Day 58 (3 August): Indian Post Office
I took an early flight back to Dehli this morning. After checking into the hotel again, I went to the New Dehli GPO or general post office to ship some things I have accumulated along my travels back to the US. It was an experience that lasted almost three hours.
After that I took in some sights. First I saw the 'Red Fort' which was a Moghul Fort like the one in Agra although architecularly much less interesting. Historically, it was a little more so, since this is where Nehru made his famous speech on the eve of Indian Independence. Furthermore, this fort was also used by the British as a colonial command post and had buildings from that era inside it.
From there I went to Hanuman's tomb, which was another Moghul tomb, that predates the Taj Mahal in Agra, and is nice, but slightly less impressive.
To end the day I saw and ate dinner in Connaught Place which is the modern day commerical heart of Dehli. The place is three concentric circular roads, designed by a British city planner, filled with shops, trash, homeless people, and traffic buzzing around it.
Observations:
1) Ayn Rand in India. On my flight this morning I saw for the n-th time an upper- or middle-class looking Indian reading an Ayn Rand book. The longer I thought about it the more it made sense. To enjoy India and to succeed in India, it is almost essential to adopt Ayn Rand's Objectivist philisophy towards life.
2) The Post Office. This was a real experience. The number of forms I had to fill out was silly. They also have people who take pieces of fabric and wrap up whatever you want to mail and then stich it together to make a package rather than using a cardboard box as we would in the US. I can only imagine what the people at the US Post Office that receives my package will be thinking when they get this strange looking thing that arrives.
3) At the 'Red Fort' at any height where people could reach, gems that were supposed to be inlaid in marble were missing. People must have stolen them from the historical site to make some money.
4) Pissing in the streets. As a solution to people pissing anywhere in the street problem found throughout India, Dehli has some short tiled walls with drains at the bottom to avoid having people going just anywhere. You can still see people peeing in public though since there are no walls around these public urinals.
5) Light beer in India is called 'Diet Beer'. They don't seem to have low-carb yet as 'diet beer' can only be found in bigger cities like Dehli.
6) Internet cafes and porn. It seems like such a common thing at this point that I haven't yet commented on it, but at every internet cafe I've been to in India there has been at least one person surfing the web for porn. Also many of the browsers are book marked to it. I can't imagine anyone doing this in the US or almost anywhere else in an internet cafe.
After that I took in some sights. First I saw the 'Red Fort' which was a Moghul Fort like the one in Agra although architecularly much less interesting. Historically, it was a little more so, since this is where Nehru made his famous speech on the eve of Indian Independence. Furthermore, this fort was also used by the British as a colonial command post and had buildings from that era inside it.
From there I went to Hanuman's tomb, which was another Moghul tomb, that predates the Taj Mahal in Agra, and is nice, but slightly less impressive.
To end the day I saw and ate dinner in Connaught Place which is the modern day commerical heart of Dehli. The place is three concentric circular roads, designed by a British city planner, filled with shops, trash, homeless people, and traffic buzzing around it.
Observations:
1) Ayn Rand in India. On my flight this morning I saw for the n-th time an upper- or middle-class looking Indian reading an Ayn Rand book. The longer I thought about it the more it made sense. To enjoy India and to succeed in India, it is almost essential to adopt Ayn Rand's Objectivist philisophy towards life.
2) The Post Office. This was a real experience. The number of forms I had to fill out was silly. They also have people who take pieces of fabric and wrap up whatever you want to mail and then stich it together to make a package rather than using a cardboard box as we would in the US. I can only imagine what the people at the US Post Office that receives my package will be thinking when they get this strange looking thing that arrives.
3) At the 'Red Fort' at any height where people could reach, gems that were supposed to be inlaid in marble were missing. People must have stolen them from the historical site to make some money.
4) Pissing in the streets. As a solution to people pissing anywhere in the street problem found throughout India, Dehli has some short tiled walls with drains at the bottom to avoid having people going just anywhere. You can still see people peeing in public though since there are no walls around these public urinals.
5) Light beer in India is called 'Diet Beer'. They don't seem to have low-carb yet as 'diet beer' can only be found in bigger cities like Dehli.
6) Internet cafes and porn. It seems like such a common thing at this point that I haven't yet commented on it, but at every internet cafe I've been to in India there has been at least one person surfing the web for porn. Also many of the browsers are book marked to it. I can't imagine anyone doing this in the US or almost anywhere else in an internet cafe.
posted by Traveling Brian at 8:46 PM
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