My skin care secrets

Many have begged me for the secret to my radiant, youthful-looking skin and here, as an exclusive feature for The Curried Life readers, are the secrets to my skincare regime.

 

Every morning I wash my face with cold water (because it takes far too long to get the geyser working for hot water) and a mild face wash, dutifully followed by toner and moisturizer with at least SPF 20 (cause this Indian sun don’t play around, y’all).  I also cover every inch of exposed skin in maximum-strength bug spray, because let’s be honest—mosquito bites and dengue fever don’t look good on anyone!

 

Now, this might be where your average woman, faint of heart, stops her skin care regime but I really try to work with my environment to ensure that my skincare regime lasts all day long.

 

Upon leaving my house every morning I am met by the friendly road-sweeper who kindly sweeps up a tornado of dust for me to walk through on my way to the autorickshaw stand. It’s kind of like a natural mud face mask—lightly applied by the whims and vagrancies of nature. The autorickshaw drivers also have a real knack for understanding which motorcycle, car or bus will be exuding the most delightfully-perfumed exhaust, and positioning us directly behind such gentle vehicle. This allows me to seal in the mud mask under a layer of Delhi’s most sophisticated air toxins; sometimes it feels almost acidic so I fancy the exhaust portion of my daily facial is a bit like an facial peel.

 

To keep my dewy look going all day long, my skin naturally produces a fine sheen of sweat which sort of gives me a kind of natural “lit from within” glow. I also make sure to stay fully hydrated by drinking gallons of sugary chai every day. For the late summer season, I also reapply my maximum strength bug spray before leaving the office in the afternoon. As a bonus, having fresh afternoon bugspray on also helps my skin better attract and absorb the exhaust from the cars on my homeward commute!

 

So there you have it, dear readers. This special blend of bugspray, dust, exhaust and sweat keeps my skin looking as fresh as a baby’s bottom!

So, I'm feeling lazy . . .

And now that I've gone and spent all of this time writing to y'all about my vacation to Ladakh, I find that The Boyfriend has produced a little video of the event. I do realize this is almost the equivalent of asking your friends and family to look at your vacation slide show, but as I'm feeling a bit lazy today I'm going to take the easy way out and just link to the video.

Enjoy!


P.S. I've bought cheapie plan tickets to Mumbai for the weekend on a whim, so I probably won't be able to update the blog again until early next week. Check back then!

Pangong Lake

Pangong Lake was incredible--one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. The lake is enormous and crosses over the Indian/Chinese border. It's high in the mountains and appears completely pristine, crisp and blue. Despite its size, there are no boats on the lake and very few settlements by its shore--in fact, as far as I can tell it seems the only real buildings around the lake are the few yurts, shelters and restaurants open for tourists, and the minimal infrastructure that maintains them. (Though, perhaps I'm wrong, as I definitely saw some cows and goats up there--so there must also be some farming going on too).


They say a picture is worth a thousand words and so I will leave you just with the below. (I obviously took a bazillion photos, but if you want more check out my fb album--or just google Pangong Lake).

Now, I get that listening to someone fawn on and on about a mountain lake is probably not what you all came to my blog on this fine day to read about. So, instead I will leave you with some non-rapturous vignettes regarding my evening, night and morning at Pangong Lake.

Vignette: Unrealized by The Boyfriend and myself, the day we were at Pangong Lake was India's Independence Day. This probably explains the fact that when we went to the main eating building for our cluster of yurts the TV mounted in the corner was playing a crazy-patriotic war movie. I don't speak Hindi, but this was the plot: brave Indian soldier, with a machine gun in one hand and the Indian flag in the other, single-handed defeats a battalion of enemy soldiers. He keeps running towards the enemy even after he has been shot at least 6 times in the chest towards his arch-nemesis. Despite being literally riddled with bullets, he and the arch-nemesis engage in hand to hand combat. Our hero falls, but his place is taken by a younger compatriot (his son?) who finishes Mr. Arch Nemesis off, before planting the Indian flag firmly on the recovered land. (And don't worry too much about the fate of our hero--in the very next scene he is shown with nothing more than a broken arm, kissing a very beautiful and much younger female).

The Indian audience sharing our dining yurt loved it!

