XC 1X2

 Move out day. I’m ready to be rid of this hotel. The area is unpleasant and lacks anything for me other than a metro station. Water is heated in the mornings and evenings only a you have to draw for 20 minutes before the pipes warm up. It shouldn’t take so long but the building has no heat either. They’re out of electric heaters and the blanket they sent to my room is black. At least the chai is good. All aboard the big tourism van. Our first stop was a walk and chat with a man who grew up sleeping rough on the streets of Delhi and now works for the organization that saved his life. Walking the alleys by the main railway station it is abundantly easy to tell who spends time in places like these and who does not. We run the gamut from zippered pockets and jackets over our beltline to wallets held in front of our bodies for safekeeping. As the joke goes, I don’t need to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun you. Our Quaker City Our next stop is a Sikh temple near the market area I ...

 Why don’t all hotels have masala chai ready to go in the morning? The world would be a better place. After breakfast and a cuppa. I went off for an adventure. The “view” from my hotel balcony I started the day off at Connaught Circle for no reason other than it’s a convenient metro ride and it seems like a place where things happen. Well… sorta true. Connaught is one of New Delhi’s major traffic circles and around the center has a number of shops ranging from gutbucket no name clothing to high end jewelry. A really strange mix. I wandered into a bazaar built underground below the circle for a bit and decided I’d had my fill. I directed myself South down Janpath to see what was there. New Delhi is clearly the product of British Garden City development. Straight broad roads lined with trees. Traffic circles. Buildings set back from the right of way. Basically if the British decided they were going to imitate Paris in India. Maddeningly, the genius who laid out the streets decided on...

 The hotel’s breakfast is lovely. Mostly because they have good tea. In Uzbekistan tea was plentiful and tasted more or less like water, you can imagine I’ve been excited to be in a country of chai walla. I made my way through the crowds to the metro station. I’m starting to see some order in the chaos here. This county drives on the left and stands on the left. I think this may be the main point of confusion with Americans trying to walk around here. In fact, I’m finding that people in Delhi have more consistent walking habits than people in central London. The rules are simple. Walk left, pass right, never stop moving. These rules also apply to traffic on the road. It looks chaotic but there is a water like flow to it. You’ll notice quickly that the traffic is thick but never actually at a standstill, there is no gridlock. People take but they also give. The honking was an adjustment too. In the US a honk means something like “what the fuck are you doing?” Out here it’s a quick “...

 Awake too soon. I pack my bag, check out and hit the airport. Another miserable check in with UZ air. When I walk into the airport there is security. My bag and I are scanned. Then I stand in a line to have my visa checked. Another to check in and get my boarding pass. Another for passport control. Another for security again. One more line to board for good measure. I know all of this sounds standard but for some reason the lines just feel longer here. The airport is crowded. Families stay with their loved ones for as long as they can which gums up the terminal. The lines aren’t laid out well so people often have to swim upstream to exit. Passport control was the slowest I’ve ever seen and I don’t know why. It felt like every other person had to explain at length why they should be allowed to return to their home countries. Security had to manually shuttle empty bins to the front of the line, sanitary disposable sock covered were littered everywhere, and the British police were re...

 Yesterday when walking the city I’d spotted a small cafe that proclaimed it was selling coffee, French pastries, Korean desserts, and New York bagels. In that moment I realized I hadn’t had a bagel since leaving London and that a chewy hunk of boiled dough sounded nice. Adding to that, this city having a decent Russian population means that any preserved fish will be worth eating. Lucky for me, this also provided an excuse to sleep in late enough to miss the buffet at The Hotel Uzbekistan. Not a great loss. This is the first bagelry I’ve been to that doesn’t have an everything to sell. They did have fig, which was not going to meld with my savory mood but is definitely in my mental notes as a good idea. I ordered a plain with lox and the lovely spread came out. Plated open face, cream cheese, thick shiny lox, four of the biggest capers I’ve seen, a trimming of fresh dill, and a lemon. I basically inhaled the thing. This was not a New York Bagel. No toasting, no sandwich, and the b...

 I’m fed up with my face feeling stuffed full of the thick polluted air here. To get some relief I went to a local pharmacy for antihistamines. In my three minute walk to the pharmacy I saw five cops. That kind of heavy police presence skeeves me out. Lots of cops means trouble in the US and two on a block is supremely odd. The trip to the pharmacy required some Google Translate, I’m not in Greece and medical words don’t carry to Russian like they do in other languages. She sends me out with two containers and some basic instructions. One of them is a common non-drowsy antihistamine. Not a compound we use in the us but nothing crazy. The other thing is for IBS and binds to disturbances in your gut. I’m not sure how that landed in my bag but I decided to skip the Enterosgel. Maybe it’s a common scrip for allergies here but the English speaking side of the internet won’t match it to my ailments. After doing drugs, I head out to the Museum of Applied Arts. This place is full of tradit...

 With a gentle hangover I make my way to Yangiobod Bozor. I’m due to meet Asalya and her boyfriend, the helpful camera people I mentioned yesterday who have kindly offered to show me around the bozor and make sure I don’t get screwed. Yangiobod is on the outskirts of the city and the ride over is a long one. Sitting on the train I’ve devised a new theory of ‘civilized’ cultures. Any culture that can sustain upholstery on rapid transit is civilized. Uzbekistan 1, USA 0. The Bozor is more chaotic still than Chorsu and Dalniy. For reasons beyond my comprehension people are trying to drive in and out of this dense cobweb of stalls. This means the bargaining in the Bozor is bookmarked by bargaining your way in and out. A cacophony of honking and shouting buzzes in the air as Ladas with toilets peeking out of their trunks and Damases loaded with people pass through each other like two opposing streams of water. My two guides appear and we make our way over to hunt for cameras. None of th...