Toto, We are Not in Kansas Anymore...

Although I did eat lunch at the Yellow Brick Road...

Made it! The flight was great thanks to a lot of miles and a business class upgrade. I slept over half the flight...and am "pretending" I get to fly back that way. Made it through immigration (finally...) and on to the hotel. Walking out of security there were literally hundreds of people and luckily I had prearranged my hotel transportation so I found the little man (he could not have been more than 5 feet) with my name on a sign and off we went. Driving here is...shall we say interesting. One of the reasons Delhi is such a loud city is that instead of lanes and laws, they use horns to tell another car (motorcycle, rickshaw, person) to get out of their way. Hotel is great and I slept a good 11 hours. Finally on Friday mid-morning I worked up the courage to actually leave my hotel and start this journey. So, I check with the hotel to see what's around and off I go. Let's just say I ended up back in the hotel an hour later SWEATING a great deal and decided that from now on I would take rickshaws. I never actually made it to where I was going because I was afraid to cross the street :) So I decided to regroup and have my first Indian meal at the restaurant in my hotel (the yellow brick road). I was very impressed that I ordered something random and saw that another man ordered it too. Luckily the waiter took pity on me and explained the meal, he was very nice and I'm going back today for breakfast so he can help again.

After I was ready to go and hoped in a rickshaw and was off for an afternoon of sightseeing. Went to the place where Ghandi lived out his last days and was assasinated, went to a museum where another leader (Indira Ghandi, no relation) also was killed (leading seems to be a dangerous business here).

Then went to the Craft Museum where all this art from around India is kept and they have people there making more. Finally went to Humayun's Tomb, my first taste of the amazing architecture here. I had a rickshaw driver who offered to be my "driver" for the afternoon and he just told me to pay him what I thought necessary. In the end it was very convenient and only cost me about Rs300 (less than $10) so I thought it was great. By the end of the afternoon I felt I was melting and my face was purple...so I went back to my hotel room and thought I would cool down a bit and then come find the internet, well cooling down turned into a 2-hour nap...guess I was still getting over jet lag! Last night I had a fixed Indian meal (vegetarian...which I think I am going to remain while here...). It was great (Alison, I had our yummy lentil stuff and the yogurt!). After breakfast at the hotel, I'm off to Connagut Place, which is a big market area.

A few first impressions:
>I have not seen a lot of "white" people...either I'm not hitting the tourist spots or there are just not a lot here.
>A single-woman traveler is rare and people look at me like I'm crazy.

>The poverty is unlike anything I've seen...I was sitting in a rickshaw at a stop light yesterday and on one side was a women with a young baby trying to sell me some magazine and on the other side a young boy who couldn't walk had scooted up beside me in the street. What is most sad is seeing the children.

>The people in my hotel are very polite :)