[Feb 2007] First Few days in Delhi, India

Inside David’s backpack- spf30, bandana, 4 pr socks, glove liners, 2 yoga mats, ls & ss dress shirt, pillow case, sheet, deet, pepto, imodium, lite wool sweater, cap, mosquito net-(treated), hiking shoes, 2 yoga pants, 2 lightweight pants, ultralite longjohns, 3 underwear, 3 tshirts, ls dress shirt, ls tshirt, toothpaste, TP, iodine pills, supertowel, pack towel, AC coverter, battery chargera and batteries, sink plug, soap, rope, emergenC, grapefruit seed extract, rehydration salts, 1 Yoga shorts, maglite, lock cable and first aid kit. This large backpack is placed inside a large nylon duffle bag and locked with a TSA approved lock (one they open with a secret key/code). 

This large backpack travels better inside the duffle as checked luggage. My carry on bag is a large fanny pack and is part of my large backpack. When I arrive at my destination I claim my duffle, open it up taking out the backpack, roll up the duffle and place it inside the backpack. Then I attach my fanny pack/carry-on to the top of the backpack, and we’re off. Mobile baby!

“the carry on”

The carry on…is part of my larger backpack and includes: 2 books and a magazine (adbusters, rough guide india and berlitz delhi), a tsa compliant plastic bag zip lock 1 qt, with rosewater face spray, hand moisterizer, saline nasal mist, scope, and purell. A small notebook with pens and pencils, Laurie’s birthday present, a video camera, gum, printouts of things to do, reading glasses, ipod, headphones x2, a compass, aspirin, and a digital voice recorder which I will buy tomorrow AM before leaving.

I bought a used microscassette recorder on ebay on Jan. 16, for $11 and it just arrived today. I fired it up and it kinda works, but sounds like crap. Doesn’t always want to load the cassette in correctly. I am planning on doing an audio diary consisiting of commentary along with street sounds during the trip. If I can’t get the thing running right, then it’s yet another trip to Radio Shack to buy a brand new recorder. I’ve been there a bunch of times in the last month or so – rechargeable batteries for the digital camera, flashlight and voice recorder, a transformer so we can use the battery rechargers and ipod, a splitter, so 2 people can listen to the ipod together (should be interesting, Mission of Burma vs. Ani Difranco) and other small misc. electronic thingies. 

How much TP to bring? What about food for the plane ride? A friend lent me a video camera yesterday and I think I’m going to bring it, probably carry-on so it doesn’t get banged around. 

If all goes well we will have a written journal, an audio journal, some video footage, and many digital pictures to document out trip. Maybe put it all together when we return.

I found out last night that the bag I was planning to check exceeded the length+width+height maximum allowed by the airlines (I bought it recently from a suitcase store). It’s only an extra $80 – ouch! to bring it on.  $80 in India will get us a room in Rishikesh for a week.  I looked at my bag and it’s only about 70% full with my large backpack inside. I scrunched it down and tied a strap to both ends and made it considerably smaller. It’s not pretty, but it meets code. 

We said goodbye to friends today, although it’s really not goodbye, it’s only 4 weeks vacation. A few folks have been asking, “why India?”. Well, I never really stopped to think about it that much. I guess it’s an adventure. It’s the birthplace of Yoga. It’s a country of over a billion people where you can get dinner for $2 and see the Himalayas if you’re lucky. India is full of temples, holy people and holy places. We are adventurous, Yoga is a huge part of our lives, we love people, $2 for dinner sounds good to us, I’ve always wanted to see the Himalayas, and we can’t get enough of temples and holy places. Anyway, the Caribbean gets boring year after year. So India it is.

We have a good connection in Delhi and also in Kathmandu, Nepal. We will leave tomorrow AM for the Manchester airport, arriving in Newark around 3 PM. Then leave for Delhi around 9 PM – a non stop flight heading east, over Africa. Arrive Delhi Sunday night at settle in at the Yatri House. Namaskar.

We made it into Delhi. The flight was long, but direct. Tha irport was vey easy, not as hectic as we anticipated. The ride to out guesthouse ws amazing. Probably the most memorable taxi ride of my life. Very fast, and we narrowly missed hitting other vehicles about 100 times. We have found this is the way everyone drives. Totalchaos – but somehow no accidents. Today we settled in to the city, which is filthy, with urine smell and droppings of poop on the sidewalk and streets. Thank you dan and amanda for the tip about not wearing sandals in Delhi.

The day was peppered with variuos men first befriending us, then trying to get us to go to some store to “look” and “see” things to buy. Very persistent, like myself. We ate our first local food at a vegetarian chain. So far so good. We visited Jana Masjid, the largest mosque in India, getting there by auto rickshaw, a type of 3 wheeled, motorized vehicle. This ride was also heart pounding with the driver taking us through old Delhi, where it is even more crowded. The place we are staying is king of set back from the non-stop activity of the city. It sits down a gaurded, gated alleyway. There is a nice seated area outside where we read and plan our trip. 

We are here in Delhi.  The sights, sounds, and smells are amazing.  There is 
a photo op in every direction and every second.  We have been greated by 
many friendly people and many who would like to “help” us.  We have been 
offered services for many things.  Today we were sitting in a park and a 
young man was very persistent to offer his service of cleaning ears.  He 
even had a little note book that had “testimonials” saying they could hear 
much better.  He had a q-tip and tiny metal scooper tucked under his cap.  
We have been asked where we are from, what we do for work, what religion we 
are, family size, and more.  There are anywhere from 4 to 25 million people 
here in Delhi (we have read and heard both numbers).  Most of Old Delhi is 
Muslim and New Delhi is Hindu.
shanti (peace),
Laurie & Davi