Fish bowl

Getting to the airport in Mumbai (no problem), getting to the right flight (no problem), waiting in line on the airplane to take off (annoying), arriving 45min late when you were going to land at 10:15 (frustrating). The big question mark in my mind of coming back to Delhi was: am I going to be able to find my way to the hotel I'm staying at? India is a land of many things, but detailed maps is not one of them. Trying to explain to a driver where your hotel is when the roads in an area are not well marked and the city is huge can sometimes present a challenge. Thus my plan (having talked it over with Shawn) was to get a prepaid taxi at the airport and ask to be taken to CP (short hand for Connaught Place) and asked to be dropped off at Jantar Mantar (giant astronomical structures in this park) which is close to the hotel. Get into the cab, say CP, the driver asks where in CP, Jantar Mantar, he replies oh the YCA. I reply yes YWCA. Half-hour later we arrive at the YMCA in CP. Not exactly where I wanted to be, long story even longer my hotel was only around the block and now I'm back in Delhi. I was able to get another night at this hotel (where I thought I was going to have to switch hotels tomorrow meaning I would have to carry my bag all day) so that is a good thing. This is most likely going to be the last post from India as tomorrow I am going to be in Agra all day (that is where the Taj Mahal is) and then the next day I get up and go to the airport for my flight. I know all you die hard readers out there are going to go through withdrawal for a little while, but I will post when I get back to London on my stopover though I might try to get to this cybercafe on Thursday morning before my flight, it all depends on when I get up. Now, some might be wandering what the title of this blog means seeing as I have yet to mention anything about fish or bowls. It is a term I have thought about a lot while being in India and I think that it makes sense. In Mumbai, Shawn and I met up with another friend who is in India traveling around, Lucas (who is also a white guy, but he gets props because he can speak some Hindi). Shawn and he went out to shop a little one night and I stayed back at the hotel and Shawn noted that Lucas didn't get a second look while they were going to shop, but somehow I usually get stares (flat out staring). Shawn attributed this to the blond hair (for those who haven't herd when I was in Japan, the first day, we were in a mall and a woman came running up to me to ask what I had used to dye my hair, needless to say she was disappointed to find out it was natural), but it is something to be in a country in which you are (for 99% of the time) the only blond person in the city (which most of the time is over 14 million people). The staring brings me to the fish bowl effect. When in a country where you are most obviously a foreigner it can feel sometimes as if you are a fish in a fish bowl, people stop, stare at you, you can stare out at them (and some may even tap the glass a little with their fingers), but for the most part you are in the water and they are in the air and that is that. Coming to Delhi has put this fish out of water and for the first time in India I am truly interacting with others to get by as before I would let Shawn do all the talking and I would stand by like a mute boy. It is easier to get around here then in other countries because so many speak English, but to truly get into a country, a people, a culture you have to speak the language. Maybe one day (and the list of languages I want to learn increases by one). ttfn.

Picture count: not saying but will grow dramatically tomorrow I am sure.