Saturday, July 22 Drive back to Delhi from Mussoorie, yuppie lounge

Today was one of the happiest days of my adult life: We went back to Delhi, never to return to Mussoorie again. I managed to pack all my stuff into the two bags I brought somehow. Then I ate some breakfast and got into an Ambassador cab, which took me down the hill to Dehra Dun, where we loaded onto Sikh charter buses. No more Mussoorie/Language School/Oakland/mildew/mold/water shortages when you have diarrhea/horrible boring food, miserly managers who lie to you, etc.! I am so glad to be leaving that place, I hated it to no end, and have been waiting for this moment for four weeks now. I love bus rides because there’s always so much to see. It was really rainy in Dehra Dun, and people were out doing their normal everyday things. We got into Uttar Pradesh, which was flat and rural, with everything cultivated by mostly wheat farms, but some rice and other stuff. It was really rural in Haryana, too, and there were little dwellings made of brick. As usual, everyone was out on the street. It was sunny, which was nice…but which meant it was a fireball outside. Actually, I can’t complain about the heat because it’s cooler in Delhi than it is in most of the United States because they’re having a major heat wave. And they’re having rolling blackouts in California and New York. Watch, Americans start coming to Delhi in the summer monsoon for a pleasant summer away from the heat and power blackouts…haha. But that US heat wave is probably caused by God punishing them for burning half the world’s greenhouse gases but only having 0.5% of the world’s population. But who’s counting? We got into Delhi, and you could tell. There were expressways, people everywhere, buses and motor rickshaws, and rich Westernized people. I love Delhi. There were a lot of tents set up with people watching plays and videos about Shiva. This is because it’s the end of a holy week. Thousands of young men pilgrims (identifiable in orange shirts and short shorts) went to Rishikesh and Haridwar to get water from the Ganga and carry it back in shiny, elaborately-decorated water containers, to their temples, to be used for puja for the next year. There were thousands of pilgrims and water containers everywhere and portable toilets on wheels, it was very colorful. We got into to YWCA on Sansad Marg at 6. It’s actually pretty comfortable weather here. I was the happiest man alive. I even had my own room because Derek had to go to Hyderabad. That dream was shattered when Maia of all people, had to room with me. That sucks. I took a nice shower and did some laundry and unpacked. I’m planning on staying in this palace until they kick me out. The food and water alone is reason enough. I had dinner, which was amazing tandoori and other Indian food (and not sketchy!) Then I went with my future housemates to Greater Kailash, an extremely rich, Westernized, young area. The houses are all multiple-storeyed, gated, and guarded. We went to a hookah lounge and bar named Shalom, which was ridiculously nice. It was dark, and the drinks all cost nine dollars each. The Indians here are extremely wealthy by Indian standards. But I found it extremely boring; I was with the upper, upper echelon of Indian society (it almost didn’t seem like reality because there are beggars right outside the door), and lounges bore me to death. I could be doing the same thing in my hotel room for free. Lounges are for boring hedonists who over-glorify ambient lighting and beautiful rich people. Please, I don't need the “nice ambiance” and American prices, give me a cheap bar where I can just get drunk and be annoying and loud and meet other fun people! We got lost on the rickshaw ride back, so much so that we went the wrong way on a One-way street. I’m still alive, though.