Vignette: The yurt next to us was hosting a singalong, with about ten people dreamily singing their favorite Indian ballads to the strumming of a soft guitar. Taking advantage of the music drifting on the breeze and the incredible night sky, The Boyfriend and I start to dance. It is very romantic and very dark. In the middle of a dramatic flourish, I step back and fall into a ditch. (Well, almost--The Boyfriend jerked me back to safety before any real damage was done). We decide real romance consists of trying to find a wireless signal while cozily tucked into a yurt bed.

Vignette: It's 9:45pm and those mofos next door are still singing--they've moved onto Bollywood pop songs now, and someone seems to have produced a synthesizer. (Did they bring that with them? Where the hell does one get a synthesizer in the middle of the Himalayas?) The Boyfriend and I engage in a heated discussion about whether 9:45pm is too early to, in good conscience, ask your high-spirited neighbors to shut the hell up. I suggest that, considering how early we wanted to get up the next day and considering that once I took off my clothes to take the bucket shower offered by the yurt bathroom there was no way I was going back outside, it was now or never. The Boyfriend points out that 9:45pm is really early. Fortunately, the guardian angel of our relationship bliss was looking out for us and, magically, the music and the synthesizer stopped.

Vignette: We take a delightful morning walk around the lake, discussing philosophy, art, science and our friends who have terrible facebook etiquette. Good times, good times.

The route to Pangong Lake

On the third day of our time in Ladakh, The Boyfriend and I decided to go to Pangong Lake. Now, this actually wasn't an easy decision because the overnight trip to Pangong Lake is about 6-7 hours (one way) and since we only had two days left in Ladakh going to Pangong Lake basically meant we would be able to do nothing else. But, the owner of our hotel assured us it was worth it and that if we didn't go to Pangong Lake we would basically regret it for the rest of our lives. He also told us that the drive there was very pretty, and an event in its own right.

Now, I'm no stranger to Himalayan road trips. In fact, I very vividly remember the trip to and from the start of my trek near Rishikesh in 2010 because it was, without a doubt, the scariest few hours of my life. Himalayan roads are teentytinynarrowsmall, very poorly kept up and extremely twisty and bendy. Landslides are not an infrequent event. There are, of course, no guard rails and plenty of stomach-churning sheer drops. And to make things worse, cars hurtle up and down these things at crazy speeds. It's also not uncommon to look at the window and see the remains of a fallen car smashed on the valley floor below.

Basically, these roads are scary as can be, so I wasn't totally enamored with the idea of spending 14 hours (round trip) on them. But, because I am a FEARLESS ADVENTURER, I decided to swallow my survival instincts and make the trip.

My confidence was simultaneously bolstered and shaken when I saw our driver light some incense and place some cookies in a tin receptacle neatly attached to the outside of our car. It was an offering to the gods for safe passage through the Himalayas, he told us.  Well, I was certainly happy to see that our driver didn't take the dangers of a Himalayan road trip lightly--but the idea that he had to offer a prayer to the gods before embarking on the journey didn't sit quite right with me either. (We made it  there and back in one piece, though--proof perfect that offering cookies to the gods, or Santa Clause, is always a good idea. In fact, The Boyfriend offered the driver his own cookie package when noticing on the journey back that the cookie part of the shrine was running low. Not that he's superstitious or anything. of course).

[Cookie and incense shrine, attached to car]

The road was very narrow and scary, but oh! What a drive! The scenery was magnificent and we got some prime views of interesting animals (yaks, marmots, etc) which were grazing by the side of the road.

Something else fun about the journey were the hilarious road signs we passed. Clearly the road authorities realize that these roads are dangerous and that they needed to spice up the signage so that people would sit up and take notice.

My favorite part of the journey, however, was the uppermost pass, apparently the third highest motorable pass in the world. There was a little store there that sold the most delicious raman noodles in the world to an eclectic collection of tourists and motorcyclists (Ladakh is big draw for bikers) and an amazing shrine simply covered in prayer flags. I would have stayed there a lot of longer if I wasn't worried about coming down with altitude sickness.

And in any case, Pangong Lake was waiting for us . . .

Monasteries

This probably won’t surprise anyone, but I’ve learnt that Buddhist monks are super chill.

