chartandwaters

And the mornings are the ONLY cool time in Delhi, I mean the only time you might even consider considering entertaining the possibility of calling cool. I arrived on Delhi from Rishikesh yesterday on a 7-hour busride after acquiring "traveller's sickness" and before very briefly throwing up from a combination of heat, something I ate and maybe lack of bus shocks. My new young earnest friend Harsha greeted me to help me find a guest house, even though when I called him at the one reststop the bus made, a man next to me told him to meet me at a Delhi busstand that's not even in town--and not even where my bus arrived into--so I arrived at 9:10pm, called him on his cell, and he took the 30-minute rickshaw ride back and met me in the slightly gritty, noisy, backpackery Paharganj area at 10pm to help me find a room. Many of you will recognize this as Indian hospitality at its most amazing and sometimes overwhelming. I leave at 9:15 tomorrow night for 32-hour train ride to Bangalore. Have my comical Hindi language guide to keep me company (the list of dialogues at the end struck me as particularly comical, but I had to put down the book when it got to "You are hot." "You are hotter.") I have been given a list of must-dos tomorrow in Delhi, my last chance to see anything there (today was spent mostly buying a train ticket though did make it to old Muslim ruins and had nice dinner with Sumita, friend met earlier in Delhi, and Harsha.) There is so much I want to write about Rishikesh and even still Amritsar and McLeod, and I know you are all so fascinated, but--after Bangalore! To Bangalore! Monday is Independence Day in India, FYI. Hope you are all enjoying summer!
Love,
Gabi