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11.12.05

BOMBAY = BOLLYWOOD
= AMITABH BACHCHAN = GOD


Four albums, click on each photo to access.




Rest of New Delhi + Red Fort



Old Delhi



Bombay (Mumbai) + Islands



Dadar Wholesale Market (no, gaylord is actually a darn good restaurant) uploading

Oh oh oh india is a wonderful place
The land of tents and palaces, temples and beggars. The first thing you notice when you get in is the smell. You get used to it but it never goes away (try jogging in it, you finish coughing up blood black from all the pollution inhaled). The men jog in long pants, leather shoes, longsleeved shirts. The women, in Punjabi suits/sarees. Besides that there is the

FOOD

The main highlight of the trip. For no more than a hundred rupees you can get a meal big enough to spill off a table, to feed eight people. four bucks, guys. Absolutely stuffed by everything they have there, and yes we ate indian for every meal. Typical meal goes like this

Kabab (chunks of meat, vegetable, cheese, grilled in tandoor)
Rice (briyani, or pullao, or plain), with chunks of stuff
Bread (naan, kulcha, roti), served with dal
3 curries (mutton/fish/chicken/vegetable. no beef or pork here)

MASSIVE, vomit-inducing quantities. And every day too, every meal. Gained 4kg =(
But cheap, good, value for money. just don't drink the water or ask for ice in your drink

BOLLYWOOD

We watched bollywood, and you realise why they don't export them. It blends

Cliche (after cliche after cliche after cliche)
Non-stop sound effects and loud music
No plot
Dancing =D even in fight scenes
Immaculately dressed, gorgeous actors/actresses/. ALWAYS. drenched in blood, fighting to the death, getting blown up/screwed, always properly dressed
"You have a bomb in your backside"

Heck for 200 rupees its value for money just abandon all judgement and enjoy and laugh and laugh and laugh.

And ogle at aishwarya rai =D

ROADS

have no markings or crossings, rarely working traffic lights. To cross you must run and dodge the cows and tuk-tuks. (so we ran halfway, got stuck, ran back, had everybody laugh at us -.-) Coming back here, you realise how safe, quiet, sane we get it =/

GRANDEUR

India's got it in truckloads. Tens of omgwtf monuments from which you feel the vestiges of past greatness emanating. Like Humayun's tomb, the Taj, temples, Red Fort, the mosque we went to, it seems to have seeped into the stones. Too bad they've been left alone, and you get them graffiti-laced, dirty, decaying. Still you get this sense of awe when confronted with their vastness, their beauty, their grandeur, and you sense the vision of those that built them. Easy to plop together stones with a crane and bulldozer, but with only hands, feet and time?

WRETCHEDNESS

Outside the gates of these monuments a crowd of beggars gathers to beg from the tourists who come. They latch onto you, follow you around and don't give up until you give in. Heck they'd even run across their famously safe streets to stay on your trail. And the sad thing is, they're mostly infant-carrying women, and Bangladeshi to boot. Or maybe lepers, drug addicts, even little children for god's sake. Heartwrenching at first, but you get immune to it soon after the millionth little boy raps on your window at a traffic light for a few rupees.

SO the universal cry
"what is the government doing?"

CHAOS

Chaos is perfected here, becoming a zen-like tranquility. I mean, what more can you expect the government apparatus stays locked up behind their high gates and kalashnikov-toting guards (we drove past tens of these palaces), leaving the people to fend for themselves. Things get done one way or another, so nobody actually gets angry or impatient. Like

Traffic jams (so what? drive on opposite side [oncoming traffic])
Bureaucracy {bribe the darn officer)

Old delhi is the capital of chaos. I think the pictures are better haha.


MARKETS

They sell everything. Wanted to buy saxophone but half the keys were gone so (and it was black)... Cheap for 150 bucks though... And that's without haggling, down to at least 50%

CONTRAST

That's what it is, really. Invert singapore and you get india =D


ate your heart out at 11:34 PM

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