Where to begin?

I've got these photos all jangled up, but bear with me.  These first ones are from today when I took the HOHO bus (Hop on Hop off) bus and managed to go to the Red Fort, The Museum of Art, Hamayun's Tomb, The National Museum AND the whacky Jantar Mantar.  Here is part of the enormous Hamayun's Tomb, the one in the middle is HIS tomb, and those around the site are many others', including the barber's.

This is back on the train from Calcutta to Delhi when I got up to go to the bathroom in the night; these are the sleeping porters, right on the floor, and I just had to step lightly lest I wake them...

These two grafitti signs were on the wall as I drove to the Delhi University Guest House.  The outrage over the rapes is palpable; so, too, is the police coverage for the rallies that go on outside one of the gates to the Red Fort and the high security in the metro stations where one must put his/her bags through the radar tunnel and walk through the X-ray camera every time you ride the metro!  

This was some of the jumble at Chandni Chowk last night after we went to the Jama Masjid, the mosque that can hold 25,000 people.

This was a door at that mosque.

Below you can see a glimpse of the Red Fort where I took so many photos of miniscule things like the flower designs in the walls that it would be a crashing bore to post.

There have been tons of people who have stopped me to ask if they could take their photo with me, and this is just ONE of my series of new best friends, all of whom seem to want to be photographed with the zombie in the short skirt!

This is something I only read about but didn't actually see; The Bird Hospital where they take ONLY vegetarian birds; however, they will tend carnivores on an outpatient basis.  Ha.

15-5-2013

Taking the Raidhani Express from Sealdah Station yesterday made me happy that I’d had experiences on the Chinese train system, which was full of joy, sights, smells and adventure.  Last night’s “adventure” proved to be more trying because I was in a compartment with a very, very loud Indian man who had NO sense of other, shoving  their 6 bags under all the seats, asking me to trade my bed for an upper bunk (no, thank you, said I), stepping on my hand whenever he climbed up to his bunk, but mostly just yapping at enormously loud decibels as I tried to read.  The older women traveling with him and the older man who had to struggle up to the higher sleeping berth were lovely, but HE was incorrigible and thoughtless, as I am beginning to believe most Indian men are…

I have forgotten about the man getting a shave on the street in Calcutta, and after his facial shave, the man with his knife shaved under his arms!  Who knew?

New Delhi station was a madhouse, but I got the prepaid auto, as instructed, arrived at the University of Delhi Guesthouse without a problem and even ate lunch – a help yourself rice, dal, veggie, curd, chapatti affair.  I finally got through to Afroja’s daughter Utsa who says she is not available until 5, which is fine with me as I shall walk around the campus and perhaps try my hand at the metro which looks really organized and has a stop nearby.

Afroja’s son Ujon had led me to believe that the food on the train was terrific and endless and delicious.  All I can say is, don’t count on it, but the fare from Calcutta to Delhi for 3^rd class was less than $100, and I did get to see the countryside WHILE experiencing Mr. Loudmouth who seems to work for a medical company of sorts, headquartered in New York but he’s never been to headquarters, which says it all.

I forgot that at the Indian Museum in Calcutta there was a diorama depicting something about some gods or other, and the figures used were BARBIE DOLLS.  It was too, too wonderful, but I was forbidden to use my camera.  Also, last night taking the metro to DU Guest House I watched one train where men were packed in so tightly that one man’s stomach protruded enough so the door was not going to be able to close; just at that moment ONE more man came barging into the sardined group on that train and wedged HIMself into the jumble of bodies.  The door closed (it just HAS to be curved!), and off it zipped with arms, legs, torso, heads all lapped over one another so that it looked like a puzzle.

Last night to Jama Masjid where we had to put on flowered, enormous, billowing polyester long house coats to walk around the edges and into the mosque where our “guide” took our photos, pointed out good places for us to take photos, until one snippy little Muslim woman came up to me and jerked the loosened lower part of my dress around to cover my legs.  For shame!  I wanted to smack her.  Meanwhile whole families were picnicking along the edges of the mosque and goats were prancing around a little enclosed corral below in anticipation of tonight’s wedding feast that was set up in a huge tent .

I am too tired to write any more, but leave you to turn your computer to see this photo of my and Utsa who had to put on these polyester house coats in order to go around the mosque yesterday; you just cannot beat the attire - OR the poses!