On our second day in Ladakh, The Boyfriend and I visited some of the local monasteries—three of them in fact; each one more brightly colored and enigmatic than the last. On the outside these monasteries blend in perfectly with the landscape as they seem to almost grown into and out of the mountains. But on the inside these monasteries are an explosion of color--every last wall and door is painted brightly with Buddhist imagery; primary-colored prayer flags hang from every corner and the monks themselves hurry about in their red and orange robs. 

 [Outside of the monasteries and environs]

[Brightly colored interiors]

 Of course, the monks aren't the only folk scurrying about the monasteries;  clearly these buildings are big local attractions and a fair number of tourists roamed through the halls of each, taking pictures, gawking at the ornate walls and enormous Buddhas, watching monks as they chanted and generally being a nuisance. The monks however, who also doubled as ticket-salesman and museum and gift store cashiers seemed to take it all in stride. One monk noticed The Boyfriend taking photos of the courtyard and eagerly bent over The Boyfriend's shoulder to see the result. Another monk noticed a flow of tourists walking in on a midday chanting ritual in one of the monastery's shrines and very nonchalantly directly us all to out-of-the way seats with good vantage points. (The other monks, I should note, didn't skip a beat in their chanting).

 [Monks, chanting, being chill]

Basically, the monks were all a lot more relaxed about the multitudes of tourists pattering about their home, workplace and place of worship than I would have been. Must be all that meditation . . .

I wonder how much the monks are forced to put up with the presence of tourists for financial reasons. As I was walking through these beautiful, and quite old buildings, I found myself considering the finances of monastery life. To my, admittedly limited, knowledge, Buddhist monks don't produce or sell anything to earn an income. I didn't see any farmland around the monasteries which would allow the monks to grow their own food, either. I know the monks live pretty cheaply,  but even basic living costs some money. And the monasteries must be quite expensive to upkeep--a number of the murals on the walls were being repainted while we were there and I imagine that fitting-out 400 year old buildings with the necessary electricity and plumbing can't be cheap.

 

[Murals on the monastery walls]

Clearly, the tourist dollars must pay some important role in the finances of the monasteries--but honestly the entrance tickets were so cheap (like USD $2) that the monks must have another source of revenue as well. Is it just charitable donations from wealthy individuals? Do they get some funds from the government? Or are they secretly running a profitable call center from the basement of the monasteries? (Note, wouldn't monks be the best call center employees ever? So chill!)

I really couldn't figure out how these monasteries support themselves, but I'm certainly glad that they do.

Welcome to Ladakh

On day two of The Boyfriend’s visit we skipped out of the Delhi heat and headed up to the Himalayas, to the region of Ladakh. Those of you who have seen my facebook album probably realize I can fill this page up with a bazillion gorgeous pictures of the region, but I won’t do that here. I’m just adding the below, which I think is a good representation of how the area looks generally. (If you’re interested though, there are 100+ photos in the fb album!)

Being used to the rocky mountains I was a bit surprised to find that this part of the Himalayas really looks like a bit of a barren moonscape—except on valley floors bisected by rivers there is very little greenery. I think I was expecting, I dunno—evergreen trees and snow-capped mountains, but actually there was very little of that. Which is not to say that the area isn’t visually stunning; it absolutely was but in a somewhat unexpected way.

Something else that was unexpected for me was the military presence in Ladakh due to the proximity of the Tibetan/Chinese border. There are army bases and military folk everywhere and they take security very seriously there. After I came back from my vacation I was joking with my colleagues about it and said “I mean, c’mon. What are they expecting? That the Chinese invade India through the Himalayas? That’s crazytalk.” There was dead silence from my colleagues who all looked at me like I was a nutter. “Um, yeah,” one of them said. “Like they did in the Sino-Indian War.”

Oh right, that war. Yes, of course, naturally I remember all about learning about the Sino-Indian war in my 8^th grade history class. (coughs, quickly changes the subject).*

Another surprising thing about Ladakh was the heavy Tibetan presence—in a way the whole area seemed to market itself to tourists as an outpost of Tibet. There were Tibetan jewelry markets, Tibetan restaurants, Tibetan meditation centers, etc., No doubt Tibet is very cool, but we were in India, so I found it interesting that, as a marketing tool “Tibet” seemed to carry more cache than simply “Himalayan”.

