A Tourist in Delhi

So one day a week we try to play the role of tourist and explore Delhi, learn something of Indian history and culture. Today, we went to the National Museum. The museum houses a substantial but not overwhelming amount of material tracing India's 5000 year history. Some of my favorite pieces were the carving showing a scene from one of the reincarnated lives of the Buddha. The story is that the Buddha as a farmer made friends with a crab. Meanwhile, a crow and snake conspired to kill him. In anguish, the crab sought his revenge by killing the crab and the crow. If you look, you can see the images in the stone. The museum entrance fee comes with a free audio guide. All in all, it was one of my better museum experiences.

After the museum we went to a nearby park. Green spaces are not exactly abundant in Delhi, so I have been asking people where we can go to find some natural places in the city, and one of the most often recommended places is Lodi Garden. As it is still winter, the gardens are not yet in blooms, but we came across workers dutifully preparing the soil. But there were plenty of Delhi residents soaking up the sunshine and enjoying the relative tranquility.

Back to Work

So two or three days a week I make my way to Ambedkar University, which is no small task. There are two options: an Uber cab and the subway. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. The subway requires first about a ten minute walk in each direction. Not too bad really, and certainly not a disqualifier. The hard part happens once you get inside. The crowd in the subway car can be unimaginable to anyone from the West; it was unimaginable to me, someone who has seen his share of crowded public transportation situations in China. The Chinese always knew when to stop pushing, when the bus or subway car had become too full. Here in India, not so much, and my first subway ride I literally thought we would be crushed if not to death at least to physical injury. That said, I have had few rides as crowded as my first ones, and I have learned to wait for a while until a less than sardine packed car arrives. Uber is more convenient in one way, having the car pick you up and take you where you want to go. But because of the traffic, it takes twice as long as the subway. In addition. you are on the most crazy, crowded roads anywhere in the world for about 45 minutes, at least half of which you will keep your eyes shut during. In any case, I have now settled on the routine of taking the Uber into school, and the subway (below) home.

The Taj

So we took a road trip this weekend. And while it is true we could have done the Taj Mahal as a day tour from Delhi, there was more than the Taj that we wanted to see in Agra. Plus we thought it would be good to get out of Delhi for a while.

Now I won't go into details about my experiences with trying to book a ticket online via the Indian Railways website. Miraculously, and after no small amount of effort, I actually succeeded in booking two tickets from Delhi to Agra, but alas was unsuccessful in repeating the process for the return trip and was forced instead to go down to the Delhi station to the foreign ticket desk and book down there--a story which I will spare you, for now.

So we booked our Uber and arrived at the Nizamuddin train station in plenty of time. Nizamuddin is not the main Delhi train station, but it is where a lot of trains to Agra go out of, most notably the one express train to Agra that plies the distance in 1 hour and 45 minutes. Unfortunately because we were going up to Agra on a Friday, the one day the Taj is closed, the express train does not run, so we were forced to take a second class and notably slower train.

Immediately upon entering the train car, you knew you were on an Indian train. I think even if you had never been on an Indian train you would enter and say, oh yeah, this is what an Indian train looks like. It was a sleeper car, going somewhere, and so the seats were divided into upper and lower bunks, with four seats in a compartment. Because we would only be on it for three hours we did not have the opportunity to avail ourselves of the top bunk but sat on the bottom bunk.

The train stared only 15 minutes later--veritably on time for an Indian train--and deposited us three hours later at the Agra Station. Now, I had been warned about the craziness of the Agra train station. Immediately upon leaving you are besieged by people trying to get you into their cab. I had been advised to head to the prepaid taxi stand, even now I am not sure that I took the prepaid taxi, in part because all the denizens outside the station were pointing us to it and telling us to go to the prepaid taxi (why were they not trying to get us into their cabs?) and in part because we didn't actually prepay but paid when we got to our hotel. But there was a big sign saying "prepaid taxi" and it looked official, so I guess that was it. So it was 250 (about four dollars) for a taxi to our hotel which was near the Taj Ganj area.

