Smelly Delhi / Delhi Belly

  Delhi, India
Monday, June 25, 2007

Delhi is crazy.  Schizophrenic even.  The 2001 census list the population as 14 million.  It is probably more like 47 million now.  It's huge and confusing and filthy.  And HOT.  When our plane landed at 11PM, it was 42 degrees C.  Even in Hong Kong it never goes above 35.

By some strange coincidence or paranormal activity, Jon Claus Van Damme just happened to be flying into Delhi on the SAME DAY - 2 hours after us.  That's crazy.  So this happy coincidence afforded us a surreal beginning to our 3.5 weeks in India.  We stayed at the Radisson.  No wonder we found culture shock awaiting us everywhere else.  In hindsight, we should have started with the $5 a night rooms and worked our way up to the Radisson, not the other way around.

Dad arrived very early in the morning of the 25th, and we spent the morning gorging ourselves on the buffet and hanging out by the swimming pool, before we went to meet Lloyd at our hotel near the train station.  We spent our 2nd night in India at the Gold Regency, which was one of the nicer hotels in that area.
Delhi is a shithole - literally.  There is shit everywhere.  There is a serious sanitation problem.  But nobody seems to care except us - the foreigners.  Why is that?  Everyone needs to shit, I guess.  And most people in Delhi seem to lack a decent place to shit.  So they shit on the sidewalk, in the street, in the phone booth - anywhere.  Aside from the shit, there are piles of rubbish everywhere.  But if they cleaned up the rubbish, then the cows might starve.


Did I mention that Delhi is really hot?  As my science students will tell you, smells travel more quickly and efficiently the hotter the air - particle motion and all that.

We spent some time arranging our train tickets and dreaming of the mountains to come.