India Feb 5-7, 2009

I'm in India!!!

Delhi to be exact, and it's an amazing place. 15 million people live here, and it feels cliche to say it, but when youlook around the busy streets of Delhi, Old and New, you cant help but think, 'thats just under half the entire population of Canada'.

First impressions
Wildlife - Its amazing to see cows wandering the streets or lying on the sidewalks, I saw a rather large pig as well enjoying his afternoon buffet from the overflowin garbage bin. There are only a few less dogs per square meter than Athens had, but i do not think these have been fixed. They do seem rather docile, happy to lie in the dirt and sleep the day away. On a trip through the gardens i stopped to photograph the monkeys who were dining on bananas and cucumbers, totally free and if not in their natural,wild habitat, at home none-the-less. I think they are rather domesticated by now and dependant on the food given to them by a few people of the streets.

Traffic - is complete madness!!! on some of the roads, the lanes are marked but that still odesn't mean peole stay within the lines. cars lane split just as often as motorcycles and you drive with on hand for steering and using your mobile and the other for shifting and honking the horn. I am not kidding, the horn is used constantly to alert drivers that you are there and so that they do not change lanes because you are only inches away from them. Every car here has a dent or scratch. I do love the Rickshaws and the Autorickshaws. it is common to find bicycles laden with Gas and propane tanks, or pulling cartloads of vegetables behind them. It would be extreme adventure indeed to try and drive in Delhi.

Economics - I am not sure if it is the places I have been to in my day here, but I have seen alot of poor people, many sleeping on the streets in the middle of the day, begging prolifically and then, according to my taxi driver Hassir, 'eating well a little later on and out of sight'. Honestly, I see that they are not well, I wonder if they do live on the streets, and how they survive. In a city of 15m, it seems easy to be forgotten or lost or alone.

Culture and Religion - is varied and rich here. There are Muslim, Hindu, Buddhists, Sikhs, Christians, and many others here. I have not yet discovered if they live harmoniously, but it looks that way from the outset.