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Arrival: Delhi!The dark and the Delhi fog muffled the activities outside the airport, even further shrouding the men swathed in camel-colored wraps and turbans whose lush beards and curled mustaches are their only claim to vanity. They waited passively, I don't know for what, absorbing everything through their dark eyes. I passed and they saw just another tourist, a blond woman (an American or a German perhaps they thought), escorted by another tour operator, a good looking young Indian man with a driver wheeling her baggage to a sparkling white Ambassador in the parking lot. Before that, it was only me and another American woman getting change at the airport State Bank of India. The rest of our flight from Singapore (the most pleasant airport in all my personal experience) was filled with native Indians who cleared out as soon as their baggage came through. We got our rupees at the rate of about 43 to the dollar and chatted about the 30 hours of traveling from San Francisco, our excitement and nervousness at traveling India alone, and our methods of getting to our first nights sleep in a warm bed. She would go to the YWCA, a trusted waystation for American women in Delhi, while I would be met by Sanjay of Indo American tours, the privilege of a journalist reporting on hotels and tourist attractions. She prepaid 150 rupees for a taxi at a booth next to the change window, and an attendant whisked her and her luggage out the door. What a wonderful method of making transport arrangements! No hassling with touts and taxi drivers outside. For me, it was a walk up the ramp until I saw my name held up by a quite handsome young man from Indo Asian Tours named Sanjay Sahay (arranged through Spirit of India in San Francisco). Traffic weaves, not flows, here. There are many of the distinctive white Ambassadors, a company that is sadly failing with competition from the likes of Mitsubishi and Ford who manufacture here. The cars all sparkled with cleanliness, as did the yellow motor rickshaws. I had expected dirt, dust, but the fog muted everything, the streetlights glowed softly over us, the piles of garbage at the side of the road, the skulking yellow dogs, the sacred white cows chewing placidly, humps jutting from their backs. Thirty hours of travel and the Delhi fog softened everything I saw. I sat comfortably in back of this classic Indian car and felt quite the memsahib as our driver wove expertly through the fabric of Delhi traffic. Sanjay, in the front passenger seat was turned around to speak to me of India, tourism, the sights we passed, and to reassure me that I need just contact them if I needed anything at all while I was in Delhi. I settled in and gawked through the windows as we cruised past the landmark white lotus, gleaming in the fog. We passed the Institute of Information Technology, which goes on for kilometers and kilometers, said Sanjay proudly, and then he told me of a child he'd met in the countryside while traveling last year, who wanted to study to be an engineer. "The knowledge of technology spreads very quickly here," he told me, confirming what I'd heard about the Internet reaching the remotest of villages. The Surya Hotel greeted me graciously, as well and now I've had a hot bath in a nice room with twin beds, a couch, superb little writing desk, and the promise of breakfast whenever I wake. The Times of India delivered to my room reports some very important news: "India in a fix over boy-monk from Tibet," sneaked away with five companions and his 24 year old sister, 900 miles through winter blizzards from the Tsurpu monastery near Lhasa, in buses and on foot. The 14 year old boy is Tibetan Buddhism's third-highest leader and the 17th Karmapa (an incarnation of a lama from his particular sect). His defection from China to India is the most important since the 1959 flight of the Dalai Lama with the 16th Karmapa and other Buddhist clerics. I hope he is sleeping soundly now, and glad to be safe in what I see to be so far a very friendly and gentle nation of a very spiritual people. What a coincidence for me personally, really. The news of this recalls for me my trip to China only a year and a half ago and the struggle to understand an apparent lack of spiritualism of the people in that country -- a complex situation that most blame the government for, ever since the Cultural Revolution. Already I see that India will provide a direct antithesis to that experience. The rest of the news is filled with the weather -- it's the coldest and foggiest January on record in a long time, and it'll rain tomorrow, too -- and with the identities of the hijackers of IC 814, with technology news (Linux, dot com stocks, etc.), and