Accountant Adventures: Delhi, Delhi, Delhi

I woke up this morning at 5:30 am and couldn't get back to sleep. I had taken a small nap the day before (maybe a 5 hour nap, but who's counting) and I felt rested and ready to start the day. I didn't want to wake Praj up that early so I entertained myself and let Prajwal sleep until 9am. I had my first bucket shower this morning and it was lots of fun. I turned on the tap and filled a small hand held bucket and I used it to get my body wet and then I lathered up with soap and then refilled the bucket and used it to rinse myself. It is more difficult than a shower, but I was surprised at how easy and natural it was. Then Praj took a shower, but instead of doing it the way I did it (the way you are supposed to do it) he put a stool on the floor under the faucet and turned the water on and sat underneath it.

We decided that it would be cheaper to take a tour bus around Delhi than to take auto's all over town by ourselves and so we took an auto to the Delhi Tourism Office, a city run company to see what was available. The morning tour had already left and the afternoon tour was full, so we talked to them about taking the tours on Monday and then taking a bus to Agra on Tuesday to see the Taj Mahal.

We started walking around trying to find a place to eat when we came upon an auto driver who asked what we were up to and offered to drive us around to all of the sites in Delhi for 500 INR( The abbreviation for Indian Rupees). Prajwal and he went back and forth on the details and the price and we came to an agreement to have unlimited time, unlimited miles all for 400 INR. Basically a personal chauffeur for the day for $4 each. We had him drive us to a place to eat brunch and it was amazing. The restaurant was cafeteria style-ish but everything was delicious. I absolutely love the food here! Water is sold everywhere in bottles and you can get a 1 liter of water for 15 INR, it is amazing to me that they can make any money at all by selling it that cheaply. They have a drink here called Limcon and tastes like a combination of Sprite and Lemonade, it is so good, I used to mix that concoction myself all the time when I was younger.

We got back into the Auto and learned that the Auto driver spoke very good English and was very knowledgeable about the city. He took us to the following places: ( I have inserted Wikipedia links to some of the places so that you can read about them there, versus me making up information on each location.)

At the Red Fort there was a long line of people to buy tickets to get in. A security guard came up to us and told us we could go another way and then escorted us to a side window and told some indian's to get out of the way so that we could get our tickets without waiting. “This is pretty awesome” we said to each other and asked for two tickets. “500 INR” came the response from the guy. “What?!?!?! The sign didn't say it was that much, I think it said 60 INR” we replied. Apparently there is a premium if you are a foreigner. Praj explained to the guy that he was an indian and only I am a foreigner. So my ticket was 250 INR and his was only 10 INR!!!! Once we got inside I noticed this little boy who wasn't as clean looking as most of the other kids there and he also didn't seem to be accompanied by any parents. I saw him looking at my pockets and then I locked eyes with him and shook my head “no” to let him know that I saw him and I knew what he was up to. Then he looked at prajwal and started to follow him two steps behind. When Praj would take a step the kid would take a step and I could tell he was trying to time Praj's steps. I yelled at Praj to look out, the kid was up to no good and we both turned to stair at the kid. He wasn't scared or embarrassed he just kept eyeing us. We told him to get lost and he just kept staring at us. It wasn't a sad or pleading expression on the boys face, it was just an annoyed look of inconvenience. He started to walk away and then we relaxed and went our own way. He started to follow us again and we eyed him one final time before he ran off to presumably find easier targets.

We got to Jama Masjid just as the Muslims were praying and being non Muslims they made us wait outside until they were done. We waited with two Eastern European women and the men outside the mosque could not get enough of these women, the men gathered around the women and stared at them and talked to each other and pointed at the women. Every once in a while an older Muslim man would come along and tell all of the guys who were staring to go away and not more then a minute later the girls would be surrounded by a group of new men. The women seemed unphased by this behavior and sat there talking calmly to each other, ignoring all of the activity around them. When the prayers were over they allowed us to enter but we had to put on Lungi's (skirts to cover our exposed legs, we were wearing shorts) and we had to remove our shoes. As soon as we entered the mosque a man approached me and wanted to give us a tour. He was not an official tour guide and only knew four sentences in very poor english that he repeated at every stop along his tour. At the end of the tour he took us to a corner of the mosque and had a another man open a sealed door and show us Muhammed's actual footprint that he made in Mecca. The footprint didn't look old enough to be real, but it apparently wasn't brought out very often because others at the mosque crowded around to see the footprint for themselves. Then the man told us it was time to pay him. He pointed at me and said “30” then he pointed at Praj and said “30” and then smiled and said “70”. He repeated this several times, “30, 30, 70” smiling happily to himself. I pulled out a 50 and praj produced two 10's. The man took my fifty and only 1 ten from Praj. Although he apparently didn't know the word sixty he knew how much it was and took only that amount, much to our surprise.

