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I arrived in Delhi, back in the ever so pleasant Terminal 1. How I hated it here.
I got off the plane, picked up my luggage and asked an officer INSIDE the airport where prepaid taxis were, before I walked out. Just incase the taxi stand was inside....
He points me in the direction of outside. I see the counter. Perfect. I make sure I have my address to show the stand. I get a prepaid slip and I am on my way with my driver to Dwarka Sector 19.
He does not speak any English at all. Thankfully I had this SIM card with data. I whip open the gps and navigate us to my hotel just in time before my battery dies. Navigating these roads on top of just keeping you limbs from being cut off as motorcycles, buses, and cars zoom cms away from the hair on your skin... It's crazy.
I make it to my hotel. This is so much nicer than my last hotel. It was clean. Hot water with good pressure. There was toilet paper, there was no sopping wet floors. This was great! I turn on the AC, hop in the shower, charge my phone and throw on some clothes for the wedding.
(Stephen's roommate Vipul has a sister getting married. She lives in India. I will be meeting Vipul at his hotel. I ask the hotel workers the direction of Radisson Blu. He speaks very good English and describes where the metro is. It's about 1 km away. Sector 10 station. I am to get on this to sector 13.
I venture out to the roads of Delhi and find myself zigging and zagging around beggers and dogs. I make it to the metro. Now for a ticket/token. I walk in and ask the counter for a token to sector 13. It cost 10 rupees. 1/6 of a dollar. So cheap.
I turn around and have no clue which side I go to. I ask an officer and he tells me which side to stand on. I hop up and board the next train. I walk into the car and am glared at by tons of locals. I pop a squat and wait for two stops.
I find myself now at sector 13 and and asking an officer what direction the Radisson Blu is. He points me east, and I walk. I'm passing more beggers, tuk tuks and people desperate for an easy rags to riches pickup from a foreigner. I keep denying and ignoring call outs to take their car or tuk tuk.
I reach the Radisson at 4:15pm. I'm relieved. I walk inside and ask the counter for Vipul. They call his room, and I'm on my way up to his room. Incredible. I've made it. I'm relieved. I knock on Vipuls door, and he opens it.
'Man am I happy to see you, Vipul!'
The night begins. Kind of.
He is running errands for the wedding. I make my way downstairs and find an outlet to charge my phone while I wait. I nap in the hallway, and wait for Vipul to come get me.
I wake up after very short 5-10 minute naps and browsing the web, making sure in ready for my next departures, killing time.. Vipul finds me and the wedding begins.
Vipul Introduces me to many of his family members. I mingle with his cousins and uncles and sisters etc.. It's a lot of people to remember. I actually can't remember one name. I'm horrible at names.
His cousins take me by their side. Vipul must go around and take care of some things/take part in the wedding.
I am wandering around the food. I'm trying many things. Tons of things. I have no clue what I'm eating. I'm not worried about the food being well cooked. This Is all very well prepared and ready to go. 5-star hotel baby!
Rituals are beginning. The first that I am experiencing, is one where the bride will be having all go an touch her feet. I believe this symbolizes everyone giving her luck.
The next is when the groom and his entourage are coming to make an offer to the brides family/friends. We are blocking the way. They sing a song and approach the arch they must pass under. We deny him the right to come through. After many attempts we let him through.
Someone jokingly got silly string and sprayed it all over the brides side. Haha!
We then welcome the groom in to the reception area, and again must give him a hard time of being accepted into the area. I find myself under the groom helping support him on the shoulders of the bride's relatives. 
They continuously try to get me involved with the wedding. We now watch as the mother of the bride gives the groom her blessings.
We now wait for the bride to make her appearance.
Vipul, and his relatives carry a display of roses above his sisters head. They walk her in very slowly. This is gorgeous. The setting, the music, the singing, the attention to detail, the colors, the love, the gathering of hundreds... It's overwhelmingly beautiful. I'm so grateful to have been able to witness this, and even at times be brought in to take part of the ceremony. I am at my all time high of this trip, so far.
It's been an emotional roller coaster so far from the start of my journey. This though, this makes it all worth it. I can not wait until I can have my day, full of the people I care for, my significant other cares for, and those that care for us, all in one area. Truly, I've been blessed to be a part of this. I can't thank Vipul and his family enough.
The rituals go on throughout the night with bits if breaks between. The bar open. I'm continuously offered a drink or a shot. I continuously, respectfully deny because I'm worried I will weaken my immune system. I'm worried about my throat getting scratchy.
