On The Road Again

I have conquered Delhi.

I walked behind the hostel where I was staying, crossed over a railway bridge and found an internet cafe. Then I negotiated a rickshaw to take me to Connaught Place, the main shopping area in Delhi. I found the clothing shop everyone told me about, got overwhelmed by the choices, came out screaming, and negotiated with another rickshaw to take me back to the hostel. I have my bearings in Delhi now and the crowds and pollution suddenly seem less offensive.

Today, I rejoined the march. It was a short walk as we arrived at the march after 11 a.m. For lunch, we stopped at a school in a small village. Carole, a delightful French marcher, and I walked down a road towards what looked like a temple. Before we knew it, a swarm of children followed us, calling out and I think, asking for money. After some photographs of the dome-temple structure, we headed back to our lunch camp.

That's when a man joined the children in following us. He gestured for us to take a turn away from where we were going. He said something like, No margin. Not understanding what he meant, we declined and said goodbye.

Then we saw the Buddhists coming toward us. They said they were looking for the market. So I said to Carole, Let's follow them. If we get into trouble, at least they will pray with us. It turned out one of the monks spoke Hindi. The swarm of children grew larger now as we went through narrow lanes into the village.

Before long, we saw a large temple ruin rivaling any English castle ruin. It reminded me of a scene in one of the Indiana Jones movies. I took more photos as we walked through the temple grounds. When the Buddhists got to the end of the temple, they said, No market here. So we went back down where we came to return to camp.

In evening, foreigners on the march were invited to the mayor's house for tea. We were served lemon pop, tea, coke, cookies, and chips. The fare was like a children's party though it was 7 p.m.

But the visit was charming. Despite the run down roads outside, inside the iron gate and concrete walls of the mayor's home was a manicured lawn and palm trees. The garden grounds were well swept, with no dust anywhere. Tables were set for us on the lawn.

The mayor also invited us to the back of her garden to see her cows and their cow-dung electricity converter. They take dung from their cows, feed it into a well, churn with water, and a cistern type structure converts the dung into gas, which is fed through a tube to supply their kitchen with cooking gas. They said their food even tastes better cooking with this gas.