Day 2 Sheep heads, stray puppies and beggars

May 23 2011

                Today we visited the qutub minar, chandni chowk, and the jama masjid.

                Today started out a little better then the last hotel morning. Woke up a little later around 730, we’ll see ya jet lag. Walked out to get the hotel breakfast and to our surprise another guest was there. Ecstatically, we rolled off a several questions on the hotel and how he managed to get fruit, an omelet, tea, and other breakfast choices where it seemed there was only toast for us the previous day. After filling up on omelets toast and watermelon we were off to the qutab minar.

The crazy world of the Chandni Chowk

Being manhandled by "Mickey"

First rickshaw... awesome

Karims restaurant, did you know voted one of best in Asia? get out !

Why do they always have turbans

Kelly has the pick of the litter in India

Chillin with guards 

                Our cab driver was somewhat less friendly then the day before however smelled astromically better. For some reason though there seem to be a low percentage of people in india with turbans all taxi drivers wear them. We realized we had reached our destination immediately as we flew forward on the opposite side of the road to an immense pillar. As we got closer the pillar’s great size was monumental… yup. Around the pillar were extensive gardens with well planned tree lines and well maintained roadways. Women were walking around in traditional Indian garb with buckets balanced on their heads. A women walked up to us. She asked if we wanted to take a picture of her with the bucket. Ding using my recently obtained knowledge, something was up. We said no and as she walked away clicked a few free pictures. After that it became obvious that many women had these buckets in different colors but they weren’t carrying anything. Their job was to walk around and get paid for pictures. Oh India you’ve done it again. Who can I trust? We walked around the rest of the area as we were going to get our 250 rupees worth, which is absurd as the price is 10 rupees for people who look Indian. Shoulda gotten a better tan, oh well. We walked around clicking some pictures of rowdy children playing and the extensive gardens and domes in the area. Not to my surprise as we attempted to leave, several teenage Indian boys ran up to us and asked to take a picture with Kelly. “ma’am just one picture” 4 pictures later, one with each of the boys, we were off. Or to be distracted by a litter of stray puppies who similar to other Indian things I have come into contact with, are very good at getting your attention then needing something. After nipping at our clothing, their way of asking for rupees, we were off to the chandni chowk.

                 The chandni chowk was a whole new world. This was our first time moving from the comfort of new delhi to the raw, unpolished world of old delhi you hear about in media and slum dog millionaire. Children beating on taxi windows asking for money and beggars littering the streets I almost felt at home. Elkton was in the air. This is what we had been looking for, that uncomfortable feeling, the did that guy just take my wallet, no no wait its still here. Every few seconds. It was a powerful experience. It was the first time I understood and then laughed at the concept of “cities are alive”. Sorry people who swear by new York, you’ve got nothing on these guys. Our taxi dropped us off dead center of this large street with constant movement in every direction. We cautiously left the taxi wondering if we should plan out the trip a little more in the safe comfort of the cab we had seemed to find by locking the doors and ignoring the beggars tapping on our windows. We were off, in a hurried rush to no where we booked it down the road, rarely slowing for any store shop or food stand. We reached the end of the road, “where are you going Jake?” Kelly remarked as I looked around and scrounged up an answer to not appear too frightened of this place. Umm the red fort I remarked. The red for in an immense fort lying at the end of the chandni chowk market road. After snapping some photos, a man walked up to us, “would you like to go upstairs”. I looked over at the marble building sandwiched between the guy selling condoms and cigarettes and the guy selling cheap children’s toys with mickey mouse crudely painted on spiderman dolls. What came over me, I still don’t know, “Sure” as we walked up to the building, down some stairs into a narrow dark pathway full of strange looking people, One old man saying prayers to him self while others rushed by the beggars to remove their shoes. I was feeling adventure some but awful attached to the sperrys I was wearing as I fought off people telling me to put my shoes in the box and they would be fine. I put them in my bag and we walked up stairs. It was a mosque, I believe it was the gauri Shankar mandir but I could be mistaken. It was gorgeous and full of spirit. Those worshipping there moved from sacred ark to ark blessing themselves and the monuments while using colorful flower to dot themselves and the walls with this unknown orange flower that we have described as an Indian marigold. It was beautiful but we felt out of place. Probably because we were snapping what we considered sneaky photos of shrines and people praying. Maybe a poor choice. It was very interesting. This was our first spiritual experience in India, though the building was very basic, It made a huge impact on me and my knowledge of the Hindu religion. After many awkward stares and a few choice angry comments we left. We then walked down the streets past many “hey you look at the exciting stuff in my store, it’s the best”. After ignoring them and attempting to avoid beggars with children or children beggars we found ourselves outside anther mosque. An old man with a deformed arm came up to us, told us to come inside, attempted to direct us where to go. We were hesitant, I don’t want to give more rupees to people who don’t actually do anything for them….I convinced Kelly to check this place out. We found an area to put our shoes, much different from the last mosque, more like a bowling alley. Gave them our shoes they gave us a token to get the shoes back later, good deal. Walking up to the entrance of the mosque slowly and we were barefoot in what seemed like one of the dirtiest streets in the world, we washed our feel in the water basin made of marble at the entrance. It had flowing water shooting out of each stair ahead of each basin so it appeared relatively clean. We passed people bending down to pray at every step and into the mosque. Our ears became aware of more than the constant beeping of disgruntled drives to calm repetitive chanting and music. The mosque was full of antique Persian rugs and people quietly praying and am now finding out it was the gurudwara sisganj, not like I could pronounce it anyways. We felt the switch from tourist to nuisance. However following the American spirit we entered. I was stopped at the door and given a lovely head covering made of pink flowery cloth. Not my choice. “Mickey” the man who tied my head cloth, who insisted we get a picture thought the cloth was hilarious. We entered and awkwardly moved to the back turned on our cameras and “discreetly” took some photos and videos. We moved up to the second floor and walked by multiple rooms each equipped with hindu statues, many rugs and cloths  and one bearded religious man. People moved from room to room. We looked around some more before moving back downstairs to observe hindu sacrament taking place behind the alter. People we lining up to pay homage to gods in the form of religious artifacts located under the alter. We made our way out and collected our shoes. Back to the crazy world of the chandni chowk we went dodging annoying shop owners and annoying some shop owners ourselves with constant pictures and never a sale. We ended up at a linen store and took our shoes off and went in. I was becoming slightly more comfortable with this concept but still kept an eye on my shoes out the door. Kelly and me looked through several linens and decided on a red, traditional looking linen which we learned how to make into a traditional Indian dress. We found out later in the room that we were not as good at figuring that out as we thought… We then embarked to locate the jama masjid.