At India Gate, as with all places in Delhi that we have been to, there are people selling their goods. A man approached us with a child's toy that is a rubberband that shoots a whirlybird high into the sky and then it slowly twirls to the ground. I assured the man that I had no interest in the toy, but that it was very nice. Then the man pulled out $1 USD and asked me how much it was worth in INR. I told him the exchange rate was around 47/1 and he told me he would sell it to me for 40. I think that someone gave him a dollar for one of his toys, but there was nothing he could do with it because they charge fees at exchange booths and probably wouldn't even change that small of an amount. We offered the man 50 INR for the toy and the dollar both and he happily accepted. Now I have my first souvenir of my travels.

While driving all over town there are often beggars that come up to the Auto asking for money, they mostly wait at traffic lights where they know people will be stopped and are easier to approach. Everyone has a story that they use to try to entice you to give them money, whether it's to feed their children or to help them get a bus ticket back to their home. We did encounter two unique beggars today who stood out from the rest. We had one man come up to us, who had to be at least 70 years old and tell us that he needed money because he had “No mama, no papa”. I feel sorry for the guy, but when you are that old, I think you need a better line than that. Then there was a man who was exposing his volleyball sized testicle to try and get money. He came over to our Auto and placed his had on prajwal and told us that we could take his picture for a donation. No, I did not take a picture, but yes his testicle was at least the size of a volleyball, no exaggeration.

The last stop for the day was Humayun's Tomb and our Auto driver warned us that I would have to pay 250 INR again and that Praj would only be 10. It had already been a long day and we decided we would take a look and see before I committed 250 to it. We walked up to the gate and walked in the exit to see if we could get a peek before plopping down 250 INR. A security guard stopped us and told us we had to go and get tickets for 250 each. Prajwal started to talk to him in Hindi telling him that he is an Indian national and that I am an Albino Indian from the south who only speaks a regional dialect so we should both be 10 INR. The guy said I would have to have some ID to show that I was in fact Indian and Prajwal pulled out his voter ID card from his wallet with a picture of himself from high school and said that it was me. The guy bought it! We then went up to the ticket counter to buy our two 10 INR tickets but the woman at the counter wasn't having any part of it. Not only did she not believe that I was indian, she didn't believe prajwal was either. He spoke to her in Hindi and told her where he was from and she told him she didn't care, it was obvious to her that he spent a lot of time out of India and therefore had to pay the foreigner rate. We weren't having any of that and so we left without going in.

We went over to Praj's high school friend Deeki's place for dinner at 9pm and I was starving. When we got there Deeki asked me if I was hungry and I told her that I was starving. Deeki's friend Angelo (who is Indian, not Italian) was going to make us dinner but he hadn't started. Deeki got me an appetizer of meat kabobs and Prajwal and I devoured them. On the way over Praj and I stopped at a liquor store. The liquor store we stopped it wasn't an indoor air-conditioned liquor store like I am used to but instead was more like a carnival attraction with people fighting their way up to the front and then waving money around wildly to get the attention of the guys behind to counter to place an order. It was a mad house and we were slightly overwhelmed by the chaos so all we got for 4 people to drink was a small bottle of vodka and two beers. After the appetizers we opened the drinks and soon finished all of the alcohol. Unfortunately at this time it was after 10pm and all the liquor stores were closed. Praj's friends got on the phone to their other friends and found someone who delivers alcohol at nighttime for a premium. Unfortunately he couldn't drive the alcohol all the way to where we were because of police checkpoints so we had to track down a cab that was still driving and Praj and Deeki got in the cab, met the guy outside the police checkpoint and drove back with some more vodka and some whiskey. We sat on the balcony drinking and talking and still not eating. “Are we going to eat soon” I asked at 2 am, “After this drink” came the reply. I asked again at 3 am and 4 am and got the same reply every time. Finally at 5am we ate dinner, watching the sun rise. We had been planning to spend the night there but by 5:30 am the sun was up and the Auto's were running again so Praj and I went home.