Incredible India Part Four: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"

Our last day in Delhi we hired a car for the day to take us around the city to see some of the landmarks. First we visited the Jama Masjid, the oldest mosque in India. It was really pretty and has a big courtyard that can hold lots of people. After that we met up with Vivek again! We had arranged to meet again and were able to find him outside the mosque. We walked with him to the next sight, the Red Fort. It was built by the same emperor that built the Taj Mahal lived in the Red Fort. Is huge once you’re in the inside, there are lots of different shops in the market as you walk in, then there’s a huge gate that you pass through into the courtyard. From there you can see where the king received all his constituents with a large white throne. Within the complex there’s also a war museum and a museum of objects from the court. The king also had his own mosque and hammam.

Next we visited the Baha’i Lotus Temple, which is a huge temple shaped like…a lotus. It is a huge building and there were tons of people visiting it since it was Sunday. This place is huge and really pretty, so the pictures are nicer than any description I could give. After that, one of the girls we were with wanted to buy a sari, so we stopped at a store for a little bit – I bought some tie-dyed skirts.

Next we went to see the Gandhi Smriti, which is a monument to Mahatma Gandhi at the place where he was assassinated. The building there was where Gandhi stayed before he was walking out for his evening prayer on January 30, 1948 and was shot by a man in the crowd waiting to pray with Gandhi. The whole place was really nice and the building was converted into a museum. The upstairs has an interactive exhibit “in keeping with the times,” according to the sign. Haha. The downstairs had Gandhi’s room decorated as it was when he was there, then the entire place had lots of posters up and down the halls that talked about Gandhi’s life and philosophies. There was also a room with a movie about him and another with a bookstore. Once outside there is a path marking where Gandhi walked out of the building before he was killed. Then the path ends at a small pagoda with a stone marker that has his last words, “Oh, God,” and the date. It was really moving to see. Along the side there’s a huge display with the entire history of India and the path also has some of Gandhi’s famous quotes alongside it. I was really glad we got to go see it, out of all the things we had seen that day.

After that, we were about out of time for the afternoon, so the driver sped us past the street that is kind of the equivalent of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. On one end is the president’s house and the parliament and government buildings and at the other end is the India Gate, which commemorates Indian soldiers that were killed in World War I. The street also has a mall on either side where the driver said lots of people bring their families and have picnics and there were plenty of people out since it was a Sunday. The only thing different about the president’s house was that there were about a dozen monkeys hanging around the gate, which was pretty cool!

After that we had to go back to our hostel to get our things and pay. The driver parked on the corner near this alley where the hostel was. So, we walked toward the hostel and there were some boys in the alley that had some water balloons – and decided to throw them at us! It was so funny! Maybe it was funnier for me because I only got hit in the shoulder, but a couple of the other girls got soaked. The boys were out with water balloons because the Holi festival was set to start the next day – during this Hindu festival people go out in the streets and throw powdered dye and water at each other. It seems really fun – a group at Penn State does it every year and we missed it in India by one or two days. Anyway, a few of us ran and screamed and three of us ran the opposite direction – they actually passed the hostel and had to run back to it. Once we got to the safety of the building, Ferros said that he was up on the balcony yelling at them, he was upset and said, “It’s not fair, you should have punched them in the face!” We thought it was all in good fun, but we knew they’d be waiting for us when we went back down to the street. We paid and everything and were ready when we went back downstairs. Marina threatened them with a mean face and Blair threatened them with a full bottle of water and they kind of backed off. That was unexpected and fun!

So, we made it to the airport early in the taxi and noticed that the inside of the airport had a McDonald’s!! It was really cool – we had to try it! They only had three options because the majority of Indian people are either Hindu or Muslim: McChicken, Fish Filet and the McVeggie Burger! Haha. So, of course, I got a McVeggie Burger and some fries. The veggie burger wasn’t that bad, actually, and the fries tasted exactly like they do at home. It was pretty cool. Then, we got on the plane and the flight back to Chennai was great again with all the amenities of the first one. I watched Dance India, Dance, which was sort of the equivalent to So You Think You Can Dance and one guy did popping and locking. It was great! Haha.

That was the end of our adventure to the Taj Mahal, but wasn’t the end of my adventure in India! After getting back to Chennai, I stayed on the ship without any plans for the last day, but it turned out to be awesome! So, my only plan was that I wanted to go shopping, since I was kind of ‘traveled out’ after our big adventure. So, I decided to tag along with some of the girls who I traveled with in Spain – Jane and Sarah – and Rachel. They were going to the mall and I had just ran into them, so it worked out really well. We actually got a taxi to an area where Jane was going to meet a friend she knew from school (she goes to Parson’s School of Design in NYC). We went to a few stores around there and waited for Jane’s friend. We all got to meet her (her name escapes me at the moment…I will have to ask Jane what it was) and she had hired a car for the day to take us wherever we wanted to go. She was 24 and her family is from Chennai, even though she was partly raised in England. She went to graduate school and then had to return to India to continue her father’s wholesale clothing business. It was amazing, she had so many responsibilities and seemed so in control, it was really cool. We wanted to go get lunch, but first she had an errand to run for her mom. Apparently their dog, a lab, had given birth to pups and they had given on of the pups away, but her mom didn’t think that the dog was getting treated right or something, so we went to the home of the guy who had bought it and she went in and talked to him. We were in the car for a while, but she brought the precious little puppy out and we got to pet it for a little bit before she gave it back to the guy who bought it. She worked it all out, I guess. Then, she took us to the Sheraton in Chennai. Man, that place was amazing! Apparently, she said all the of the hip, young people hang out at the nice restaurants and bars in the hotels. The restaurant was really nice and she helped us order and we all shared some really good food for our last meal in Chennai.

Afterwards, she and Jane separated from the rest of us to go catch up and get some coffee together. The rest of us went to the mall. After shopping for a little while, it was getting kind of late in the afternoon and we needed to get back, but we met another one of the girls, Claudia, who was there with the homestay family. It ended up that her “family” offered us all a ride back to the port! That was so nice of them! I couldn’t believe it. And then six of us piled into their little car. We were cutting it pretty close, this was at about 5:30, so we were all worried about making it back to the ship on time. We got a couple bicycle rickshaws from the gate and realized that there were about four of them with SASers and we had a friendly race back to the ship! India was fun, right down to the very last minutes there. So far it has been my favorite port! Everything was so awesome. I want to take everyone there to share more amazing experiences like the ones I just had!