Conquering New Delhi... or rather – New Delhi conquering us.

26 degrees Celsius, almost 9 pm. We arrived in the centre of Delhi after a hectic drive from the airport with a taxi driver who spoke English, but preferred discussing – with emotion - with his co-driver in Hindi. We watched silently from the back-seat, trying to grasp the fact that we were actually here – in India.
Checked in at the humble hostel and then, too hungry to be tired, we went food hunting in Delhi. We settled for two yummy dishes with paneer (cottage cheese) – one was grilled cubes marinated in spicy yoghurt, the other was potato cutlets filled with cottage cheese (yes, we were too tired to turn the menu sheet and realise there was so much else to choose from than cottage cheese). The menu was dotted with vegetarian dishes, since cows are holy to the Hindus and Muslims regard pigs to be impure.
Back at the hostel, after a well-needed bucket bath (literary bucket – as the water resources are scarce in India) we had a good night sleep on a rock hard bed that sent our thoughts back to our very first night in Ecuador. Back then we had to use our inflatable sleeping mats, but our training on futons in Japan seems to have done us well.

Walking the streets of Delhi this morning left us with countless impres-sions.
It is heart-breaking to witness the poverty which is visible many places. Beggars, homeless people scattered in the grass, orphans looking malnourished, people with deformations or missing limbs and in one case a female leper missing the right side of her body and face. People in need. This will be imprinted in our minds and hearts for a long time.

A look above us left us with relieving smiles: Monkey colonies here and there. Capuchin Monkeys, maybe? Also little striped squirrels kept popping up, racing up and down the trees in Delhi's many green areas, not bothered by the many locals that seem to take good advantage of the green areas around them for pausing their everyday life. The colourful saris in many styles and fabrics swung elegantly around the women too left us light hearted.
Then there is the bustling energy on the streets. Fruits and nuts are sold from worn out blankets on the ground, Sweet lime juice carts fill up the streets too as do the guys fixing broken zippers and shoes. Services like ear cleaning, having you put on a scale and a haircut are also possible on the streets in Delhi. Our favourite places to browse though are the many book stalls. India has a long tradition as a literary country and the abundance of book stalls manifests this. For 3-10 USD you'll find award-winning books, from Indian writers as well as western. For book addicts like us, this was an offer too good to refuse, so within the first day we had bought six books. Still 84 days left for shopping. Poor backpacks...poor backs.
Filling the streets as well, are the obvious appearance of different religions living side by side. Inspiring. We pass Sikhs with turbans, Muslims in burkas, Hindus with the red vermilion mark indicating the third eye and Buddhists in their characteristic orange/red cloth. They make co-existence look so simple despite the many differences.

The streets of Delhi can be a challenge to navigate. Auto rickshaws and motor bikes slalom their way between pedestrians, bicycles, cars and worn out buses that hardly stop to let people on or off.
The traffic lights are vaguely respected – despite big posters pledging to respect the red light and thus avoid embarrassment (and heavy penalty).
Being able to cross the road seems to be the key to success here,- and being very good at reading the traffic.

A tour on the National Museum gave us a needed break from the traffic spectacle outside. We let us draw into ancient India and the Hindu culture, the tribal clothing filled with colour and heavy jewels, the musical instruments such as citars, veenas and tablas. We laughed at the very playful Krishna and his abundance of women pictured on the miniature paintings.

We decided that Ganesha out of the numerous Hindu Gods, is to become our household God, as he is the remover of obstacles, a useful ability when travelling. His characteristic appearance with the head of an elephant, the Buddha-like body, the blue-coloured skin and yellow cloth makes him quite attractive to the eye, maybe this is another reason for his wide-spread popularity.
Each of the many God images were perfectly painted or shaped as hundreds of figurines made in stone, bronze or terracotta.

Afterwards we hooked up for lunch with a Japanese couple (a Buddhist monk from Kyoto and his girlfriend who study Buddhist history). They seemed to follow us, so when we discovered that we had made a wrong turn we thought we had better tell them and thus we ended up joining forces. We chatted over dosas for lunch. Their English were as good as our Japanese, which kind of limited the fluency of our conversation.

Returning home we realised our street was filled with hundreds of peaceful demonstrators, just in front of the hostel. The police was there as well, but not needed – the atmosphere was calm. Someone told us it was people from Jaimur. When we asked why they were demonstrating, our hotel manager said that it was nothing, - that they were just passing time. Then he laughed.
We still have a lot to figure out here.

Some say Delhi is a bit too much. Too crowded, too dirty, too pushy and too smelly.
We guess its Old Delhi these people talk about,- we'll tell about that in another blog.

P.S.: Today we succeeded in finding the last thing on our inventory list for the project: A glucometer. We now have t-shirts, pamphlets & posters explaining about diabetes and the glycometer to test people who are in the high-risk group of having diabetes, thus we are getting eager to get the project initiated as planned, in South India next week.
P.P.S. B's four soar fingers are an evidence of the glycometer is tested and working. And the blood glucose level was perfectly normal!