quite a lot of spirituality and morality columns -- something that is quite conspicuously absent from large newspapers in the United States. But of course, we have no "official" religion in the US. Technology paired with spiritualism is also making big news now. The chief minister of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, widely known for his computer-literacy programs, has launched a scheme whereby pilgrims to the Tirumala temple (which worships Lord Venkateswara), will be scheduled to receive darshan there via the Internet. Pilgrims without access to the Internet will report to the Su-darshanam counter at Tirupati or Tirumala where a bar-coded band will be tied around their wrists with their darshan appointment. This will allow them to wander the large temple complex instead of waiting hours in a queue. Schedules can be arranged through www.tirupati.org for darshan, "accommodation, and various sevas," reports the Times. I can't wait! TRAVEL DETAILS
Singapore Air Flight 001 departed at 11:55 pm, and was comfortable and tolerable, with eversmiling service and a personal movie theater to keep one occupied. I ordered Indian Vegetarian meals for the entire trip and they were all wonderful, though breakfast was very (very!) different than an American breakfast. From San Francisco, a first stop in Taipai was unscheduled because of nasty headwinds that ate all the fuel. What a lovely wild place it looks to be from the air! Then a short hop to Hong Kong to pick up and drop off travelers. The view was spectacular, hi-rise cities nestled amongst the steep mountains. Finally there was a transfer of planes in Singapore, which in comparison to the other two cities, seems a mere palm-covered sand bar in the middle of the Pacific. The Singapore airport was the most pleasant airport I have ever experienced -- clean, friendly, and with a lovely and very functional Internet cafe. After spending a nice two hours there the flight to India was checked and double-checked, reminding me of the war on with Pakistan. STAT OF THE DAY:India has 17 languages and 8 official religions. IN THE NEWSFrom the Delhi Times 01/08: Tourist traffic flow: More bye-byes than hellos "The Union ministry of tourism reports that the outbound flow of tourists from India has doubled in the past decade, but the inflow of foreign tourists into the country during the same period has grown by only 40%." The fog could go the whole hog "Traffic officials claim that there has been no noticeable rise in the number of road accidents due to fog. In Dec and Jan 1999 there were 1715 road accidents in Delhi, which is (coincidentally?) the exact number for the same two months in 1998. They report that "the number of senior citizens falling victim to hit-and-run accidents, however, has gone up ever since fog has enveloped the city." Mom's the word A report about adoptive 'co-moms' -- lesbian parents in America -- and if they make good parents. They tend to, summarizes the piece, though a sidebar reports that an agency official says that because single-parent adoptions are common" if the sexual preference of the applicant is not mentioned in the home study forwarded to us by the US agency, a child can be given unknowingly." It is a situation he feels needs to be corrected, though he finds nothing wrong with same-sex couple adoptions and would not legally deny adoption to lesbian parents. FINANCESThe State Bank of India exchange at the airport traded my travelers checks, $300 turned into a stapled stack of 100 rupee notes and assorted small bills and change that totaled 12,995, making the exchange rate 43.32 by my calculations but he wrote 42.95 on the form. ACCOMMODATIONI was met at the airport by Sanjay Sahay of Indo Asia Tours, with driver. My luggage was taken from me and I floated rather than walked, through the airport, which felt surprisingly subdued despite the number of people. Perhaps it was the weather, the time. It was 8:30 PM, dark and foggy, men in white turbans and camel colored wool wraps were piled on the curbs, their neat beards and mustaches made me think of swashbucklers. I hadn't expected such neatness. Negotiating several steep curbs, Sanjay pointed out the Indo Asia buses, white with a Ganesh logo stenciled in front, and then I was loaded into a sparkling white Ambassador for a half-hour drive to the Surya hotel (Best Western) in New Friends Colony, New Delhi. Accommodation was arranged by Spirit-of-India and Indo Asian Tours. COMPUTINGUsed adapters from TeleAdapt to plug in my PowerBook to the 240V wall plug. Will use the hotel's business center tomorrow to email the 1/8 dispatches to MD, the site designer. On Monday I will attempt to get an Indian ISP. RETURN TO DISPATCHES RETURN TO HOME |