Our hotel was awesome. We stayed in luxury yurts, which looked like below and felt very snug and cozy in the chilly night air. There was also a yoga yurt with teacher on call, flowers flowers everywhere, a gorgeous sunset view, copious amounts of honey ginger lemon tea, a romantic (but communal) dinner set-up, and an awesome owner who still hasn’t made me pay for our stay. (I mean, I will pay. I’m getting around to it. Don’t look at me that way, y’all). The Boyfriend was not crazy about the teensy fruitfly-like bugs that enjoyed swimming in his water/juice/coffee and I will admit that a power outage right as you go to take a hot shower is not ideal. But all in all, it was a lovely place and we spent a lot of time chillaxing in the hammocks (also we did NOT want to mess around with altitude sickness. I learned my lesson in Cusco—absolutely NO exertion on day one in a high altitude).

 [Our luxury yurt]

 [Sunset view from the yurt]

[Ahhhh, my favorite hammock]

The town of Leh we were less enamoured with—it seemed to be pretty much tourist store after tourist store, though to be fair we were only there for about 2 hours and didn’t venture much onto the backstreets. But I think what people really come to Ladakh for is not the towns, but the stark mountain views, the hiking (or motorbiking), and of course, the monasteries . . .

*Actually, the end of that conversation with colleagues went like this:

Kate: “Oh yeah. But can you imagine in China tried to invade India now? That would be crazy.”

Colleague 1: “China would win. Nothing more to it”

Colleagues 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6: “Yup, China would win.”

Everyone goes back to eating their dal. 

A day at the Taj Mahal

So, after four and a half month of having to wake up early in the morning to call The Boyfriend (US-India time-difference is a bitch for relationships), I was finally rewarded for my diligence* by a visit from the man himself. He was only here for a week since his stupid job wouldn’t let him take off more time, so we resolved to jam-pack that week with fun/excitement/joy/photo ops in order to make the most of it.

On day one, to get it out of the way, to make sure he saw the most beautiful monument to love ever erected, we took a day-trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. I’ve been to the Taj once before a few years ago, and I remember walking in through the gates and thinking “Wow, this actually isn’t overhyped.” I also remember being meticulously posed in photos by my guide so it would appear that I was holding the Taj up by my thumb and forefinger. Both of these memories are still accurate representations of the tourist experience at Taj.

Here’s what I didn’t remember—the “MONEY MONEY TOURIST WITH MONEY GET HER! GET HER!” shitshow that happens before you make it into the Taj. We had barely made it into the parking lot of the Taj before our car was surrounded by hawkers/would-be guides/touts.  About 10 people jumped on me as I opened the door to the car with some version of “only 200 rupees and we’ll bring you to the entrance of the Taj!” (For the record, the parking lots are about a 15 min walk from the ticket booth and cars aren’t allowed closer, so there are any number of rickshaws, horse buggies and camel-pulled carts lined up outside the parking lot). I pointed out to my harassers the (very hidden and small) sign we’d passed on the way in stating that there were free buses “even for foreigners” that would bring us to the ticket booth. The harassers were like “Ok, ok—we give you a special discount then—only 150 rupees!”

Because we didn’t want to wait for free bus thing we ultimately ended up paying a guy with a horse and buggy 20 rupees to bring us to the entrance. We also managed to ditch all of the would-be guides who were promising to sail us through all of the lines (“which can otherwise take hours”), which was a good thing because, as we learned upon approaching the ticket booth, there is never any real line for foreigners (who must pay a USD$12 entry free, and get VIP tickets). This is sadly not true for the line for Indians, which looked hours long; Indians only pay a $0.20 entry fee, though I did wonder if they would be able to skip the lines if they anted up for the pricier ticket.  Our VIP ticket also came with a free guide and overshoe socks so we didn’t need to remove our shoes while walking around. Score!

