Delhi was a mix of more modern and oddly more traditional India all in one. For instance, some of their roads were much better. One road even had separate lanes for motorcycles, cars, and buses, divided by curb-like medians. I'm not saying there weren't still a mixture of vehicles on the roads, but at least there was an attempt for some order. There were also many U-turns, kind of like "Michigan lefts", where you pass a place and then have to wait for a break in the median and backtrack. I will kindly refer to them as "Delhi rights". Also of note is Delhi has a traffic problem (shocking), so no trucks are allowed in the city limits during daylight hours. All supplier pick ups for Toyota must occur at night, which is different than Bangalore where truck driving was banned at night since it's unsafe.
Many women were wearing jeans or slacks, and not the traditional saree. But then again, I saw a lot of people with scarves (men and women) covering their heads (not faces). At first I thought it was to protect against the "cold" weather, but they remained hooded even during the sunniest, warmest part of the day.
Here's a nice pool at the final hotel. Had the weather been warmer and this been a pleasure trip, I would have loved to spend some time there :)
Above and below are a couple photos of Indian infrastructure in progress. They are way behind with technology, building materials, processes, etc. People say that India is the place to be for future growth, and although it lags behind the rests of the world by 20 years (I'd say more), the overpopulation is a blessing because it provides a strong, available workforce to build highways and buildings.
In fact, one Indian told me that they're not really affected by the recession like America or other parts of the world because they have few exports & imports and can rely on themselves. (Uh, yeah, sure... that's the reason... or it could be that people don't have money to spend even during the "good" times.)
On one street corner, I saw some Indians making several brick walls by hand. It looked like it would fall over with one good kick. It didn't look like a "real" job with organized labor, so I wondered where the materials (bricks and mortar) came from?? The cool part was the women would carry bricks on their head (2x2 as tall as they could reach), and then bring them over to the men who were doing the laying.
Here's one example of "Hindi English". In India, each state has it's own basic language, and since the 20 states can't understand each other, they rely on English as the common back-up language. There were several signs that I saw misspelled, or else just sounded strange. For instance, they say: "expired" instead of died, "diversion" instead of detour, and in Hindi "yesterday" and "tomorrow" are the same word but you listen to the tense to understand which one it should really be. So the driver would say weird things like "We will meet at 9am yesterday?". Lastly, they love the word "Enclave". It was all over signs and bus stops, and after looking it up on http://www.m-w.com/ I guess they are using it correctly. But it did make me miss my car!
Our last stop was the Gurgaon crossdock. I took a picture of the "neighborhood" just outside the dock door because I was a minor celebrity there. Apparently some 10-year-old spotted me walking around inside the building and kept calling out things like "hey lady". Next thing you know, he's gathered his whole family, and there were like 12-15 Indian people peering over this brick wall to get a glimpse at the white lady. I felt like Princess Diana and thought about taking a step out from the shadows of the dock and giving a wave, but alas something at work brought me back to the real reason I was there, and I quickly forgot about my spectators.
New Delhi and Gurgaon also had the worst beggars. They would wander through the streets banging on windows and knocking on car doors for money at intersections or in traffic jams. I always knew some unsavory thing was about to happen when the driver would hit the auto door locks!! Some of the more enterprising people would be trying to sell goods to the passengers in cars. The items, I'm sure, were all "hot", and were weird things like toy airplanes, cloth napkins, multi-phone charges, head massagers, shoes, etc. The most popular one for me was "People" magazine. Apparently, everyone thought the white lady really needed some reading material.
The final hotel we stayed at was very swanky with EVERY staff member calling me Miss Green. I must say it was a little unnerving. Some times I just wanted to fly under the radar. They would pick me out and want to give me special treatment. I was selecting my food from the breakfast buffet, and the waiter wanted to bring a traditional Indian breakfast out for Miss Green. I told him no, that I wasn't very hungry, but alas it still arrived at my table a few minutes later. And all of the waiters and staff watched me eat it and waited for my reaction!!
Lastly, kids will be kids no matter where you are in the world. I saw a few Indian kids arguing in the street. What looked like a big sister then pushed her little brother into a mud puddle. LOL. Those things made me smile :) Every once in awhile a kid would spot me in the car and wave from the school bus. Of course I would wave back. Then we'd be stuck in traffic or at another intersection, and word would spread so more kids would start waving and smiling, and I'd have to do more waving back. As long as they were in a bus and not begging for money, I thought it was cute!!
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