The first thing you notice when you land in Delhi is not the mayhem nor the poverty, grim nor grit that I was heavily warned about. It is the stench. This sulphur-ey, musky, hard to identify strong smell that hits you over the head the minute you step outside the plane.
I was surprisingly calm when I landed at 3am. I had a stop over in Abu Dhabi from NYC and the flight was one of the more pleasant ones I have been on. Maybe it was the week of sleep deprivation prior to the trip combined with the emotionally taxing and endless goodbyes to many I will probably never see again, but the exhaustion finally set in and I was out for pretty much most of the two legs.
I had been expecting that scene in every Indian movie where the westerner is amidst complete chaos upon landing smack in the middle of an explosion of sights, sounds and smells. Maybe it was because I landed in the middle of the night, but it was really nothing like that. I managed to get a prepaid cab like I was instructed to do by my savvy traveler friends, and even with minimal traffic the carride managed to scare the living hell out of me. We squeezed in between trucks and nearly hit into rickshaws and at one point crashed into the road barrier pretty hard. I shrieked, asking the driver if the car was ok and worried he would leave me out on the highway in the outskirts of Delhi. He did not seem phased in the slightest and we kept right on going.
I waited a few hours at the hotel for my room to be ready (and actually am still doing that now) and tried to kill some time reading on my kindle with my new Brookstone portable flashlight that my parents gave me which has been the most valuable little device I have ever taken on a trip. I wandered around the hotel a bit. There were hotel workers (I assumed they were at least) passed out on the floor of the lounge, the lobby and I almost tripped over yet another body when I went up to the roof. People here seem pretty lax about their sleeping accomodations.
On the roof I was able to see the cityscape for the first time, the haziness from the pollution, the shabby buildings, the mosques and temples poking out in the distance. It was eerily quiet except for the early morning prayers coming from all directions and a chilly breeze that made me shiver. It really does feel like another world.
I was surprisingly calm when I landed at 3am. I had a stop over in Abu Dhabi from NYC and the flight was one of the more pleasant ones I have been on. Maybe it was the week of sleep deprivation prior to the trip combined with the emotionally taxing and endless goodbyes to many I will probably never see again, but the exhaustion finally set in and I was out for pretty much most of the two legs.
I had been expecting that scene in every Indian movie where the westerner is amidst complete chaos upon landing smack in the middle of an explosion of sights, sounds and smells. Maybe it was because I landed in the middle of the night, but it was really nothing like that. I managed to get a prepaid cab like I was instructed to do by my savvy traveler friends, and even with minimal traffic the carride managed to scare the living hell out of me. We squeezed in between trucks and nearly hit into rickshaws and at one point crashed into the road barrier pretty hard. I shrieked, asking the driver if the car was ok and worried he would leave me out on the highway in the outskirts of Delhi. He did not seem phased in the slightest and we kept right on going.
I waited a few hours at the hotel for my room to be ready (and actually am still doing that now) and tried to kill some time reading on my kindle with my new Brookstone portable flashlight that my parents gave me which has been the most valuable little device I have ever taken on a trip. I wandered around the hotel a bit. There were hotel workers (I assumed they were at least) passed out on the floor of the lounge, the lobby and I almost tripped over yet another body when I went up to the roof. People here seem pretty lax about their sleeping accomodations.
On the roof I was able to see the cityscape for the first time, the haziness from the pollution, the shabby buildings, the mosques and temples poking out in the distance. It was eerily quiet except for the early morning prayers coming from all directions and a chilly breeze that made me shiver. It really does feel like another world.
Another world can be good for the soul, at least for a little bit.
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