(As a side note, India is an incredible, amazing, wonderful country—but I think it can be a fairly draining experience for someone who just experiences it as a tourist as tourists are constantly dealing with touts who attempt to mislead and cheat. Being jumped on and yelled at by 10 people upon leaving your vehicle is no fun for anyone, and I can imagine it gets incredibly exhausting and intimidating for the tourist who has to deal with it every day (and may be tired and jetlagged to boot). It also make you feel that you can’t trust anyone—a Hindi-speaking friend recounted an experience listening to the “trusted” hotel driver negotiate with a tout to drop her at a location far from the entrance she needed so that she would have to pay the tout extra to bring her to the entrance in his rickshaw. The tout, of course, promising to make it worth the driver’s while.)

Anyway, after dealing with all of the mess we finally made it into the Taj! And once again, I must say that, even on a hot day with thousands of other tourists there, the Taj does not disappoint. It is graceful and delicate and strong and magnificent. It’s simply beautiful--a truly fitting monument to love.

Or is it? Here is something new I learned about the Taj from our guide—apparently there are actually three women, the three wives of the Shah, buried on the grounds. However, only the wife that actually bore the Shah sons (presumably, the son who later imprisoned his father for overspending the empire's finances-on the Taj Mahal, amongst other things) is buried in the center of the Taj. So, is this a monument to love or a monument to the Shah’s satisfaction with his own lineage? You have to wonder . . . 

In any case, despite the hassle and the touts, I really do think that any tourist to India should spend a day seeing the Taj—it’s worth all of that. And, also, The Boyfriend seemed to really enjoy seeing all of the monkeys hanging out in the streets of Agra, so there’s that perk too!

*The Boyfriend will probably argue that, in fact, I’m much more prone to sleeping in then waking up for calls and when I do wake up I’m in my grumpypants morning mood. Ok, guilty as charged.

Power outage

And we wonder why there are so many power outages.  This is basically what ALL electricity poles in Delhi look like--a big mess.

 

 

Let me tell you, you think power outages aren't such a big deal, right? Maybe kind of fun, kind of romantic? I know that I even enjoyed the first day (or two) of power outages last year when Hurricane Sandy hit because I got off from work and got to make collages with my roomie while eating popcorn. But here, where its 10,000 degrees all the time, power outages just suck. I literally lie on my bed pouring ice over myself (and no, not for charity) praying for the AC, the fan, or the internet to come back on so I can either cool down or be distracted from my extreme discomfort in the schadenfreude of facebook. Sometimes I'll drag myself to the shower--which of course you can't do if the power is out due to a thunderstormy monsoon--to just stand in the not-so-cold water (it's kept heating all day in a tub on the roof) for a couple of minutes before enjoying a blissful 30 post drying off before I start sweating profusely again.

 

Honestly, you never really appreciate the beauty of climate control before you're stuck in a 4 hour power outage in 100+ degree weather. It's almost enough to make me foreswear my environmentalist principles and embrace global warming. And when the power finally comes back on I say a little prayer of relief to my personal AC gods and a prayer of remembrance/condolence for those thousands of Delhites living without any relief from the heat.

 

Damn, it's hot here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Seen on my walk home

Isn't it lovely? That's such a great thing about Delhi--you're just strolling or driving along and BOOM! five-hundred year Mughal architecture coming at ya! 

Signage

What kind of business do we think this is a sign for? Kindergarten? Brothel? Spa? Doctor's office? I'll tell you right now I don't have the answer to this question--but might need to do some further investigation next time I'm walking down this street.

On a related note--this signage is right across the street from a very prominent sign reading "Government Approved Abortion Clinic" (which I didn't photograph as I thought the folks waiting within might be a bit sensitive to that).  Makes you wonder if abortion clinics that aren't government approved are just "Abortion Clinic", or simply unsigned. . .

A selection of some of my favorite street dogs

I find the street dogs of Delhi exceptionally cute. Don't believe me? See for yourself!

Generally these guys do a lot of sleeping during the day and are sweet as can be. But you don't want to mess around with a street dog at night because they get kind of vicious. In fact, in some neighborhoods which are overrun by feisty street dogs it's a good idea to carry a stick at night so you can parry if any of the dogs attacks you.

I tend not to walk around at night, so I haven't really had much problems with the aggressive street dogs. There was one quite scary encounter though, where a dog galloped full speed at me and then jumped up all over me. Fortunately for yours truly he was a friendly guy and was looking for a good pat-down, not a fight.

