We began our day today on the rooftop terrace, where breakfast was served. Curry and chai perfection! After a quick cab ride to the hoho tourist office, we hopped on the bus, Gus. We saw some of New Delhi’s landmarks and hopped off for India Gate!
Michael, India Gate, New Delhi, India, 2018
India Gate was built as a monument to honour the Indian soldiers who died in World War One. Their names are carved in the bricks of the arch. We drove through the chaos of New Delhi traffic once again. It’s a thrill ride I’ll never get over and never get enough of. I love the adrenaline rush it provides!
After a very uncomfortable last leg on the hoho bus (the guide on our second bus was a starer and bound and determined to engage us in conversation not pertaining to the hoho experience), we were on our own to find our way back to the hotel.
Tuktuk time!
As Graham said in the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, “All life is here!” I now believe him. I now understand what he meant.
We will be meeting our tour guide this afternoon, along with the other tourists in our G Adventures group. Looking forward to it! And, as a group, we’ll be heading back to the restaurant we visited for supper last night. Kitchen With A Cause is a restaurant that gives back to the community. A socially conscious restaurant. And the food is incredible!
After a 15 1/2 hour flight from Toronto, Canada to Guangzhou, China, a two hour layover and a 5 1/2 hour flight from Guangzhou to New Delhi, we are here! Bucket-list Item checked off! India, India!
Tour starts in a day and a half. We’re on our own until then. Started our adventure with a trip to the hotel rooftop, where they have a restaurant patio. Chana Masala was incredible!
The music of car horns is a constant reminder of the chaos on the streets below. The horn here is used to signal to others that you’re coming through, that you’re changing lanes and making lanes of your own. And, hey, that’s okay. Off you go! It’s a madness of tires and metal and mayhem and horns that seems to work like a well tuned orchestra. It’s horrifying and beautiful to witness. I saw babies on motorcycles, squished between Mommy and Daddy and smiling away. Everyone is an integral part of the orchestra. Everyone honks. Even pedestrians join in on the melee, walking through the impossible chaos with the synchronicity of ballet dancers.
This is day one in India. We are here. We join the beautiful chaos!
Circa or Exactly 2018…To be precise. If the fates allow. We are scheduled to take off in 147 days(ish). Not that I’m counting (pssst…spoiler alert, I’m counting).
Every single time I go on a holiday I mean to journal the experience so I can cultivate from it at a later date for my fiction. Every single time I do not do this. Even when I had a novel idea for the Camino de Santiago before I set out to Spain on that adventure, I didn’t journal as planned. I carried a journal in my backpack, though. All the other useless stuff weighing me down wasn’t enough. I also had to make sure I was carrying a journal I wouldn’t crack open a single time along the Way of St. James. I was too busy splashing in mud puddles and meeting new people to bother with a journal. Next time!
I regret my inability to journal immediately after every journey I take. And yet the cycle never changes. So, I’m calling myself out. THIS TIME I shall attempt to journal once again. In September, when we embark on this trip to India, I will have a journal with me. This time will be different. This time I will not only carry a journal across a country. I will open it. I will write in it. I will bear witness to what it is I’m bearing witness to. I will make words every night and keep track of the smells and the sights and the sounds and the people and the animals and the tastes. I will prevail.
And I will scour Ontario for the ugliest journal known to man. This way I can’t use the highly popular excuse, “But it’s far too pretty to spoil” argument that renders me incapable of writing a single word in the journals I choose solely for their pretty factor. I will pick the butt-ugliest journal on the shelf and I will christen it with words before we even land. That is the goal.
As Exhibit A below suggests, however, I may fail in my goal. I carried the same journal with me to 3 consecutive Ontario Writers’ Conference conferences. Each time I planned to take notes in it. Each time I couldn’t bear to destroy it with the presence of ink. At the 4th conference I casually mentioned my dilemma to Wayson Choy. Apparently Wayson is an extremely pragmatic man. He ripped the journal from my hand, opened to a random page and jotted down the following:
Exhibit A
My problem? Wayson is not coming to India with us. Maybe I can toss my ugly India journal into the street and run over it a couple of times with my car. Or maybe I can pound my fists on Wayson’s front door and plead with him to christen my new ugly India journal?
My problem with that is, ever since Wayson wrote in the above journal (Exhibit A) I have been unable to write in it. I mean, Wayson Choy wrote in it! So, no late night drive-by pleading for journal christening. The running-it-over-with-the-car idea is looking better by the second.
I need to journal India. I mean, I need to. I have always wanted to set a story (stories) in India. I don’t know what, but I know I want to do it. I’m hoping the story will come to me in my travels. But I’m afraid it won’t if I don’t diligently journal.
I’ll figure something out. I did commit my commitment to a blog post, after all. That’s one way of attempting to police myself. If I blog about it, it has to happen. Right?
Edit To Add:
Found a journal. This one from the Dollarama spoke to me!
KEVIN CRAIG 