoubtedly the cleanest place in the city. It was impressive.

DANNY OCEAN
We arrived at Connaught Place where we were smooth-talked by a guy named Thureq, who goes by Danny, who nicknamed himself "Danny Ocean" after George Clooney's character in Ocean's 11. I didn't see the resemblance. But after an hour of negotiations, Danny Ocean sold us on a 4-day trip to Jaipur and Agra with our own private driver.

"THE DRIVE"
Minutes later, we were in our air conditioning-enabled, white Tata 4-door, with Mannu as our driver. Mannu, Greg, and I became fast friends. Like the 3 musketeers. If the three musketeers were made up of 2 Americans and an Indian, instead of 3 lame French dudes. We were getting to know eachother, telling jokes and stories, and then BAM! Out. Of. Nowhere. Either a hopelessely unaware, or determinidly suicidal Indian dog wandered out a bit too far beyond the sparsly planted concrete island in the middle of the highway, and met his maker. We seriously plowed right into a mid-sized dog, and Mannu continued driving. I freaked for a second. "Should we pull over?" I asked. Mannu pulled over to inspect the damage. A piece from the grill was missing, so Mannu walked back towards the crime scene to recover the piece. While he was gone, some local boys came over to hang out with us. 2 of the 3 boys were literally in the middle of showers, but still they ran over, sporting their skivvies. It was quite the bizarre scene: Greg and myself on the side of a highway, surrounded by dripping wet Indian village boys in their underwear, and our driver down the road recovering a piece of his car from a dead dog on the highway.

Mannu returned, grill in hand, and we got back in the car, assuring Mannu that the dead dog was not his fault. Incredible India!

JAIPUR: GLAD TO BE ALIVE
The rest of the 5-hour drive was less eventful, and we arrived in Jaipur without a hitch. We checked into the hotel, and went out to a great tourist restaurant, Indiana, complete with a three-piece band and a dancing woman carrying 5 stacked pots on her head while stepping on the blades of swords and glass and other random household objects. Give the girl something sharp to step on, and she'll do it. The best was when she began her "traditional" dance, and needing a partner, came over and grabbed me. Little did she know, she was getting herself into an American/Indian Dance-Off for the ages. We spun each other around, twisted down to the ground, and even had an opportunity for some individual free-style. It was great. Right now about 20 different Japanese tourists are showing all their friends pictures of when the "American White Boy" danced with the "Indian Glass Stomper".

We went back to the hotel and hung out on our front porch with some students de Barcelona, Espana, and I got to practicar mi Espanol. After some good coversation, we called it a night.