Delhi

Imagine dozens of Indian men, apparantly trying to be helpful (or to earn a hefty commission), following you saying "Madam, you need taxi?" "Madam, you need hotel?" "Madam, I take you to tourist office!". Then picture hundreds of cars, motorcyles, rickshaws and bicycles-- none of whom are following any conventional rules of traffic-- everywhere. The air smells like incense and spices (a pleasant change from China's aroma of cabbage and construction), which thankfully masks the odor of pollution (though not of the occasional puddle of urine). Add streets littered with garbage and the occasional cow blocking your path, and that's pretty much Delhi so far.

To be fair, there are many areas of Delhi, as there are of any city. Last night we happened to stay in the fairly dirty area described above (which for whatever reason is where the Westerner backpacker types stay). Today we've moved locations-- when we enter our hotel tonight we will no longer have to push our way around cows, motorcycles and touts.

We've been here for 36 hours and have seen strangely little of the city so far. Getting anything done here has been pretty hard, whether it was finding an acceptable hotel or setting up the travel for the rest of our trip. We were lucky to meet an American guy the other day who made our lives a lot easier-- walking around the city with him allowed us to be a little invisible, and random men seemed to ignore us a little more. Having him with us also allowed us to do things like take a taxi at night, which we would not have done without a man. Sad fact of life in this part of the world-- the concept of women travelling (or walking through a city, even) without a man does not seem to exist, therefore we're treated either as if we're incapable of doing anything for ourselves or as if we're sketchy, immoral women who dare to be without male escorts. Tasche's husband flies in to Delhi tonight, and I'm excited to have him with us for the rest of our travel in India.