wowzers

This is Caleb. I know it says who wrote the post at the bottom, but then you would have to read all the way through thinking "this doesn't sound like Jordan or Roxy" before finding out the truth...it's not.

So, I got into Delhi last Thursday, a few minutes after midnight. The first thing I thought when I walked out of the plane was, "Man, It's hot in Delhi." The second thing, after getting in the taxi to Jordan's was "Holy crap, drivers and traffic here are crazy." Sadly I was mistaken on both accounts. 1st, It was 1am, so it was actually about as cool as it gets, and 2nd, it was 1am so traffic was light and the drivers comparitivly sane.

Since then, I have found that traffic in Delhi is scary. Lane markings are merly suggestions, traffic lights, non existent, and police, bystanders. In order to get anywhere you have to take your place. Drivers here cut people off, drive on the sidewalk, drive within inches of pedestrians and bicycles, and even against traffic.

Well, since I got in, we have gone to a bunch of market places, but haven't really done any shopping. Its been so interesting to see the culture, people and stores, its almost nothing like America. the class discrepant between areas is huge. It is such a culturally diverse population. Depending on what part of town you are in, you can get a good plate of the same food for 50/rs ($1) or 450/rs ($9), the population could be in traditional attire, western-Indian fusion attire, or name-brand western attire. You see ads for jobs with benefits and vacation pay, and then see rickshaw drivers sleeping on the sidewalk. Everybody communicates to each other in Hindi, but business is conducted in English. Yesterday we visited Khan market, the most upscale market in Delhi, it is an eclectic mess of signs, hanging power lines, and various levels of decay on the outside, but indistinguishable from an American store (even the price-tags) on the inside.

Everybody here dresses to impress. They want to look good. Even the laborers digging sewer trenches wear new, un-faded, un-torn jeans and a nice, bright button-down, long-sleeved shirt. In America, all the teens aspire to be rock stars (grungy, long hair, torn up jeans), here they aspire to be professional (clean, new, slick)

All the buildings are in crazy states of collapse. Packs of dogs roams the streets, exposed trenches serve as swer lines, and piles of garbage are plentiful. Shops and merchants are packed into every open space, you cannot 5 feet without somebody trying to sell you something, and man, shopkeepers are tenacious. It's a huge chaotic mess, and somehow beautiful at the same time. Strange thing is, the Subway system is spotless: big, open, clean and well-maintained...weird.

Okay, so enough about culture shock. We just bought all our tickets to go site-seeing. On Tuesday we are taking a train to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Then on Thursday we are taking a plane to Kashmir (Leh, and Srinagar where we are going to rent motorcycles and tour around the Himalayas, then rent a houseboat on the lake. We then fly back to Delhi next Tuesday and board an overnight train Amritsar to see the Golden Temple and Pakistan/India border closing ceremonies on Wednesday. We will then take an early morning train back to Delhi on Thursday, and then back to the airport to fly home. Busy two weeks.

Mom/Dad, don't worry, I'm taking LOTS of pictures, I just don't want to go through the work of posting them right now.

I don't know how to close this, so I won't.