Rough Landing

Plane Food!?!

Sorry it's been a while since I've been able to find a decent internet connection.  Briee and I arrived in Chennai after a 8.5 hour flight from NYC to Belgium (sp?) and then a 9.5 hour flight to Cheenai.  I slept as much as I could.  The plane service was fancy pants.  We got hot towels and cloth napkins with real silverware!  The food was all Indian Veg and Yummy!  The T.V. screens were all touch screens and had a host of movies and games to choose from.  The controler popped out of the seat front and you could use it like a play station controler!  (Eddie and my brother would have been in heaven!) Briee and I watched Julie & Julia and I pushed through the Bhagavad Gita which I'm to have done by tomorrow! Dense stuff right there.  After going through customs in Chennai and getting our GIGANTIC packs we had to head outside to the Domestic Flights area.  We landed around midnight and out flight didn't take off for Delhi until 6AM.    We were greated by a crowd of Indians and muggy humid air the minute we stepped outside.   We traversed through people and dogs all spread out sleeping on the sidewalk.  Apparently you can not come to the airport anymore than 3 hours before your flight.  We were corralled into a waiting area that was already overflowing with people.  There were some available seats but people were sleeping on the floor infront of them.  We unloaded our gear and took turns going to the "bathroom".  Note: toilet = hole in the floor. Fun.  So after 1/6 of a bottle of hand sanitizer we buckled down for a 4.5 hour wait for our plane. 

Once in Delhi we found out hotel driver (only after about 6 rounds of sifting though about 1000 name signs!).  We drove down some lovely streets and he pointed out the government buildings and the presidents house and parliment.  It all was very nice looking but the roads were crazy hectic.  There is no right of way.  Everyone just goes where ever and whenever they like.  And if they decide to turn around they just stick there hand out of the window, through the car into reverse and start backing up!  We then proceeded deeper into the city which was densly populated and cars, bikes, peopl,e cows, rickshaws,ets.  all using the road.  When the driver turned up a broken, dirty road with hundreds of people and cars and signs my heart sank.  I thought, "My God.  This doesn't look anything like the photos online. " We pulled up to the hotel and inside it was actually quite nice.  Marble winding staircase with inlayed woodwork a mark left by the British I'm sure.  We finally made it! Exahusted we booked a private car to Agra and bought train tickets to Rishikesh with the help of the 'travel desk' at the hotel.  Turns out its an excellent Lonely Planet recommendation.  Flat screen T.V. a king size bed....but no hot water or internet connection, eh, can't have it all I guess.

The next morning we went SUPER early to Agra.  The sun was rising like a red ball of fire in the dusty sky.  It was beautiful.  The driver was a nice young fellow who was very talkative and excited to practice his english.  Even I, yes ME was ready for some quite time after being in the car with the guy for about 2 hours!  At one point he had to stop and pay taxes (weird?) and all these guys came up to the windows trying to sell us shit.  Briee took a picture of a monkey that a guy had on a leash.  Under my breath I said, "He's going to make you pay for that." Sure enough he comes up to the window and says, "money money"  I shake my head and wave my hand.  We goes over to Briee's side and starts banging his ring on the window saying, "give me money, give me money" through his black and broken teeth.  At this point we are nervous.  He gets more aggressive and tries to open Briee's door.  Finally I pull out some change and tell her to give it to him.  He takes it but insists on more.  At this point my heart is pounding and I'm scared.  Our driver is nowhere insight and our car is surounded with sellers.  I remember what my friend Cliff told me and yell, "Take the fucking money man, all she took was one picture and its not even worth what I gave you.  So take the fucking money and shut the mother fucking door!"  He did.  It worked.  Thanks Cliff. 

It took us the rest of the drive to settle our nerves and by the time we got to Agra we were clutching our purses and ready to go home.  But the tour guide we got for the Taj Mahl was great and pushed us ahead of the 5000 people waiting in line.  He gave us all the history and story behind the Taj, how it was built, and even got us inside without really waiting in line (which went around the place...twice.).  We took a million pictures and were melting by the end of the tour.  We got dropped off at the Taj resturant and had a fantastic lunch.  We were charged "white people" price but we didn't care we were famished and still a bit jumpy.  The food helped and then we were whisked off to a jewler's shop and a marble shope before seeing the fort and begining the LONG ASS drive back to Delhi.  It was dusk when we left Agra and the dust was so thick I had to cover my mouth with my pashmina scarf the whole way back.  I could not believe the dust and smoke.  Everyone burns their trash at night so it was unbelieveably nasty out and it took me three days to get rid of a sore throat and stuffy nose.  We got back to the hotel after midnight.  But I got some pretty awesome pictures!  I have to be honest though.  I could not wait to get out of New Delhi.  My friend Mani said she looked up the population of Delhi and it is 14,000,000... not that much.  =)But WAY too much for me.  I'm looking forward to Rishikesh.

Yoga school, here I come!