                We had previously watched a video on this gargantuan mosque and had a pretty good plan. After finding that the taxi driver had dropped us off about ½ a mile from the mosque we crossed the street and jumped on a bike rickshaw to the mosque. We picked the wrong rickshaw guy and not only did he over charge us, he was too old to continue biking at one point and had to pull the rickshaw. We made it to the mosque, grabbed some touristy photos and paid the 200 rupees to enter. Kelly then had to pay for a tacky dress as it was head to toe covering for women. We walked onto this large upon area and were greeted by an incredibly hot ground on our  shoeless feet. We walked over to go to the tower to find out we needed another ticket, 100 rupees later we were on the second level. It was an amazing view but nothing compared to the tower view. The tower view we worked for. Walking up a near endless spiral staircase. We took the panoramic view and attempted to talk to some india teenagers who asked us to take their photo. We obliged and left. Throughout all of chandni chowk we walk in and out of sidestreets and shoebox corner stores ranging from books to lichi fruit. Tons of stores that seemed to sell chicken for some reason had many fly infested sheep head lying around.  It was an increadible hustling environment to which I was unnacustomed. Getting thirsty and possibly hungry (not very after viewing where most of the meat came from) we took another younger rickshaw to a the Kamir restaurant. We had looked this place up and it was more then what we were expecting, low prices amazing food and cold water. After we had rehydrated we become rather hungry and orders some more. We split an order of butter chicken which was chicken in a flavorful orange curry sauce. We orders some naan and a kabob. Despite being a kabob house, the butter chicken was the real attraction. Being sat at a table with two random men in their late twenties we found out they were doctors soon going to America to get licensed there. After polishing off most of the food and all of the water we were pleasantly full and had greatly surpassed the meal from the day before. We left, found a public bathroom that was more public than I would have wished as everyone walking by could see through the glass door. At this point it was late in the day and we decided to head back. Grabbing a third rickshaw for 100 rupees, the same man as who had taken us to the restaurant, he knew we would need one as Americans we didn’t know where to go. We found our cab and got back to the hotel. After cooling down in our room we left for a less adventuresome journey to the mall across the street. This posh site was full of jewelry stores and clothing stores racking up prices on pants that started at 2700 rupees. No thank you. We grabbed some drinks at the hookah bar restaurant, a strawberry smoothie and some Indian tea. Though they used a water bottle for the drink I considered half way though my drink. What about the ice which unlike my lasse smoothie the first day, this smoothie was full of. Oh well. This happens, hopefully I will make it through the night without the need of an immodium, (anti diarrheic). Its about 50 50 at this point. Despite the result I will most likely tell you I was fine regardless of the actual situation. Tomorrow we go to agra to the Taj mahal. Early night. Early morning.