Three nights in Delhi

Tad and I in front of the legendary Taj Mahal in Agra

After spending three days and two nights in Delhi, I’m still kind of wondering what exactly our purpose was there. The travel there was hectic, as usual with this group, but not too bad. We arrived in the capitol city to see dark skies, rain clouds and smog; quite a bit different than sunny Ahmedabad. We took a taxi to “Gwyer Hall,” the hostel type of accommodations where we were staying in Delhi University’s North Campus. Even though there were walls and ceilings, the place still made camping look somewhat luxurious; we managed though, and for four days the place really wasn’t too bad.

View from the Taj

Day 1: Arrival

After arriving, we took the metro to find some food and beer (which was definitely exciting since we’d been in the dry state of Gujarat for the past six and a half weeks). The metro system was actually pretty impressive; I love knowing the feeling of being able to stretch out to any part of the city I wish to travel to, quickly and cheaply. We actually ended up finding a KFC, and even though I’m pretty sure I’ve only eaten there once or twice ever in the U.S., familiar food was definitely welcome and needed after the long day of traveling. After KFC, we hit the bar next door, had a beer or two, then jumped on the last train back to hostel to grab some sleep before the next day’s journey to the Taj Mahal.

Day 2: Agra

Me standing next to the Taj

In order to reach Nizamuddin Train Station by our 6:00 am train to Agra (where the Taj Mahal is located, about three hours by train from Delhi), we left the hostel at 4:45 to head to the metro to take us to our train. It was about 5:05 when we reached the metro station and discovered that the first train headed to our destination didn’t leave for another twenty minutes. We our 6:00 train that we already had bought tickets for in Ahmedabad, we definitely couldn’t risk it, so we jumped in rickshaws that successfully dropped us off at the station in time. Even though we were completely ripped off, we were in no situation to argue, as our timing was starting to get a bit desperate.

With three rickshaws, one was separated from the other two, but we were eventually able to meet up with everyone and climb on our train. We were in a pretty decent class, 3A I think, and we had sleeper bunks that were mostly near each other. I was actually able to get a bit of sleep on the way there, despite my biggest paranoia of missing the stop. There are no announcements about which stop is which or how much longer is left to a certain place. It seems that everyone just magically wakes up and knows when their stop is coming up. I still haven’t quite figured out how they do it, and of course I had multiple alarms set and asked the guy selling breakfast three or four times how many more stops there were until Agra.

Tad in one of the nearby buildings

We successfully got off at the correct location and then hired prepaid taxis to take us to the Taj. Four of us ended up hiring our taxi driver to take us around the city for the remainder of the day for a mere Rs. 350 (approximately $8…for the entire day).  Several of the others were pretty skeptical about this, but I though it really worked out because he knew where to take us to lunch and dinner (he asked if we wanted safe food or cheap food…I said both, and we were pretty satisfied), took us to the Taj, a marble place where we got to see how the details of the Taj were done, as well as Agra Fort. He also made sure we made it back in time for our 7:00 pm train, which was definitely a big plus, at least for me.

Agra Fort

The Taj Mahal was incredible. Many times I find large monuments and hyped up places to be fairly overrated, but this was definitely not the case with the Taj Mahal. The structure was powerful and impressive, and the entire landscape was elegant and beautiful. Agra Fort, the other main tourism spot we visited, was also beautiful, though I need to learn more about the history and what it was used for.

If I were to describe the train ride there as somewhat enjoyable and relaxing, the train ride back was entirely the opposite. We had previously bought the only tickets that remained for the ride home, which were located in the lowest coach. While we had bunks in the first train, we had long benches, filled with people. All of our seats were separate too, so most of us didn’t get to sit next to each other. In the car that I was in, all of the seats faced backward, besides the bench that I was on, which faced forward, towards all of the other people. As if I wasn’t being stared at enough already, I had to face everyone in the entire car, and was stared at by the majority of the people for the most of the three-hour train ride. I was also attempting to catch up on my journal during the ride, so consequently, I had three or four people reading over my shoulder for the entire ride. I was pissed for an hour or so, but then I realized once again that it’s India, and when things like this or mice pooping on your bed happen, or you find out that the hotel doesn’t wash the towels unless there is visible dirt on them, it’s a lot easier to accept it and move on. India has slapped me in the face so many times, what’s one more time before I run to Nepal?

Day 3: Presentations

Agra Fort

We got back around 11:00 pm from Agra; I was wiped, so I showered (by bucket of course) and went to bed. In the morning we had a presentation with the Fulbright people. Most of us were under the impression that we had to present our project in Chharanagar to them since they are funding half of our trip, but it turned out that it was pretty much an advertisement for us to consider applying for a Fulbright grant to India, which naturally sparked some ideas in my own head.

After the presentation and tea, we prepared for the next round, which involved presenting what we did in Chharanagar to students of the School of Planning and Architecture, and then they subsequently presented their most recent project to us. The two projects had amazing similarities, though the methods were almost opposite. Ours dealt with a bottom-up approach that was almost entirely based on community interactions and work with the people. SPA’s method was much more data-based, with only a few community interactions, which is really the way most planning occurs (definitely including studios at Ball State). Which is better? I would argue both, working together. One of the professors from SPA made the comment that both were good, effective approaches, but the most successful project or plan will arise only from a combination of the two.

