Day 1: New Delhi

My flight arrived at 2am, and after standing in a very long immigration line at the airport, I made it to the hostel where my friend Kelly was staying at around 4am. Four hours of sleep and then I was up drinking chai tea in the lobby and attempting to book train tickets while waiting for the water tank to be re-filled so that I could shower. Hello, India.

We spent the rest of the morning finding our hotel in the Paharganj area, and booking train and bus tickets online. In the afternoon, we went to visit Humayun's Tomb. Humayun was a Mughal emperor who died in 1556. His wife commissioned the tomb's construction several years after his death. The tomb complex is a large, quiet, shady Persian garden, containing his tomb (a beautiful red sandstone structure with white marble accents) as well as his wife's, along with other Mughal royalty and nobility and even a favorite royal barber.

In the evening, we strolled around Hauz Khas Village - a street of little art galleries, boutiques, restaurants and shops, sprinkled with ancient tombs, stray dogs, and rickshaw drivers. We went Western there and ate at a yummy bagel shop (those kinds of comforts never get old for those of us who call the Orient home).

We wrapped the day up with a meander around the bazaar near our hotel, some fiery chow mein from a street vendor, and sweet lassis to cut the spice.

Tomorrow we'll get an early start to catch the 6am train to Agra!





Fail of the day: Accidentally buying the most expensive thing on the menu at a Punjabi restaurant. That's what you get when you ask for a recommendation! It was 4x the price of just about every other dish offered. (no worries though - it was still less than 5 US dollars)

Comic Moment of the day: Being invited to jump over a guardrail off of an elevated walkway onto a moving ox-drawn cart on the highway (we didn't do it, but it was tempting!).

Shock(s) of the day: Being ambushed by a rat, nearly being run over by rickshaws (frequently), and public (very) bathrooms...