7

7

I just got off the metro in Old Delhi, walked outside the station and immediately felt like Dennis Quaid in the movie in which he is traveling in a tiny submarine in Martin Short's bloodstream, being buffeted right and left by billions of corpuscles.

Old Delhi is definitely not for the faint of heart.

I finally found the Red Fort, mostly by deciding that I got off the metro south of it and simply kept walking north, with the sun behind me. No one inthis part of town speaks much English. Everyone says that Varanasi is very dirty. It will be amazing if it's dirtier than Old Delhi. Yesterday, I new Delhi, I entertained the now-quaint notion that India resembled a warm NYC. Well, no.
I have no idea, not yet anyway, how so many people can live so close together, with so many big smiles.

One of the small benefits of an admission charge is that the sheer quantity of humanity drops by about 95%. Inside the Rad Fort couldn't feel like more of an oasis if I were in the middle of the garden of Eden, what with trees, shade, breezes. It's not that all the people are a trial, it just takes some getting used to.
A woman in a full chador passes me, not necessarily something I would have even noticed last year in Jerusalem, but here, in a country with such a large population of Muslims, this woman is the first one dressed like that that I have seen. Saris don't seem as restrictive somehow. One thing sure, no one wears shorts. It mist be close to 80 degrees and yet many people, men and women, wear sweaters.

In trying to relate Old Delhi to some other place that I've been, I might compare it to the souk in Cairo, but no one, or very few, is trying to sell you anything. I keep waiting to say "no" , but nobody asks!
True, thee are a lot of people, especially close, but most everyone smells nice. Part of living together, I suppose. I've been paying particular attention to loading on the deodorant. Being a responsible tourist.
Time to dive back into Chandri Chowk.
I prefer not to think of myself as overly fastidious, but after going into the gents toilet and, yes, it's about what you would imagine, and then being asked for 1 rupee as a cleaning fee and, of course, who has 1 rupee, I had to give h a 50 rupee (1 dollar) bill and have hake change. As I thought about his hands being the same ones that "cleaned" out the toilet, I looked slightly askance at the 10 rupee bills he handed back.
Glad I brought the hand wipes.
Can see that it's only a matter of time, though.

I guards things have impeoved somewhat sine Raven last visited India, I haven't seen any dead people in the streets, yet.
But there sure is a lot of life!

Chaos is in the eye of the bewildered!

I finished off my bottle of water, I don't know what to do with the empty. If I toss it, it would certainly feel at home with all the other bottles in the street.

Thinking I might try to find an hotel closer into the center of the city, I try the Taj Hotel and I inquire about availability and the woman behind the desk, in her blue sari and red mark on her forehead, in the king's English, replies. "I'm sorry, sir, but we're jam-packed."

I decide to go to Nepal.