Traveler's Log: Days 7-13

[Note: I will be hyperlinking a lot in this entry so you can understand the details about the places I mention]

This past week has been the busiest thus far. I went to Delhi and Agra to go sightseeing. For those of you who don't know, both Delhi and Agra are in northern India. There are a lot of differences between life in northern and southern India, but a good way to summarize these differences is that northern India tends to be less developed than southern India. In fact, after going to Delhi I realize how similar life in southern India is to life in the United States.

The first significant difference I experienced as soon as I left the airport in New Delhi. As soon as I stepped outside I felt a rush of hot air, and not the typical humid mid-summer hot air, but really dry, nearly unbearable hot air. If you have never experienced such air you could not possibly know how miserable it is. For the duration of my trip, the temperature teetered around one hundred degrees, although it felt more like it was closer to 110, 115. Of course, you can't let uncontrollable things like the weather impact your experience, but I'll tell you, I wouldn't want to live in that kind of climate. I imagine anyone who travels from such a place for school or work is relieved to escape the heat. 

The second day I was in Delhi I took a tour of the city which took me to several important locations such as the Laxminarayan temple and India gate. It was a great experience and once again, I was really glad I was with a group of people who knew the area and the language. The only downside was that the tour guide primarily spoke Hindi which meant I couldn't understand most of what was being said. Fortunately, Hindi is often spoken with a bit of English, so I had a vague idea what the guide was explaining about the sites.

I realized that whenever you are in such a situation where you don't understand the language, dialect, or vocabulary, you should try to piece together the parts you do understand or the body language of the other person, so that way you can have some vague idea of what is going on. Granted, this can be an incredibly complicated task but it is well worth it especially if you intend on moving to an area where your primary language is not widely used. After two long days of listening to people talk mainly in Hindi, my proficiency in the language is still subpar, however, I bet if I stayed in India for two years I would be able to understand the language pretty well.

My third day in Delhi I took a tour bus to Agra. Now for some reason I thought Agra was fairly close to Delhi, so I was a little impatient towards the end of my four hour bus ride. And to make things even worse, when I finally arrived, the heat was even more unbearable than it was in Delhi. I only saw three sites on the third day, but they were all significant places. The first was the Agra fort, which admittedly I had never heard of prior to the tour, however, even so, it turned out to be a pretty cool experience. Again, I just wish I could have understood more of its history. 

The next site I went to was the Taj Mahal. I feel like everyone knows of the Taj Mahal but not everyone knows about it. This was obviously the highlight of my trip, so I made sure to learn as much as I could about it before going. I really can't stress enough how important it is to do research on a particular topic before you get into a situation in which you don't understand the language, customs, history et cetera. Sometimes "doing your homework" on an unfamiliar topic can make you go from another face in the crowd to someone who can provide interesting or beneficial information. So because I did my research before going to the Taj Mahal, I knew some facts that even the people in my group didn't.

The third site I visited was not in Agra but in Vrindavan, a town about an hour back towards Delhi. It was this really famous temple dedicated to Krishna called the Playground of Lord Krishna. This temple was different from the Laxminarayan temple because everyone in Playground of Lord Krishna was following a particular set of rules, almost like a ritual, whereas everyone in the first temple seemed to be doing their own thing. I guess you could say more was required to be done there than in the first temple. I feel like it was a much more genuine experience; it wasn't just about admiring the god idols adorned in gold but rather it was about actually experiencing Hinduism. 

As you probably would expect, there were a lot of customary actions that I really had no clue about such as having to ring a bell before entering the main building. Now it's always important to ask questions-- a lot of questions even-- if you're unsure of something, but sometimes I feel like the best way to answer your questions is through experience. For example, rather then stop and ask about every part of what I did at the temple, something which I'm sure would have slowed down the pace of the ceremony and upset people, I just did what I saw people doing and tried to make sense of it afterwards. Often times, people will give you some sort of biased response (for example, this is why I ring the bell), so it can sometimes by quite beneficial to try to answer your own question through experience.

This is even true when learning or improving your English. Much of language is discovered through the process of trial and error. Think back to when you were a child: you didn't go around asking people for the rules of your language. You figured them out on your own by experiencing the language firsthand. Of course, the rules of any language can be incredibly important especially for professional writing or rhetoric, but you will learn the most by combining the rules with your own experience. 

Overall, my trip to Delhi was a great experience. It will probably be the most tourist-like thing I do while in India (although ironically, I was the only foreigner in my tour group; most other people were from south India).  At this point, I am back in Bangalore, which is located near the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent, and much appreciating the cooler climate. I will say that Delhi is a fascinating city especially if you enjoy history like I do. However, if you are just looking to travel to India to experience the customs or cuisine, I think south India would be more appealing. I'm not sure how I would have handled more than four days in the unbearable north Indian heat!

-Ryan M. Shea, English Proficiency Specialist