My neighborhood has very few street dogs, which is good for when I'm coming home late at night. Lately, though, I've noticed that Shmoozie--the dog my flatmates and I have sort of adopted--has been palling around with this handsome tramp from around the way. When I came home last the other night Mr. Tramp actually had the audacity to snap at me, but Shmoozie shut him up in short order and then, just to teach him a lesson, pranced right on into our house, leaving a sad Mr. Tramp outside to nurse his wounded pride.

[Because Delhi buildings tend to be open you'll find lots of street dogs who have snuck inside. Some I think are pretty well cared for by the shop-owners]

[These are two puppies who live in the neighborhood where I work. I have no idea how a street puppy survives--their mom must be one tough bitch]

[This is my favorite street dog, I call him "Old Man Dog". He sleeps outside my office door every day and NEVER moves. I have no idea how he gets food or water. But he really just gives me the feeling of an old man, hanging out on the porch, watching the world go by]

On vacation!

Apologies for the lack of posts this week--I've been on vacation in the Himalayas. My blog will resume as per usual in the next few days, so please check back in soon!

A life with dignity

The other day my boss, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, told me that he believes the main difference between the developed nations of the west and India is that in the west people treat others with dignity, whereas in India, they don't. Well, the first thing my mind flashed to was those selfies taken by idiotic American teenagers posing with homeless people behind them and I was inclined to disagree with my boss--but the more I thought about it the more I think he has a point (though I am still not sure if I agree with him completely).

Whether or not some jerks do it, it is socially unacceptable to treat domestic servants, waiters, janitors and other folk with low status jobs (or no jobs) in the USA rudely. But even more than that, I think very few people in the USA would stand by a person who had truly violated another's dignity, by forcing a person who keeps certain religious dietary restrictions to eat taboo foods, for example.  But I've heard examples of this happening in India and, depending on the status of the transgressor, s/he is not always castigated in the court of public opinion for his or her actions.

The most obvious example of this was the hullabaloo that erupted last year when the USA arrested an Indian diplomat for trafficking her domestic servant.  The Indian government and much of the Indian population freaked out about the apparent disrespect paid to their high status diplomat and there was, in fact, real diplomatic retaliation. (All Indian guards were withdrawn from protection of the American Embassy, the American Embassy School lost some of its privileges, and it became harder for American citizens to get visas.) There was very little attention paid here, however, to whether these charges were actually true and the plight of the Indian diplomat's domestic servant. Everyone was talking about the dignity of the diplomat, but no one mentioned the dignity of the servant.

I've seen quite a few interactions here between high and low status individuals that strike me as totally disrespectful--I've seen those sort of interactions in the USA too, of course, but not with quite the same frequency or with the high status individual's assumption that his/her behavior will be condoned by all of the other high status individuals around him/her. I've seen customers erupt at cashiers, heard about friends-of-friends who have fired their drivers for keeping the AC on while the driver waited in 100+ degree heat for their passengers' return, and so on and so forth.

But the interesting flip side of the coin is that I've also seen lots of behavior from low status individuals which strikes me as uncomfortably subservient--though in fact what I'm observing might just be different cultural norms here. For example, traditionally youngsters touch the feet of elders here to show respect, which tradition is kept up in more conservative households. I often have my feet touched by beggars, which really, really makes me feel uncomfortable.

So yeah, I think in India the right of low status person to live a life with dignity is very much under assault because of the relationship between different classes of persons is often marked by disrespect. I suspect this is a legacy of the caste system, where untouchables were literally considered lower forms of life, and I hope this is changing with the advent of India's new middle class, and greater social mobility generally.

Basically, what I think India needs is for a dignity revolution to occur--and let's be honest, it wouldn't be such a bad thing if such revolutionary fervor ignited every country in the world. But in the meantime I'll just aim not to piss off any Indian diplomats.

Hauz Khas

I really love my neighborhood, Hauz Khas, because it's safe, quiet, clean and within walking distance of the cool restaurant and bar area of Delhi. Maybe in a later post I'll explain exactly what makes my neighborhood so awesome (with pictures), but in this post I'm only going to focus on one aspect of Hauz Khas's awesomness--the randomness with which you can stumble across a 700 year old monument.