Tad and I at Agra Fort

From my own experience, and also from conversations with the SPA students after the presentation, the main constraint for someone who is willing and able to tackle both approaches simultaneously is time. Deadlines will exist inevitably, particularly with short semester projects, so the easily gathered and manipulated hard data seems to be the most time effective approach. Because of this data priority, a heavier emphasis and value must be given to the community interaction and submersion within the society…just a thought though.

The SPA students were awesome. We only chatted with them for a bit after the presentation, but they were exciting, interesting, and interested in our project and us as well. It was a bummer that we couldn’t have spent more time there with them, as they were far more interested in us than the CEPT students. They wanted to show us around Delhi, party with us, and give us advise on where to go. Unfortunately we left the next day at noon, so we regrettably had to decline all of their offers.

After the presentations, Patrick, Tad and I took the metro to Parharganj, a big shopping area in Delhi. Unlike the other fairly uncrowded times that we had ridden the metro, we were there during rush hour; the number of people flooding on and off the train was unreal. Quite ineffectively, everyone rushes onto the train and the same time that everyone rushes off of it, resulting in a lot of unnecessary pushing and shoving. We actually ran into one of the SPA students on the train and were chatting with him as I realized that we were approaching our stop. We tried desperately to make our way to the door, and as the doors slid open, I threw myself against the crowd in front of me to push my way through. The people didn’t budge, and I found myself sandwiched in between two Indian strangers as the doors slammed in front of my face.

Agra Fort

Since we missed the only stop for which our tickets were good for, we had to wait for the other train going in the opposite direction to reach our actual destination. I would have loved to take a picture of a video of it, but 1.) It’s already pretty clear that I don’t belong there; I try not to draw even more tourist attention from the locals. 2.) I was using all of my energy and force to push through the solid, stationary wall of people. 3.) My camera would have probably been smashed or snatched, neither or which I was interested in dealing with.

Paraharganj was awesome. We got there kind of late due to the presentations and the whole train incident, but we had plenty of time to catch up on some much needed shopping (Ahmedabad has pretty much no touristy shopping because there’s very little tourism in the city, besides us that is) and to grab some dinner.

A Note on Air Quality

Have a mentioned how unbelievable wretched the air quality in Southeast Asian cities is? Absolutely awful. I though Ahmedabad was bad, then I went to Delhi, and was sick within two days. I went to the presentation that morning feeling fine, and left with a nasty cold. I’m hoping the air in Kathmandu will be somewhat cleaner so I can at least recover.

Day 4: Departure

The only photo I took in Delhi...ha

I absolutely despise airports; I instantly become stressed when I’m making my way to a flight, and the experience preparing for the flight from Delhi to Kathmandu is precisely the reason why (this experience even rivaled with my ninja star/Haiti incident).

Essentially, our entire group almost missed our flight due to a massive miscommunication, along with several occurrences that were out of everyone’s control. The first issue occurred since Nihal was staying at a hotel somewhere else, while the whole group was still at the hostel. Somehow our plans to meet Nihal at the connecting metro station and take the airport express to the airport evolved into us all being on our own and having to call cabs. I’m still not quite sure how this happened, but the important part was that Nihal still thought that we were all going to meet him at the metro station, and we were somewhat panicked and confused as we waited for taxis, thinking we were supposed to meet Nihal at the airport. Anyways, the taxis came, and one sped off before we could ‘prepay’ for it, so the other taxi drivers demanded that we pay for that one as well. I’m still not really sure how that dispute was settled, but it took about 45 minutes until we were actually on the road. Keep in mind that our flight wasn’t until 12:55 and we were all dressed, packed, and ready to go at 9:00 am.

So we’re on our way to the airport, running pretty late already. Something unique to Indian airports (at least I haven’t experienced this anywhere else) is that in order to even enter the airport, you have to show a printed itinerary with your name on it. Some of the itineraries that were distributed had multiple names on them, while mine just had me. Tad’s itinerary though, had several people on it, and he didn’t have the copy of it. As all the taxis arrived at different times, no one decided to meet at a common place, and everyone proceeded to check in on their own, so Tad was not able to get the itinerary. As a result, we had to go through a whole process to get a printed version of Tad’s itinerary. By the time that whole mess was settled, it was about noon, and we still had yet to go through emigration and security. In fact, I’m pretty sure that it was about this time that they announced that our plane was boarding.

We waited in the huge emigration line, and twenty or thirty minutes later, the airport attendants rushed us to an empty line so that we could get through and not miss our flight. After we made it through emigration and security, we began the run for the plane around 12:40 when they were announcing the last calls for Kathmandu. It turned out that it was one of the farthest gates, and I was actually sweating when we finally reached it. Despite all the obstacles and disorganization though, we all amazingly made it on the plane and set off for Kathmandu.