Again, I'm sake to take a shot. Finally I cave. His cousin and sister got me. I'm in one vodka shot. Next... Another vodka shot with them. Next, another shot of something, I'm not sure what. Next, the same thing. Next, I find myself hiking a glass of scotch. Gross. I drink about half and call it quits.
Now being buzzed at this wedding I'm tired. The rituals continue on throughout the night until 5am.
We now are witnessing the final, very long part of the wedding. This is when they commit each other for multiple lives. Everything is so pretty. They have a fire they keep burning in the center of everyone. Fire is like a symbol of purity you can purify water with fire. You can burn with fire.
This has been a wild past 13 hours.
I'm given a taxi back to my hotel from the wedding free of charge at 5:30 am. Awesome.
I get back to my nice hotel, plop in my bed and stay awake until 8. I'm still overwhelmed with how my trip has gone both so horribly and so beautifully.
I fall asleep until the afternoon. Vipul and I are emailing on what we are planning for the next day. We are going to venture out together. He is really excited because he feels he has lost the feeling/never really knew what it was like in Delhi. He is excited to go bargaining with me. ( we spoke about my time bargaining in Uganda) We have limited contact, only via email, and he said he was going to try and reserve us a taxi for the day which is 1200. Sweeeet.
I ask him to confirm with me if we get one and if not then we can meet at metro station sector 13. I hear nothing back. I wait hours. Nothing. I fall asleep and had set my alarm for 6:45am because we knew we wanted to start early but never clarified a time.
It's 7:45am, and all the sudden, I hear a knock on my hotel door. 'Harrison!?'
Holy crap it's Vipul!!!! Haha! I was so confused and startled. He told me his wifi had stopped working so he couldn't email me back last night. I very quickly throw on pants, a shirt, gather my belongings and we head out.
Our day was pretty open and we wanted to see a few temples. Unfortunately for us, not realizing it... Almost all temples and museums are closed on Mondays.
Our first temple, closed. Sadly no pictures but I did get an amazing view of it from the roadway before we found out it was closed. Roaming around now thinkin of what we can do, we find ourselves checking out some monuments and government official offices. This was short but it was pretty interesting too. Vipul realized that some of the pillars it light posts had writing on them that stated other countries, to India. Like 'New Zealand to India'. Maybe these were gifted to India? Hmm.
We also stopped at the Red Fort, not for long though. The area was not good.
We then decided to go to our driver's Sikh temple because it is open. We walked in, took off our socks and shoes, put a handkerchief on our heads, and made our way through the temple. Beautiful inside. Gold everywhere. I didn't want to be disrespectful so I didn't take any pictures. Outside I took some though. This was cool, it was not a touristy temple. Awesome. I loved this. Actually diving in.
We made our rounds, cleansed out feet and hands, walked around the water that sits next to the temple, took pictures, and were on out way out again. Very good exoerience.
We then headed to the Gandhi Museum. Lee had mentioned this to me and having Gandhi be such an amazing person, maybe even an idle of mine, I wanted to see this. Of course, it's closed. It's Monday! There is a monument outside though which was representing Gandhi's peaceful march to the sea. This was when the government (I believe the British) taxed salt. Gandhi marched to the sea and they showed that you can't tax salt, it's like taxing air. The taxes for salt were taken away.
We keep moving forward to some markets. This is where we will eventually end our day. We walk through some markets, and the first one a man tells us 350 for men's pants. We want pants, but we are trying to gage how much they are actually worth. We decide not to buy anything yet so we can get a grasp on things.
The next store down Vipul asks if he can get pants for 250. They immediately say yes. So I they say yes, obviously it's overpriced still. We continue down. We then say 200 to some other stores for pants, and look at other items as well. 200 was a no go. No one was doing it.
A young girl is walking around with necklaces to sell and tries to get us to buy them. We say no. She then approaches is and attempts I grab our water bottles and her words bleed out of her mouth which kills us on the Inside, 'then give me water.. Just give me water'.
We continue on...
We take a break and we see a McDonalds. Really crappy looking on the outside. There are small families laying down on the ground, with little kids running up to us asking for water. Vipul hads his to the kids and looks at me, 'man I just can't do it they are kids...'.
While we order food and begin to chow down on our meals, we discuss how diss disappointing and hard it is to just walk by and not do anything for these people.
We have some very intense conversations on the homeless, the needy, the drive for work and study...
