Sunglasses Always Fit

“So, what brings you to India?”

Our tour guide Harsha sat us down the first night in the basement of our locally owned, somewhat sketchy motel, and began the dreaded ice breakers. I wasn’t super prepared for the question. “It fit nicely into the week I had off and wasn’t too many time zones away” wouldn’t be a polite answer. “I watched ‘The Secret Garden’ a thousand times as a child and convinced myself I could be Mary” would not be very impressive for my soon to be share-everything-together-for-eight-days mates. But probably better than “it was cheap,” which is what one guy said.

“I’ve got a lot of Indian friends and they’re really cool so . . . (I want to impress them) I wanted to visit their homeland.” That’s the winning answer I settled on. I think I added in “oh and I like history and culture and food and stuff,” just blindly copying what other people had said.

And that answer was accurate! I didn’t realize how much so at the time. But a week after returning home to Hong Kong, getting to talk about the trip, process it a bit, it stands.

I booked this trip in a fit back in June. I was going through a “why am I a teacher? Why am I in Hong Kong? Why am I a TEACHEr in HONG KonNG-AH??!” moments, and needed a whole-ass reason to want to get on my return flight and work a few weeks before taking a vacation. I booked nonrefundable tickets and a tour and said “okay! I’m locked in now” (a work contract isn’t significant enough in my fickle brain, but plane tickets?! Set in stone, apparently).

I’d been warned about India, to be honest. Cautioned about the heart-breaking poverty, the scams, the pollution, the sounds and smells and toilets (and all of this did turn out to be present and challenging). But I’ve been places, friends. That didn’t scare me away, and I wanted to go, I wanted to see, I wanted to steep in a long, proud, complicated, diverse, friendly, colorful culture for a week.

I took a redeye Friday night and paid for a private tour for the day in Delhi before meeting up with my group, wanting to make the most of my time. I stumbled into the car on about three hours of sleep, but I was running on adrenaline and powered through. My guide was a (sometimes overly) friendly young guy named Lareb who took to to the markets, spice shops, chai chops, mosques, temples, overpriced but tummy-friendly lunch spot, and historical landmarks I might have missed otherwise.

He claimed to be a failed photographer, which was a bonus because he forced me to take nice photos that included myself in front of cool things that I otherwise would have missed. This helped make up for the fact that his main talking point, other than the history of India and how Britain robbed her of her deserved glory, was Game of Thrones. (I read the books well before the show was developed and cannot stand for the gratuitous plot line deviations that distracted from the actual story and only served to exploit young actresses who later confessed to being traumatized by it all) (but I digress). 

Together we rode rickshaws, tuk tuks, taxis, and walked through most of the major sights in Delhi. I visited the largest Hindu temple in India, had chai at a roadside cafe, walked through the spice markets and tasted saffron and pepper and curry spices direct from the source. When the traffic was particularly bad, he kept hagglers and beggars and starers at a polite distance, sometimes in a harsher way than I thought necessary, but it was really nice to have someone invested in my safety when the doors on most transportation don’t exist. 

Lareb found shaded corners and benches and let me sit while he talked through 3,000 plus years of history, the richness of Indian culture, the preciseness and expertise required in the architecture, the origins of the caste system, the intricacies of match-making, the inspiration for different Indian culinary classics. Lulling me into vivid waking dreams of history, he’d then finish his TED talks, clap his hands and force me into posing for photos I would call “my failed album covers,” but he was brilliant all the same. We parted as friends (I immediately blocked his number on Whatsapp.)

After that first awkward meeting with my tour mates, we headed off to our first group dinner, at the fine establishment known as “Hooter.” We asked, and our tour guide did not know what the name meant, but no tour group of hers had ever gotten sick here, which we found out was the only pre-requisite for a reservation for the duration of the trip.

We met for an early morning train ride – through security, boarded a women’s only train if we wanted – before walking through the local neighborhoods to a casual breakfast. Then we strolled through markets and spice smelling and tea stands, soaking in the chaos and black smoky skies of pollution that is Delhi. Where people seem to honk out in an indecipherable Morse code, but they just know they must honk.

Highlights of our city tour included a Sikh temple that is open to worship for anyone, and more impressive – open to feed anyone. They feed anywhere from 7,000 to 10,000 people a DAY, based solely on donations. I don’t know any Christian place in the world doing that . . . we walked in and placed our shoes in the bins, covered our hair, and were invited to worship as long as we wanted, eat if we wanted, donate if we wanted, use the toilets and go if we wanted. It was pure and beautiful. 

In the afternoon we went out to the college area of Delhi to take a street food tour, stopping at eight stalls to try different classic snack foods and drinks.

Random people stopped us on the street to demand selfies, ask if we knew their relatives back in (fill in the Western country), and inquire as to our opinion on the chosen snack.

We saw cows parked next to motorcycles, children with multiples open sores barefoot and begging for anything, gorgeous riches dripping in jewels and clothing from mannequins and live women alike. It was a juxtaposition of the highest order. All of it covered in a waxing or waning scent of urine and manure, backed by the constant soundtrack of horns beeping.

Bellies and minds full, we made for an early night back at the hotel with the usual stops to get water bottles and at several ATMs to find one that worked to prepare for a 6:30am departure via bus for Jaipur, the Pink City, a mere seven hours drive away!

I’ll report on that next time. Until then, enjoy this Delhi memories video :).