delhi belly

it has taken me a long time to take a serious look at my india pictures. it was a trip i will never ever forget, both the incredible beauty and incomprehensible tragedy that filled every sense of every single moment we were there.

for instance, eating in india, in fact, requires all of your senses to experience. the spices are felt through every pore, the colours surprise with unnatural brightness, the aromas shock away the offensive smells of the dirty streets, the kitchens are so close you can hear the sizzling of paneer and the shouting of the chefs, and the texture of whole spices rolling on your tongue in creamy indian gravy...

if it wasn't for the inevitable acquirement of "delhi belly" (e.coli...), i'd make more of an effort to find my way back there again soon...

our first experience was delhi. a city of nearly 14 million people and 7.2 million cars, and i'm sure just as many cows and stray dogs. a city that has been captured, destroyed, and rebuilt innumerable times. a city so polluted that this red head didn't get a sunburn on a cloudless 40 degree celsius day. a city so loud and deceiving that you felt lost and confused the moment you set foot out your hotel door.

but, i must say, we got pretty dang good at it. good at delhi, that is.

that first morning we left our hotel, slightly groggy from jetlag and excitement, only to be led away 15 TIMES in the opposite direction of our intended destination. lonely planet was right! beware of touts!

we learned quickly. it was a game. and we may have lost a few battles, but by the end of the day, we had won many more.

and once we finally got our own feet beneath us again (i swear they were stolen and taken for fools around delhi a few times before we got them back...), we found ourselves an hour later, back at our hotel door, ready to start again.

and so it was that we found the red fort, the dilli haat, nimbooz and dol, ancient artifacts and stones cut so long ago that my brain still cannot completely wrap itself around it. i found myself in complete awe that this many people had been buzzing around these exquisite buildings and temples and carved stones for a billion years, and i was just seeing them for the first time...

it just doesn't make any sense.

so here are our first pictures, our first dip into a country so far away and a culture so foreign, i cannot describe it in words. there might be four million of them, but i just really can't help myself.

love,
r&y