Really long post with unfortunately no pictures due to somewhat slow Internet… Copied from an e-mail I sent because I don’t want to type everything a million times.
Well today I decided to go see the President’s Palace, and then walk along the street called Rajpath to India Gate, stopping at the National Museum on the way. Of course, this is not at all what ended up happening. Haha.
I got an autorickshaw (which I think overcharged me) and asked to go to the President’s Palace. Instead, he took me to near the Red Fort. I could see the Red Fort (I’m pretty sure that’s what it was/what he said it was), but I thought the driver said the President’s Palace was in such-and-such a direction, so I set off in that direction instead. Well in fact, I was nowhere near the President’s Palace, as I should have known since the Red Fort is nowhere near the President’s Palace. I walked for a long time down a street and saw a temple dedicated to Guru Dwarasis Ganj Sahib, I’m not sure where the spaces belong in that name, or maybe that was the name of the place–but he was some Hindu who refused to convert to Islam and was killed, and then there was all this other stuff on the sign about 700+ other men getting their heads cut off in batches of 100 per day. 100 is a lot of heads to cut off in one day! At the bottom of the sign explaining about the temple, there were advertisements for some company, haha. The temple wasn’t stand-alone but was set in line with a bunch of other buildings (strip-mall church?), but it was pretty beautiful and made of marble. Outside were sinks for people to wash their hands, and they removed their shoes before going inside. I didn’t try to go in because I didn’t know if it was allowed, it wasn’t a tourist site so there was no one to copy.
Anyway I wandered more. This was on a pretty busy street, but after some time the busy street came to an end. I thought (because I’m so so smart) that I knew how to get back to where the autorickshaw had dropped me off, so I turned left. I ended up in this neighborhood of increasingly small and winding streets. As a side note, this was awesome in a number of ways, one being that everybody actually had normal stuff to do and didn’t bother me. Yesterday, I kind of hated it here because so many people bothered me, chatting me up, trying to sell me stuff and all that, and I almost wondered how I would endure a month here, but today I almost loved it.
Well the neighborhood was cool. There were cows wandering freely, goats tied up, and children who were extremely excited to see me and shouted, “Hello!” and “How are you?” A lot of people stared at me, but I can’t blame them because I was pretty much 100 percent out of place. As I got further into the neighborhood, I realized it seemed to be a predominantly Muslim area, because I saw a lot of mosques and such and the women all head their heads covered, some of them wearing the hijab. At one point I think I was the only female over 10 who didn’t have her head covered, which made me feel a little naked, but I couldn’t help it. There were people selling various foods, people with various types of shops, and in one area a whole lot of bead shops.
Well eventually I made it out to a main road again and, after some wandering, found some places the taxi had passed. I ate some South Indian food at an expensive restaurant (The food and drink together cost $3!!!) (and it was delicious, although I have no idea if I ate it the right way). It was a type of thali. There was rice, and two kinds of bread: a flat, crunchy, salty one and a puffy, greasy one. There were also five little bowls of something. One was curd, one was some kind of okra, tomato and onion dish but mostly broth, another was unidentifiable and broth-like but not that delicious to me, another was spinach and tomato, and the last was kind of pickle-like and also not that delicious.
After I ate, I went out and walked more, because I’m too stubborn to take autorickshaws and anyway I like walking (I guess I walked at least 5 km today). A dude at the restaurant had told me the direction of India Gate, and eventually after walking past a big park and taking pictures of some children who asked me to do so, I got an autorickshaw to take me to India Gate. Here there were lots of families picnicking in a park, richer families than the ones who had been at the other park, and people selling water and stuff, and some other tourists. I walked for a while longer toward the President’s Palace, but at this point it was about 3:30 and I’d been walking since maybe 10:30 or 11, so I was tired, and the museum closed at 5 anyway. So it’ll have to wait for another day.
I almost forgot to write about India Gate. Well, it was one of those gate-like monuments that stands alone and isn’t actually a gate, just a block with arches through it. It’s a memorial to Indian soldiers who died in various wars. It wasn’t as interesting as the rest of my day, but the whole area was nice and park-like and not crowded.
Fortunately it is not hot here, 70s during the day, 50s at night I guess, so all this walking didn’t do me too much harm. I have to say that I’m glad I’m here in the winter.
Tonight I went and bought a scarf for in the future if I want to go into a mosque or other building that requires women to cover their heads. In fact tomorrow I am planning to visit the shrine to Nizamuddin, who was a Sufi saint. (Sufism is a branch of Islam.)
Anyway this shrine is near the train station I’m leaving from in the afternoon to go south. What will happen there, who knows?
