October 9, 2009 – Day 288 – Delhi, India

Ah, India. You are such a complicated, hypocritical, flamboyant, intense place and people. A walk through the streets will give you the real flavor of India. Outside your hotel lies a furiously whirling dance of bicycle and auto-rickshaws, beggars, touts, vendors with carts of fruit, clothes, watches, or sugar cane presses for fresh juice, enlightened westerners decked out in full Indian garb, budget backpackers pushing past dirty street kids and trashing-munching cows, and of course the locals who are just passing by that are too busy to try to sell you something at that moment. Everyone has an agenda no matter how friendly and sincere they seem. It can be difficult to weed out the scammers and the curious chatters.

In the streets

After battling through the streets and finally haggling for a fair price, we were in a zippy auto-rickshaw heading for the Red Fort. As with many sites in India, the entrance price was a whopping $5 for foreigners (locals only pay something like Rs. 50) but it was a nice place to get away from the chaotic surge of the city and its incessant noise that will likely deafen us by the end of our time in this country.

Shops in the entrance

Main Gate

Inside the marble floors and faded stone inlays of colorful floral designs make a nice contrast to the bold red of the fort walls. There are plenty of places to rest in the shade and there are plenty of people who will stop to ask you the usual list of questions if you decide to sit down for a bit.

Calm and quiet

Forgotten Fountain

Of course a few others will ask you to let them take your picture, often with them or other family members. Don’t feel that you must—it is quite easy to refuse politely. (After all, you may have been to interesting places where this old man or that colorfully dressed woman will ask you not to take their picture.)