Our hotel was called The Retreat, and was a nice enough three star hotel for about $45, but wasn't really a retreat from anything because there is no retreat in Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal, the most visited monument in the world, but rather a constant pounding of traffic, people, cows, you name it. We had, however, to arrive at a plan. It was around 1 p.m. by the time we checked in. We had the rest of the day and most of tomorrow, since our train departed at 5:45 p.m. Seeing the Taj Mahal was not an option, since it was closed on Friday. So we chose instead to visit one of the other three UNESCO world heritage sites in Agra, Agra Fort, for a few hours, and then to go to a park known as Muthab Berg, a green area in back of the Taj, to watch the sunset, and then to get dinner. Rather than try to get individual taxis, we decided to hire a single driver from the hotel to take us around to the sites, a practice I would definitely recommend in Agra. For the next day, we would start at the Taj Mahal earl, around eight  a.m. (The Taj opens at sunrise, which is around 7:15). After a few hours on site we would go to the third World Heritage site, Fatah Sikri, the short-lived capital of the Northern India Mughal Empire under Akbar the Great (1542-1605). Since the site was more than an hour out of Agra, this too would require hiring a taxi.

All in all, everything went according to plan. I had purchased tickets for the fast train from Agra to Dehli, known as the Gaiteman Express, which was really no different than any Western train. Still, I was glad we had our ride up in the true Indian train to get a taste of what an Indian train experience is, but I think that may have been enough for both of us.

I won't supply the pictures here, because Jane has posted a ton of them on Facebook

Qatb Minar

One nice thing about being in Delhi are there are an endless variety of sights to check out, the result of a city that has been around for a couple of thousand years. So we take advantage of these opportunities and try to be tourists at least one day a week. Today we went to one of the top tourist destinations in Delhi: Qatab Minar, the world's largest pillar, which was erected in the 13th to celebrate the Muslim victory over the Hindus. Uber continues to function amazingly well; it picked us up at our door and dropped us off for about $1.50. The site is a reasonably peaceful respite from the craziness of Delhi, and we extended our stay longer than we needed to, While there we got slightly scammed by someone who offered to take our picture and kept taking our pictures. By the end, it was pretty clear he expected some money. It only cost me a buck, but it was still a scam I should have seen coming. We got slightly scammed upon leaving when we decided to take the metro home. I was pretty sure the metro station was nearby. Here it only cost us about 75 cents to get a ride to a station we probably could have walked to. Such is the life of a tourist. On the way home, Jane finds stand making her favorite Indian food, the bread known as "nan." We buy 4 pieces for about 30 cents.

Food in India, part 1

So our landlord employs a boy who cooks and cleans and does errands, We have hired him to clean and cook meals twice a week. Yesterday was his first effort. it is a fairly simple dish of bean and veggies but filled with flavor. Jane is especially fond of the Indian bread. We are eating mostly vegetarian here, which is fine by me, although the other day when I walked into a McDonalds near my school I admit I was craving a Big Mac but had to settle for something called a McSpicy Paneer. I am not sure what it was composed of (seemed something like Tofu) but did love up to its spicy name. It should be said the McDonalds do have chicken. The final picture is a traditional Indian spice palate for cooking. One of Jane's goals is to learn how to cook Indian.

Fulbright facilitator

Fulbright has provided us with a "facilitator" to ease our introduction into India. She is Rhea, an amazing art student in Delhi. She has certainly gone above and beyond the call of duty. She met us on our second full day in India at Humayan's Tomb and gave us a tour. Then she took us to a nearby market. More importantly, she got us hooked up with SIM cards so we could use our cell phones in India. Even though she is only supposed to be on call for the first three or four days, just last Friday she took Yong to a painting store to fins some supplies. All in all we feel very fortunate to have her to contact.

Deer Lake

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Saturday we ventured down to Hauz Khas village, the trendy area with
a lot of food shops, and discovered there a nice lake reservoir that you
can walk around. An area of relative calm In the chaos of Delhi. The
area is know As Deer Park. It consists of perhaps a couple of acres of
relatively green space. True to its name, there is an enclosure filled
with deer. In addition, some pigs roam the park, along with the
ubiquitous dogs. There is about a half mile concrete walkway around
the lake/reservoir. Given that it was a Saturday afternoon, I was
surprised by how relatively few people were there. Along one shore of
the reservoir stand the ruins of an old palace that was later converted
into a Madras, or. Muslim school. A plaque in front informs us this was
built I the 14th century by the emperor, and hence the title "Haus
Khas" or Royal Lake. Scores of people are scattered among the ruins.
The fallen walls and archways make excellent opportunities for picture
taking