Noah in India: November 2011

(Edit: Meant to post this a couple days ago after arriving to Goa but got the most insane case of food poisoning so didn't leave the room for a while...)

Not really sure where to start. I could start with the gorgeous visit to Taj Mahal, with the overcrowded, overwhelming, overbearing yet absolutely brilliant Chandni Chowk market, with a cool trip to Jama Masjid Mosque, with the high-end restaurants and shopping at Connaught Place, but I think I'll just be incredibly corny and cliche and start from the beginning. I’m typing this about 30,000 feet up in the air on my flight from Delhi to Goa (via Mumbai). I’m exhausted due to the extreme lack of sleep over the past couple of days but oddly jittery thanks to a yummy milk coffee.

About a week and a half ago I found out that Noble School has an exam week that starts on November 15th (my birthday ftw). I talked to the principal and he said that I really didn’t need to be around for the week since I wouldn’t be teaching classes and I would basically just be kickin’ it in the library all day. I jumped on the chance to take a little vacation and to get to know some other parts of India. I had an incredibly frustrating, irritating, annoying, difficult time trying to book my flights. It took 5 days to book the flights because, well because I’m in India. Things here just never go smoothly which can sometimes make you feel like crossing your arms, pouting and stomping your feet. Most of the time I am pretty good at taking everything in stride and laughing it off but this past week definitely fell into the category of the former of the aforementioned. I had hit somewhat of a wall at school because of the lack of classes given to me. I had fever followed by a cold. And I just didn’t feel like I was making as big of an impact or difference as I had hoped to be making. Needless to say, I got in touch with my inner emo and now my ipod has 2 or 3 new melodramatic playlists to show for it.

After finally getting some help from Thafeaa’s aunt, I was able to book the flights. November 12th is the 25th anniversary of the Lotus Temple, which is in Delhi, and the main reason I chose to go to Delhi before heading to the highly praised beaches of Goa. I booked a flight for the 11th and made a “reservation” at a hotel I found online. I tried to reserve it online but they wouldn’t accept my credit card because it was issued in a foreign country-- one of the reasons I had so much trouble trying to book my flights. I ended up emailing them and we made some arrangements which included an airport pickup. As far as Delhi was concerned, I didn’t really have any plans other than visiting the Lotus Temple on Saturday. I’m not one to really make arrangements or plan anything ahead of time which generally results in nothing ever going according to plan. I guess that especially happens to be the case when you don’t have much of a plan to begin with...

I was about to go through security check at the Madurai airport when I happened to run into another volunteer from Projects Abroad, Sofia. Sofia is a Danish girl that has been in India for a couple weeks longer than I and is volunteering at a hospital. As chance would have it, she was also going to Delhi for a few days. We quickly found out that neither of us really had any concrete plans so we decided to stick together and tag team Delhi. The flight was delayed a bit which led to me missing the airport pickup (I found out later via dozens of missed calls that I must just have seen his sign and assumed I missed the pickup altogether) so I decided to skip on my reservation since they didn’t pick me up and we headed downtown to Connaught Place to find a hotel. We wandered over to the taxi area and after some bargaining we found a cab to take us downtown, or so we thought...

The man who we had bargained with then ushered us about 50 meters away from the rest of the cabs and called a cab driver to pick us up on his cell phone. I had a funny feeling about the whole thing but I am almost always pretty uneasy around taxi and rickshaw drivers here because they are so damn aggressive. The cab pulled up and it looked a heck of a lot like just a regular van. I felt like this was weird but it’s not particularly uncommon for taxis to be unmarked in India. As we were about to load our bags in the van, a man comes out of no where and starts shouting and shoving our cab driver away from us. Sofia and I had NO idea what was going on and we were pretty confused and scared. The man that came out of nowhere happened to be an undercover cop and, as he was escorting us back to the airport, went on to tell us how that the guy was a “fraud man” and to stay away from him. Now I have no idea what he meant by “fraud man” and probably never will. I don’t know if it was something as simple as him not being a licensed driver, or that they would take us to th wrong destination and then demand more money from us (incredibly common here), or something much more serious. I’m glad we never found out though.

After the little incident, Sofia and I decided to go through the cab company that is linked to the airport. We were pretty rattled to say the least. We took a half an hour cab ride to New Delhi and after checking out a few hotels and bartering with the receptionists (who knew you could barter at a hotel!) we found a pretty clean and very reasonably priced place. We were really hungry at this point and headed to Cannaught Place for some food. Cannaught Place is a massive shopping complex that revolves around a huge park. There are a ton of western outlets there and some really good eateries. We at a really nice western-fusion restaurant that unfortunately had some western prices. We hung out at Canaught Place for about 4 hours and had a really good time before heading back to the hotel. We decided to meet up for an early breakfast the next day and went to bed.

My computer is dying and the coffee rush has faded so I’m going to stop this right here. There are so many other things that I want to write about but I’m not the best writer and I’d probably end up boring you even more, so I’ll just jot down some other random thoughts and then write another entry in a few days.

Caffeine is awesome. I really miss coffee from back home but I’ve, seemingly overnight, really become fond of milk coffee. It has come in handy because I don’t think I’ve had more than 3 hours of straight sleep over the past 3-4 days.
Delhi is wicked! I really expected not to like Delhi but it’s killer! The people here are really friendly and helpful. The culture is much more western which makes it a little easier to get used to and the food, wow the food... I really don’t enjoy southern Indian food but north Indian food is phenomenal. Naan bread 4 life <3
India has a slight issue with overpopulation...
Your attitude really dictates how good or bad of an experience you’re going to have. I think everyone knows this but it’s really more apparent in a country like India where you’ll never have an experience that you are indifferent towards. You really know where you stand on everything here, you either love it or hate it. And starting off with the right attitude can often be the difference maker.
When in doubt, smile and nod your head. It's easier than and more enjoyable than huffing and puffing.

Some pics from the weekend (I'll keep the Taj Pics for part II):

Right after playing some football with the grade 6 class.