Its now 5:45 am and I'm sitting in executive AC chair class on a train to jaipur. That sounds fancy and all but it just means there are old school fans attached to the ceiling and the chairs are a bit wider. Indian trains are interesting, they post a paper list on the outside of each carriage of all the passengers names for that car so you have to look for you name on the list. Somehow efficient.
I have been in india for a whole 2 hours now. I landed yesterday at 6:05 am at the Delhi airport. I was happy to be on the ground as we had the WORST turbulance I have ever experienced on a flight, and I've flown through some pretty bad storms before. It was during the morning breakfast service so people were screaming and there was food and drink flying everywherem. I lost my appetite pretty quickly! Annie and Kate were on a flight from Mumbai landing at 8:55 so I headed over to there terminal to wait for them. I didn't sleep a wink on the flight so I was exhausted. We all grabbed a cab together to our hotel, which kate and annie said I was receiving the royal treatment compared to their arrival in mumbai.
We arrived early in the morning and opted for a nap thankfully. After we woke up we headed to moti mahal for lunch, apparently the home of butter chicken...count me in! lunch was tasty, we all ordered and shared...butter chicken, chicken dopiaza, fish tikka, sag paneer and several different naans and rotis...it was a feast. Our waiter wanted to brag and tell us that gordan ramsey had eaten there they have a picture of his visit framed on the wall, which he promptly took off the wall and brought to our table. Annie, being the opportinist that she is, wanted to repeat our cuban kitchen adventure so we took this opportunity to ask for a kitchen tour. They proudly showed off their kitchen to us, let us put of chef hats and stir the butter chicken! Friends were made and many photos were taken!
After lunch and our kitchen tour we walked down to the Red Fort, which proved to be quite the adventure. It should be noted that there is no adequate way to describe driving in India, it is something you truly have to experience to understand. There is no one obeying the lanes ore which side of the road you should be on. It is opportunistic at the least. There are motorcycles with families of four weaving in and out of traffic. I kid you not dad driving, two kids/BABIES wedged between mom on the back riding side-saddle. People walking in the streets between cars as the sidewalks are for street vendors and naps for the homeless and the dogs. Thrown in a thousand rickshaws and a few cows and there you have it. So us walking to the Red Fort was more like a serious game of Paperboy or dodge ball.
We finally arrived at the fort and paid our 250 rupies to get in while locals were charged a mere 10 rupees! Inside was a collection of dilapidated buildings and some nice gardens. Everyone was sitting out in the grass enjoying the sun and each others company. It was mostly indian families and groups of friends. The three of us found a nice spot on a bench and enjoyed some people watching. I can't go further without mentioning the Indian males affection for some serious manlove. They hold hands, drape their arms around one another, lay their heads in each others laps...this is just how they treat their friends, I guess. Anyhow, while watching lots of manlove at the Red Fort it was hard to miss that the three of us quickly became a spectical. It all started with one guy asking if he could take a pic of us. We said sure next thing you know there was a crowd of about 20 men standing around us with their camera phones out taking pictures of us. This lasted about ten minutes, it was quite hilarious!
It was now late afternoona and we could see a mosque in the distance that we wanted to visit, so we started heading towards it. A short cut through a park reaped great rewards as we stumbled across some sort of naked mudwrestling exhibition. We were the only women in a sea of about 200 indian male spectators. It was amazing, there was a drummer thumping out primal beats and boys, aged about 6-18 were wearing tiny underpants, wrestling each other in a giant sand pit. There were popadom vendors walking about and cheeky little kids who vkept inching closer to us. The only white people, yet alone women, in sight.
After a while we decided to move along to the mosque. Well, it seemed we had attracted quite a following Wrestlemania so we weren't alone. We had to walk down a very crowded bazaar to get there which turned into a pretty bad situation quickly. Our gaggle of followers was mostly little boys and a few teens from the wrestling. In the crowded bazaar they started getting brave and started grabbing our rears, which obviously got a rise out of us which clearly egged them on. It got preety out of control, annie socked one of them in the stomach and finally, Kate (a legend) turning around and yelled at them "Come on you want some more, who wants another grab, come on!" They all froze, wide eyed. At this point the shop keepers realized what was happening and started yelling at the boys. It didn't stop them from following us but it did calm down the grabbing. I was very upset at this point and just wanted to get out, it was another run down the gauntlet. I should say that while this was very wrong, it was just boys egging each other on, trying to get a rise out of us. None of the grown men touched us and they came to our aid in the end. But I'll tell you this, I'm not entertaining any little boys after that, once you befriend them even for a second, there is no getting rid of them.
Unfortunately this put a damper on our otherwise great day. We hopped in a rickshaw to make our escape and clearly our driver spoke zero english and had no idea where we were asking to go. So we drove around Delhi for over an hour before we were able to get him to understand, with the help of some other drivers. By this time we were exhausted and hungry. We found a place called Rodeo in connaught square...saddles for bar stools and all. We had a couple of well earned beers and some fajitas then headed back to the hotel for our 5am wake up call.
Now on the train to Jaipur, which is why this blog was so long. Not sure ill have so much time in the future for updates. But I'll try and keep up for the rest of the trip. Until next time, I'll be riding elephants in Jaipur!
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