Delhi

Delhi. I have been talking about and planning for this trip for about a year. Needless to say, it was a bit surreal when I actually boarded my flight. Walking out of customs into a small and, for the most part, empty arrivals area I finally started to realize just how "foreign" this foreign country would be. Father Francis was there to meet me at the airport which meant, as I breathe a sigh of relief, that I would not have to share a taxi and make polite conversation and avoid any oh-so-helpful invitations from the Brit who had an aura of alcohol fumes he was so drunk.

We spent three days in Delhi with Father Francis, his brother Raja, and his sister-in-law Hemma. It was like Indian Culture 101. We saw monuments, posed for pictures, tried new food, got stuck in traffic and laughed at all the things that we could never imagine seeing in America. We were tourists - unabashed and loving it! The city was crowded, hectic, the air was hazy and there was a constant smell of a bonfire lingering in the air. Our first stop was the Baha'i Temple, or Lotus Temple. Currently, there are seven Baha'i Houses of Worship in the world. It is a place for people of all religions to pray/meditate and it is, aside from scriptural readings, a place of silence. I sat and stared at the architectural beauty inside the temple, almost comparable to the outside (sorry, no photos allowed inside - no shoes either).

The majority of day 2 was traveling to and from (4hours each way) the Taj Mahal. It was beautiful, symmetrical and...rather small. Maybe it's because I walk by St. Peter's Basilica nearly everyday or because of all the pictures I've seen, but I was expecting it to be enormous. We had a guide from the site fill us in on all the details, i.e. the four minarets are not perfectly perpendicular but lean away from the main building so as not to damage it in case of an earthquake and how all of the detail was done by hand - one two-inch lotus flower contains 64 hand chiseled pieces of semi-precious stones. Again, no shoes allowed but we did get some nice booties. I think our tour guide also moonlighted as a photographer because he knew all the best, and sometimes cheesy, locations.

Day 3 was more relaxed. We spent the morning at Qutab Minar checking out the tower and ruins and sitting in the grass. It was full of students on field trips who were running around and playing. While walking with Father Francis and Hemma we would find ourselves surrounded by young girls in school uniforms. It would happen slowly, one or two would say a shy "hello" and once we started talking the others would flood in. Then we spent the afternoon at the market with Hemma, aka SuperMom, while she was buying clothes for her daughters. All of the saris are kept folded on shelves and it is the job of the merchant to take each piece and show it to the customer (i.e. me sitting and drinking a coke). Hemma, who knows what she wants, will go through about a hundred saris...slight nod of her head to the side is "no" and little head wobble means "ok." She dresses herself, her three girls, husband and brother-in-law with all of the latest Indian collections. She is a master-shopper and we bow in her presence.

Our trip in Delhi had a very fitting ending - I couldn't have planned it better if I had tried. I failed to notice the small, seemingly innocent yet cold-hearted ice cube floating in my drink that afternoon. Twelve hours later that ice cube was all I could think about. India is like Mexico, the best and only advice you ever receive is "DON'T DRINK THE WATER*." I was miserable for about 48 hours which included one flight at 6:45am, two very bouncy tuktuk rides, a 9 hour overnight bus ride, and an infinite number of hours spent praying to the "porcelain gods" to relieve my suffering. But feeling hungry again and enjoying my food: priceless.