New Delhi: Crazy in a Good Way

No matter how much one plans for an adventure, one is never quite prepared for the full reality of the place. After 30+ hours of travel we arrived at 4am into the New Delhi airport where we were thermally scanned for H1N1 accompanied to the tunes of Christmas (even though India is majority Hindu). Due to a surprise midnight phone call, we were met at the airport by the lovely Geela, who was to remain our prince charming throughout our time here in Delhi. We were whisked away to meet with Rashid Shaw, who was to become our friend and Kashmiri muse. Despite a list of to-dos and must-sees, we soon found ourselves on his schedule, being treated like royalty: dining at the lovely (though bizarre) New Delhi Golf Course, where peacocks and 400 year old tombs share space with the traditionally dressed golfers and being escorted to some of the amazing sites to be found within this chaotic city that seems endless and never ending. We have been on the ground less than 48 hours and are consistently awed at the levels of contrasts to be found. So many of the cliches ring true: poor and rich, young and old, ancient and modern, the seekers and the enlightened fill this city's teeming streets.
Trials: We seem to have yet to encounter any (though with the fact that Geela will soon be moving on, we expect to find ourselves embroiled in them soon).
Journeys: Weaving our way through the absolute swarm of traffic (comprised of men, women, children, camels, cows, horses, rickshaws, bicycles, buses, cars) with our new friend, Clara, we found ourselves in the Muslim slums to experience New Years Eve at the holiest Chishtiya Sufi shrine: Nizamuddin Dargah. In order to enter this vast complex of winding, cobbled streets we had to take off our shoes and navigate the filthy streets barefoot. This required de-Westernization on our part and a complete acceptance of the local custom. We soon found ourselves the only Westerners in the middle of a vast complex of tombs and shrines swelling with the devout, all congregated around a group of Qawwali singers who only sing on spiritual nights. Complemented with the rare blue moon and the many enraptured Sufis made this the most amazing NYE we have ever had the opportunity to experience.
Irreverancies: As we commonly assume that India is the land of outsourcing and technological advances, we have yet to find an internet cafe that can dial-up more than a page a minute and are sorry to say that photos will have to wait for another day.

More trials, journeys, and irreverancies to come! Happy New Year!

o

On Our Way!

It's Christmas Day and we are snowed in! We have been in our pjs all day and are drinking (an amazing red) and planning our way to India: cutting and pasting ideas and images as we get closer and closer to our departure date. We are set to leave Monday (providing the blizzard lets up) and we are more than excited. Having never been to India, we don't quite know what to expect but we do plan on eating and shopping through the North. We have no real plans, as those seem to be more cumbersome than helpful, but we hope to reach: Amritsar, the home of the Sikhs for NYE at the Golden Temple; New Delhi, where it seems we could spends months and months; Agra (the Taj Mahal); Rajasthan, where we hope to ride a camel into the desert and come back with amazing baubles; Gujarat, a dry state home to the last Bedouin tribes in India; back through Delhi on our way to the state of Uttar Pradesh to the textile producing city of Lucknow and the holy city (where the devout go to take their last breaths) of Varanasi, and ending our trip in the literary city of Kolkata. We plan on eating as the locals off of street cars and little hole-in-the-walls and waking early to experience India as she wakes up. We also hope to spend our last days abroad in the ever-enticing city of Istanbul going out for raki-balik.

More to come throughout our days of travel so please tune in for more in the coming days and weeks!