New Delhi Update

It's mid-day on our second day in the Delhi area. I'm on the bus traveling from Gurgaon back to New Delhi so I thought I would make use of the time. Of course, one can always be entertained by looking out the window.

Today is warm (although Weather Bug wouldn't load so I don't know the temperature) and hazy, but not raining. It's been raining a lot here. Yesterday was really got and humid and we did have rain during our city tour. We got rained on at Qutab Minar, where many of us - myself included - had gotten off the bus without our umbrellas. The rain stopped and mostly held off for our stop at Hunmayan's Tomb, but when we got to Ghandi Smriti it poured. There was even lightning at one point. We were under the covered walkway so mostly stayed dry, but the site lacked the serenity I felt on previous visits even with the added solemnity of the rain. Some student walked out into to the garden to view the spot where Gandhi was killed, but I skipped it in favor of dryness. Whether from the earlier rain or simply from sweating, everything still felt damp long after I got back to the hotel.

Early morning arrival in Delhi.

Our trip here was mostly uneventful. The bus ride was quiet at first, since only my two colleagues and I left Bloomington together. In Zionsville we picked up 10 students and the bus became much livlier, particularly with the addition of Steven who is quite outgoing and has an infectious laugh. We had some group presentations and a pre-departure meeting at the Radisson, where we also got to learn everyone's name and eat our fill of fresh-cut vegetables - our last for the next 10 days.

Security at O'Hare was slow but manageable. We passed the K-9 smell test, so we were allowed to "drop and go" at the metal dector. Didn't even have to take off our shoes! The Emirates Airline plane was nice, with a robust entertainment system, charging outlets, and a fancy starlight-like ceiling. I was annoyed by the meal service, though. They run out of meals with meat by the time they get to row 41 (both flights!) And for some reason they serve dinner after midnight  (both flights!). I wanted to go to bed right away after we took off at 9:28 CDT to help me adjust to the upcoming time change. Apparently the airline staff had other plans.

We arrived at our hotel around 5:30 am and got checked in. The idea of a nap was appealing, but instead I had just enough time to get comfortably settled, take a glorious hot shower, check 40-some email messages, and enjoy the generous breakfast before leaving at 9 am for the sightseeing tour. I've been everywhere we visited - Qutab Minar and Gandhi Smriti twice, and Humayan's Tomb once before. Fortunately, we had a decent guide who shared new things and took us to new places at the Minar and the Tomb - so I enjoyed it! (Well... other than the heat and rain.) I was surprised at Humayan's Tomb, as they have been doing a lot of restoration work on it and it's more impressive than it was in 2013. They are also building an major new visitors center, so there is quite an investment in making this World Heritage site a top-notch tourist destination.

Today we visited the IU Gateway, and the drive took longer than expected so we arrived late. We had two lectures by faculty from J Nehru University. The first woman talked about history, and she was quite good. She said she would get into drtail, but she actually got into a lot more detail than I expected - as much as she could really fit into a 45-minute overview of thousands of years of history. Several students asked qood quetions, and I learned a few things (as much about the field of history as about Indian history itself - pretty interesting).

The next guy was a sociologist and, to my surprise, his talk had a lot of overlap with the history lecture. Good reinforcement, I guess. Unfortunately he was a little harder to stick with... maybe because of the repeated content, maybe because his accent was more challenging, or maybe because by this point I was more tired. In the end, I also learned some new things from him, particularly more about the origins and structure of the caste system and some differences between traditional cultures and modern cultures. Interesting, some of what he told us reinforced what our tour guide said yesterday about the origins of the Sikh religion.

We had, as expected, a South Indian buffet lunch in a too-small room at the Gateway office. Tasty enough, but then we hung around way too long after we finished eating. We checked out the rooftop garden, which is nice, but then I got anxious and frustrated while trapped in the noisy lunch room while waiting for us to finally board the bus back to New Delhi. Our afternoon plan didn't come to fruition, so now we're improvising an itinerary for the rest of the day. We're back in New Delhi now, where we plan to visit some temple (something new for me) before going out for shopping and dinner tonight, possibly followed by a ride on the Metro and a walk around the area of the Parliament building, which I would love to do.

Oh, yeah - my 14th-floor hotel room has a great view of the Parliament building. (Doh - just drove past India Gate, which took me by surprise so I didn't get a picture.)

The students were surprised by their first glimpse of Humayan's Tomb. Much bigger than they expected.

At Humayan's Tomb.