So...Today was Day 6, Right?

Wrong. Day 1 went on forever, but in a good way. Except for the jet lag everything is amazing (its 5:30 AM and I’ve been up for two hours). And no one’s been stolen from or had their stomach explode yet! Great success!

We started with orientation yesterday morning. We learned a whole bunch of useful things; like how to use a squat toilet, how not to offend people with the bottoms of our feet and left hands, and how to fend off Indian men with dishonorable intentions. We then moved on to our first excursion: the Bangla Sahib, a Sikh Gurdwara where Sikhs go to worship the Book of the Gurus. Sikhism, in a nutshell, is pretty much the humanitarian aspects of both Muslim and Islam – but if a Sikh heard you say that, they’d get really offended. The Bangla Sahib was a huge beautiful temple-like thing that smelled fantastic. We were required to cover our heads and take off our shoes and “clean” our feet in some deliciously murky water. We sat in the temple for a while people-watching. So far, that temple is the only place no one stared at us. I’ve been feeling more and more like an exotic animal. We then walked clockwise around a big pool of water filled with carp used for ritualistic bathing. Clockwise is pretty much the direction for all religious rituals except for the “bone ritual,” which has yet to be explained to me. This particular excursion ended with accepting a gooey sugary deliciousness taken as a sort of communion.

We then moved on to a South Indian Temple where we all gave flower garland offerings to the Goddess of Auspicious Beginnings – which was appropriate. In return for our offering, we all got our first red forehead dot. We also acquired a little 3+ yr old Indian boy as our team mascot. He is probably the cutest freaking thing I’ve ever seen. He took immediately to us and started climbing over everyone and swinging from the guys’ arms and hugging everyone. He took this picture of himself on my camera. Cute, huh! He followed us for a good five minutes, holding peoples’ hands. We were just beginning to wonder if this was considered kidnapping when his mother caught up with us. She had a hard time convincing him that he was in fact, not American, and needed to stop hiding behind our legs and come back.

Hopped our first metro to Old Delhi where we formed a caravan of 10 rickshaws to carry us through the ridiculously narrow and crowded streets of the Kinari Bazaar. We decided rickshaws would be safer and faster for a large group of India-first-timers. Safer? No way – at least not for the people we ran into. It was quite a roller coast ride. And when I say roller coaster, I mean I literally felt like I was on a roller coaster straight out of Magic Mountain. And I have never felt more exposed and touristy than during those 20 minutes when I was a white American woman sitting above the crowd taking pictures of everything, holding onto my purse for dear life, and avoiding eye contact with Indian men like it was my job. And faster? Doubtful. Our caravan caused a traffic backup of epic proportions. It was ridiculously fun, though. Quite an experience. I hear one never forgets their first rickshaw.

The rickshaws dropped us off at Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India. It was my first mosque – it was really a day of firsts for me. I also saw my first yak. Anyway, I was literally blown away by the mosque. It was huge (could fit 20,000 people) and beautiful. We again had to cover our heads and ditch our shoes (my feet were getting pretty black by this time) before we stepped into the open-air courtyard. The ground and the sky were filled with pigeons with little kids chasing them around the center pool. We had to pay a good 200 rupees (a whopping $4.10) to bring a camera inside, so I could only take this one picture outside the mosque. Smudge on face = red dot. Thought in head = Hi, Mom and Dad! Look! I'm in India!

Autorickshaws took us to the Indira Gandhi Center for the Arts for a Northeast India performance of native songs and dances. Oh, autorickshaws, where do I start… I swear we were going to hit everything within in a ten-foot radius. I had to keep myself from yelling “watch out! You’re gonna hit that bus and kill us all! Hey! You almost ran over that baby! What are you doing?!” At one point, after a particularly complex merge, Becky and I just looked at each other and I said “holy hell, I can’t believe we crossed that street.” Anyway, I’m sure the performance at the Arts Center was lovely, but I don’t know b/c I fell asleep in my chair.

India is endlessly fascinating but it still hasn’t sunk in that I’m actually here. Parts of Delhi look straight out of Disneyland and the smog that creates a haze over everything gives it a feel of unreality. Even the hard evidence of my presence in India, such as my disgustingly dirty feet, my black boogers, the roll of toilet paper stashed in my bag, and my newly formed habit of looking right instead of left before crossing the street doesn’t make it feel any more real. Maybe today will feel more like India now that the initial culture shock is over and my stomach is getting accustomed to the spice.

Today we meet Double H DL, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Yep, two days in India and we’re already rolling with the big dogs.