I arrived in New Delhi with 2 hours of sleep as we were fed dinner and breakfast 5 hours apart. Were were told repeatedly of the foggy conditions in Delhi and that it might affect our ability to land. When time came for landing the flight attendant made a very nervous sounding announcement that we should be in our seats with belts buckled tightly and aware of the location of the nearest exit. Holy shit! this is not good, I though and sweated like a pro as we landed without incident.
I was expecting chaos at the airport exit with touts dragging me to their taxis, but only one met me at the door and I waved him off, but he followed me to the taxi stand where you get a legit driver. He tried undercutting both estimates for the cost of my trip to my hostel in N. Delhi. I went with the second taxi stand, hopped in a TATA (India's equivalent of Ford, and just as shitty) cab and was on my way into the wilds of New Delhi.
New Delhi is covered in an unrelenting haze that limits visibility to less than 1 km, most of the time, often much less, that leaves a gray-brown dust on everything and give the city a serious post-apocalyptic, if not 3rd world feel, like Blade Runner, but during the day and without rain or as many robots. On the main road away from the airport I saw a kid without pants chilling among the filth and cattle with his dick out and about. Trash everywhere. That's how you know it's the 3rd world! No municipal trash service, or infrastructure. I was elated to be in the midst of all the chaos and to see that lanes serve no purpose for drivers. No traffic cops, no tickets, no rules. It's not unusual to see 3 cars in 2 lanes of traffic with motor bikes darting in and out without apparent fear. My cab driver had no problem driving with the the lane splitting the cab in two for no apparent reason. This all made me smile: The polar opposite of Portland that I'd been looking for.
We arrived at my hostel which was on the second floor of a building in what I guess would be consiered a middle class neighborhood. It was run by a former urologist who specialized in kidney stones and was blind in one eye (the explanation I didn't understand and didn't think important enough/polite to ask for clarification). He showed me to the dorm which was a few bunk beds with a 34 yo American guy, a 27yo Austrailian guy, and an American 22 year old gal. The Austrailian was all business and was trying to figure out his plans for getting south as quickly as possible and anyone who wanted was welcome to go with. He was glad to talk over people especially Molly, the American. I read somewhere that when a man talks over women that it's a sign of misogyny or at least disrespect. Makes sense to me! Molly and I smiled at each other as he so obviously disrespected her. The other American turned out to be pretty boring and kept talking even though I wasn't responsive and all I wanted to do was sleep!
I was feeling kinda nervous about going out into the world that seemed so chaotic, noisy, and disheveled, and possibly unsafe, but the Doc assured me that it was a totes safe hood the stroll. Finally the bros left for town and Molly and I headed out to find a bite to eat so I could nap on a full stomach. All the anxiety I had about eating food in India (stemming from the stories that pretty much every traveller tells about how they were puking and shitting at the same time while on a 14 hour bus ride over a mountain pass at 15,000 feet) came right up to the front of my mind. I decided that it was really stupid to be worried about that garbage since I"d be eating food in India for a month and couldn't freak out every time I ate, and besides, it wasn't like I'd be eating 5 day old pork or room temperature dal. We found a roadside fast food joint and I ordered something with peas. The English speaking cat who ran the place tried to make convo with me (not Molly) but there wasn't much to talk about, I guess. A smiling, filthy little kid came up to us and asked for money with his hand out tapping me and I groaned knowing that it was best to just ignore the kid. Finally he gave up after what seemed like a long time (long enough to melt some tourists, I suppose, but this one's made of a very special kind of ICE!) and we got our food, blazing hot, packed in plastic to go containers. Well, if I'm not gonna get food poisoning, I might as well get plastic poisoning, I thought. THAT I know I can handle.
We got back to the hostel and dug in and found there was tofu in the curry which, like a spoiled American, I picked out. Molly said she wanted to go into town tomorrow and asked if I wanted to go and I was all sure, better to have company, right, though the idea of hanging out with her for an extended period of time didn't appeal to me. I finished up and went to sleep and did my best to sleep through the afternoon and night. Fortunately when I woke up the two bros were gone and apparently Molly had gotten a ride with some Russians to Agra so I was on my own. I went upstairs for breakfast and found a nice Dutch guy named Maurice having breakfast with the Dr. and asked what he was doing. He said he was going into town and the Doc suggested he go to some weird new Hindu temple. I asked if I could go with him and he said sure. Off we went to find the metro station that the Doc said was 1 km away, but we kept walking and walking and asking directions thinking we'd gone too far or in the wrong direction, but apparently the Doc is not much of a walker because it was about 3km to the Kohat Enclave (I like all things "Enclave") station.
We boarded the train which, at the front has a "ladies only" car so that women can ride the train and not have horrible things happen to them, in theory. As an aside, every time I pick up an India Times I read about yet ANOTHER gang rape and brutal murder of some poor woman who was riding some bus somewhere. I was watching cricket in my hotel room for a bit today trying to understand how the fuck that game works (nope.) and there was an AXE body spray ad with a "hot" lady teaching an ESL class to a bunch of brown people with big flash cards: Cat, and the class repeats "cat." Fish, and the class repeats "fish" and then this handsome young guy walks in and she says, I shit you not, "Bom Chicka Wow Wow," ( I always thought it was "BOW," not "bom") you know that ultra dated porno music interpretation that some 12 year old American boys use to intimate fucking or fucking related things. And then the class repeats her and it cuts to the can of NEW ULTRA AXE whatever and the voice says, "makes ladies say Bom Chicka Wow Wow...when they see you" or something. HOLY FUCK! No wonder there are so many rapes in this country! The notion that women are so ridiculously easily compelled to want to fuck you and if she doesn't then...uhh, she damn well should! I don't think this sort of advertising exists in the US, does it? I know there's tons of super sexist and mysogynistic advertising, but this is on another level. I think. I don't watch TV in the US so maybe this kinda shit is the norm. Besides, I don't think 1 tv commercial is a valid representation on which to write a SkullBong tm dissertation.
Also, last night I saw this ad for something called Step Up (you gotta click the link) that's supposed to make you taller. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? And it's only
Put that in your hot plastic SkullBong and smoke 'er. Oy!
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