We speak of moments that catch us hard and make us think differently. From stereotypes, to social class, to truly helping others. Being a good person. What is wealthy? Our standards of being wealthy? All these questions race through outings and we are on rapid fire back and forth discussing the issues and difficulties compared to successes. Being wealthy is not the money, not the degree, not the A+, but the quality of person.
It reminded me if a time I was in Califrnia for my first time. I was at a fountain sitting with my friend Oliver, and next to us was an unstable man. He had to be under the influence. He was rocking back and forth, eyes rolling behind his head. I mention to Oliver that I feel like he will fall in the water. I don't want to not help him If he does. He could drown. Oliver makes a good point that he could not realize I'm trying to help him and freak out or pull a knife, who knows. But I can't bare not do ANYTHING for this guy if he falls in.
Suddenly he falls forward. He does not fall in, he falls and hits his head on the cement. He lies there motionless. I'm immediately looking around and seeing if anyone is calling for help. All I see is people taking pictures. I am disgusted. I understand you are fascinated, but realize you could be helping the situation or ignoring it. Don't publicize this. Or make it even more dramatic and of a scene. Keep walking. Within the first 10 seconds of him falling, I bolt to the neares door I could find. It's a very nice restaurant and the greeter stops me tryin to say wait for a seat. I cut him off immediately and say 'officer? Ambulance? We need help!' He points me in the direction, and I run as fast as I can. It takes time, or atleast the 30 seconds felt like 10 minutes. I found an officer running. He must of been called by someone. He doesn't know were to go. I lead the way running as fast as I can and reached the fountain where there was now a full circle of people. The ambulance arrives and the man is brought out in a stretcher. All I remember is people joking around and smiling. I get if that's your way you deal with emotions or with situations, but it's still just an overwhelming experience. I always wants to know if that guy made it or not. I hope he did.
The point of sharing that, is because the state of mind that people are in. Why did it take so long for anyone I react? Why did it take me 10 seconds and noticing that no one else was doing anything? Those ten seconds could have been the most ten important seconds of the mans life. It's a difficult thing to grasp, but I will be forever in debt for this man. He helps me make my decisions faster. With confidence. I have to at least try.
Vipul and I discuss his friends that created a company / organization who installs solar powered charging stations. These stations have large packs that are charged and are then brought to a house in a village or town in Africa. Amazing idea. They started with one, and are now international. This is incredible, they were 18. He told me about this because of my potential idea of starting a non-profit for fresh water wells. He stated it seems relevant and I should make contact. We will see!
We finished our intense conversation and headed back to the market. It's time to bargain!
Back to the shop with 250 for the pants. We didn't hassle him at all. We said we would take one, then go to another store and state we just got them for 200. So we did just that, back to the guy that really was trying to rip us off for 350, and easily convinced him for 200 showing what we had already gotten for '200'. We got 4 more pairs and one shirt.
We separated after this. Vipul wanted a bag and I wanted to browse. I found a small tiny elephant mask that was painted and crafted with beads. I told the man 100 rupees. He state no and laughed, saying '350 this is special material' which I understood it's a heavier piece. I said no I can't do 350. He says ok i give you good discount. I said 'you mean a VERY good discount because I can't afford that.' He says 250. I handed it to him and said 150. He says no I say okay, turn around and slowly start to leave. I hear 'sir! Okay okay' I walk back in and as he wraps it up in a bag he states, 'okay 180'. I was pretty annoyed because he said okay to 150. I don't even care about another 30 rupees I would hae gotten it but that wasn't the aggreance so I wanted to teach him that he was being rude. Haha! Once I heard '180' I responded in seconds with '130'. He looks at me and his eyes widen. He gets a little angry and says, 'what!? You said 150 last time...' I said 'yeah? So did you.' And turned around to leave. He then says 'okay 150'. I look at him and said 'you cheat'. He resonds with 'you say cheat because your customer. That business'. That's fine with me. I take it and leave.
Vipul bargains a bit on his own to get a bag for himself and his sister. We were ready to leave. Vipul got dropped off at his other hotel. We hugged, thanked each other, and spent most of our time we knew each other, in India. I got back to my hotel by 3:30 pm. I asked our taxi driver if he could pick me up at 5:30am for my drop off at my train. He said he could no problem. Awesome. I'm on my way.
Vipul, it's been a pleasure. Thank you SO much for everything. Please thank your family for everything. Till next time, man!!!
Agra, here I come.
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