Delhi, India

The days we spent in Delhi were at the end of the hot/dry season, shortly before the rainy season. Record-breaking temperatures were above 110F. As students touring on a budget, we stayed in modest rooms at the YWCA, walked for transportation, and covered our noses to prevent inhalation of the dust and smog. Delhi shocked me with the smells, the filth, the extreme disparities. Poverty and wealth, starvation and fashion, architecture and tin. I avoided taking photos of the filth and poverty, knowing that I could not 'do it justice'.

These were my first impressions:

A meal from the Indian region of Rajistan.

Workers at a busstop. The public health announcement at the busstop urges drivers to hang up their mobile phones!

"Connaught Place", the fancy shopping zone in the center of Delhi.

Purses and pillow cases, music and jewelry from Connaught Place.

A diesel-burning auto-rickshaw juxtapositioned against the government eco-car.

Overall, I cannot say that I enjoyed or even liked Delhi. I appreciated the lesson of hospitality at the Sikh temple, and I needed the jarring reminders about poverty and excess. But the filth of the city, especially in the sweltering heat, was immense. On our last day in Delhi, some of us cooled off in the luxury of a fancy hotel for high tea. It provided acculturation for our travels back to our extraordinarily wealthy lifestyle in the USA.