Day 2: Welcome to India!

After fourteen long hours, my flight finally landed in New Delhi.  I was impressed by the airport terminal, which just opened last year.  Everything was very nice, and one thing that struck me was that everything was either labeled only in English, or in English primarily and Hindi secondarily.  There were lots of people in customs, but I got through quickly and without issue.  I walked to the baggage claim and my bag was the first I saw.  I then had my bag scanned and I was in India.  My driver recognized me before I even saw him, and then we were off.  All in all, I probably spent less than twenty minutes between stepping off the plane and leaving the airport.  I guess that is karma for my long delay yesterday.

Customs at the New Delhi, which actually moved very quickly

The ride to the hotel was easy as well, though I had forgotten that driving was done on the left side of the road.  Things were a bit crazy, but traffic was not bad, and my car did not bump into another the entire trip, as I had been warned might happen.  The driver did like to offer his services, however.  He asked if I was going to Agra, and when I answered affirmatively, he continually offered to take me there, despite my assurances that my uncle had everything already planned out.

A New Delhi street

An interesting statue

Cyclists weaving through traffic

I am staying at the Courtyard Marriott Gurgaon, which is very nice, much nicer than a Courtyard in the States.  In fact, they even have universal power outlets in the wall so I don’t need to convert to use my plugs.  Another interesting feature of the electricity in the hotel is that it goes out a couple of times each day.  Since I have been here, it has already gone off three times, always coming back online within ten seconds.  According to Nilesh, a friend Greg was meeting with, New Delhi has one of the best infrastructures in India.  In other cities, the power will go off for hours at a time.  We ate lunch in the hotel restaurant.  I had the buffet, so I got to taste a bit of each dish, many of which were pretty good, though don’t ask me what I had, because I don’t know.  The really odd part was the service.  All of the staff of the restaurant treated us as if we were eating at the nicest restaurant in the world, constantly asking to do things for us.  It didn’t help that we ate before most Indians, leaving about six waiters to help us.  The power went off once while we ate, and it was interesting to see no one react and just continue as normal until it came back on.

Fancy outlets

Lunch, don't bother asking what these things are.

We then went down to a fairly normal mall and the Sarojini Nagar market, which is a local market with all kinds of things, though mostly clothes and jewelery.  And by local, I mean local.  The entire time we were there, we saw not a single other westerner.

Shopping for a Saree for Greg's wife at the mall.

Now this is India!

A small section of the market.

Greg going Indian

Tomorrow, we will travel down to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal under the moonlight, coming back to the hotel afterwards.  According to Nilesh, Indians can just walk up and get a ticket, but as foreigners, we need special permission.  Nilesh had to come up with a whole letter about how we are his guests and we want to see the Taj Mahal.  This letter must be submitted to and approved by the Archaeological Survey of India.  Once that is approved, we will be good to go.