Brooke Weeks had been making fast friends with all kinds of people in the month that she had been in India. As a result she had hooked us up with drivers, food, and lodging through a friend of a friend. After leaving the airport in a car with Brooke, a driver, a translator, Jenneli and I we proceeded to drive through the streets and not really roads of Delhi. Within 5 minutes of leaving the airport we had taken a shortcut through a dirt path that I can only describe as an old farm road. I was beginning to question the motives of Brooke’s friends, but soon enough we were back on paved streets and surrounded by armies of auto-rickshaws, ambassador automobiles and little Asian cars like what we were in. Chaos is the only description I can give for the movement of traffic in India. Streets can have cars, people, bicycles, auto rickshaws, bicycle rickshaws, trucks, elephants, cargo carts, Cows, and Camels to name a few. The street can be loosely divided in direction of travel or more formally with a 3 foot divider. Though even with a divider if a Camel drawn cart really wants to go down the wrong side of the street it will to the annoyed beeping and honking of trucks, cars, and anything else with a horn. Speaking of horns, I’ve been accustomed to not using one. In India it's more of a safe way of saying "I'm here" and on average you'll want to let everyone know you are there every minute. There is a lot of honking. Some of the trucks even have their own special horns that play music.
We toured around Delhi the next few days and worked out a guide to take us to Jaipur, and Agra. Agra is the home of the Taj Mahal. Delhi was bustling and fun though all I can really remember was the heat, traffic and a place called Canaught Place. The food was great and I was looking forward to seeing some of the countryside.
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