I already knew about the old beheading tower that stands on my corner and the ruined mosque which is just down my street, but I wanted to learn about what other random monuments might be around. So, last weekend I went on a walking tour of my neighborhood.

First up were the entire Hauz Khas Complex (14th century), which includes the ruins of an old university and dorms  the emperor Firuz Shah's tomb (he wanted to be buried amid scholars), and the manmade reservoir meant to bring drinking water to the city.

 

[This is one of my roommates,  by the way]

 As dusk fell, we then made our way through Deer Park (accurately named for the number of deer who live there) and ran across several more tombs. I've seen some of these tombs in the daylight and they're always swarming with couples making out. But, by dusk the park empties out so it was really cool to see these monuments lit up, and all to ourselves. (Don't worry, mom, the tour group had a security guard with it). 

Seeing all of these monuments was pretty cool, but what came next was really special . . .

Dinner at the temple

 [Inside the temple gates]

After we finished walking around the monuments in the Hauz Khas area, our guide led us to the Jagannath Temple close to my house. I had often passed this temple but never had the courage to go in because I've heard that foreigners are prohibited from certain temples, women are prohibited from entering certain mosques, and basically I'm just scared that I'm going to try to enter some religious building and someone is going to start yelling at me. (As it turned out, this temple was a replica of a famous temple in Orissa which foreigners are not allowed to enter, but fortunately the Delhi branch is somewhat more inclusive. And, wtf Indian temples who don't let foreigners in! How do you know that I'm not Hindu? I mean, I could be! And why would you let in an Indian who isn't Hindu? Really, I find this No Foreigners Allowed policy pretty objectionable). 

Anyway, I had to take off my shoes at the entrance of the temple, but the floors were made of clean, cool white marble so it was a pretty nice experience. The majority of the temple complex is outside, with smaller shrines shielding the individual deities. In case anyone was wondering, this is what the main three deities look like. 

And this is what they look like when they get taken on parade (which, apparently, was what was happening a few weeks ago when I stumbled into that big celebration outside the temple. You remember, the one where all of the crazypeople were getting tattoos done by the side of the road?)

We arrived just in time to witness the opening of the deities' shrine, which basically felt similar to when Jews open the Holy Ark in the synagogue, except there was lots of loud drumming and people stamping their feet and throwing their hands up in the air. I couldn't see very well, but it also looked like the monks were doing some ritual with incense or a candle or something).

I was just getting into the foot-stomping business when my guide motioned for us to go, and then lead us down to the lower level of the temple where we were going to eat dinner. And what a dinner it was! Easily once of the top five meals in India, not just for the super interesting ambiance--I've never eaten in a temple before--but also because the food was AMAZING!

Here's how it works. The monks lay out long strips of carpets which everyone sits on cross-legged. You also get a disposal plate and a metal water glass, but no utensils because everyone eats with their hands. The monks then come around with buckets of food and water (literally, they serve from large buckets), and slop some rice, dal, and three other vegetable based dishes onto your place. Then you shovel food as fast as you can into your mouth, hoping to clear your plate before the monks come back with round 2 or 3. Yep, it's an all you can eat deal, folks. 

[Bucket o' deliciousness]

And the food is So Good. My favorite dishes were this sweet pickled mango thing, which I must have had like 4 servings of, and the rice pudding dessert which tasted just like dulce de leche. Oh god, I'm drooling just thinking about it.  

[That unassuming brown stuff on the right hand side of the plate blew my mind!]

Also, guess how much it costs? No, go on guess! If you guessed more than $1, you'd be wrong!

The only downside to the temple dining experience is that, after having eaten yourself silly all you want to do is lie down on that delightful white marble and sleep. But the monks will have none of it. Damn, those dudes function like a well-oiled machine! Once the eating from the first group dies down (about 20 min?) they spill all of the undrunk water from the water cups onto the floor and use it to mop down the area before inviting the next round of diners in. Seriously, even your average midtown NYC deli-worker, whom I believe to be the paragon of efficiency in this unkempt world, would be impressed by these guys.

I'll be back.