Delhi Daze

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  Delhi, India
Thursday, December 6, 2007

Delhi is one of the most polluted cities in the world. You feel it as you step off the plane. There seems to be a thin layer of grime on everything. On the drive into the city, you can feel the air burning in your lungs, and by the next day your head is aching and your tissue, after blowing your nose, is black.

I was dropped off at the beginning of an area called Paharganj. This is the backpackers ghetto of Delhi - cheap, shabby hotels, the ubiquitous touts for travel agencies, the dirty small men who step up next to you on the street murmuring offers of hashish and marijuana, and restaurants of questionable hygiene serving up various attempts at Western food, and cheap thalis. The smell of the place crawls into your nostrils like a small animal looking for a place to die. It is a heady mixture of incense, urine, curry, and diesel fumes.

My taxi dropped me off at the beginning of this area, quite far from the hotel where I was booked. After asking me for a tip I wasn't going to give (even had I wanted to, I had no small bills or coins), he called a boy who led me off into the chaos. The road was like an urban version of dodge ball - you dodged, jumped and spun to avoid cycle rickshaws, motorized rickshaws, cars, motorcycles, beggars, touts, cows, and the normal riot of humanity on the narrow street. Finally he turned off the main street into a tiny, dark alley. I walked by a small kiosk selling roasted meat, about three paces from an open urinal where two men stood facing the wall. Another turn into a smaller alley and I was there.

The last couple of days I have done nothing. The little hotel I am staying at (amazingly) has a television with English channels. I have spent most of my time sequestered inside watching bad movies. This isn't really like me. While diarrhea still eludes me, (I was counting on the Dysentery Diet to shed a few pounds of African chunk), headaches and fatigue have taken their toll. I used to live my life in state of permanent jetlag, but with traveling overland for so long, I am no longer used to it.

And, frankly, I miss Africa. Despite the craziness and occasionally frustration, even hardship, of traveling there, it has become "home" for me. As much as anywhere seems to be these days. I know the people, I know how to get around, what things cost, and how to live there.

I'm sure I will love India. I'm positive of it. At this moment, however, I want to retreat a little. I'm a very patience man normally. I love the chaos and energy of the street. I don't usually mind touts and hustlers, seeing it all as a big game that everyone is in on. At this moment, it feels like a year and half in Africa and the Middle East has eroded a bit of that resilience, a bit of that patience. India is a place that will need that in extra strength doses, so here's hoping it returns quickly.

India does have one thing, already very apparent, going for it. It's cheap. And at this point, cheap is increasingly, desperately important ever day.

ps - I've resisted the opportunity to make a "Holy Cow!" joke, but don't you worry, it's coming.

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