We arrived in Chennai today, which will be the last leg of our seemingly packed and rushed India trip. After some wandering around, which included walking along an extremely dirty and trash-filled beach, we ended up at Ratna Cafe, a very local eatery which serves much loved South Indian specialties such as idlis and vadas soaked in sambar. The restaurant keeps its doors wide open, so obviously the front of the restaurant is going to feel exactly as hot and humid as it does outside. Luckily for us, the humidity in Chennai was far lower than in the previous four cities we visited further north, so it wasn’t as hard to sit in the restaurant. But as we went further into the cafe, we realized that “A/C Hall” was actually marked as a sign. We were currently sitting in the “Non-A/C Hall.” And if you look at the prices of the menus for each, you’ll notice that every dish is two rupees more expensive in the air-conditioned hall than in the non-air-conditioned hall. I’d never been in any eating establishment that was like this before.

Since it wasn’t too humid, we decided to have the more “authentic” experience of sitting in the non-air-conditioned hall and enjoying our vada in sambar, ras malai, and rose milk. They were all just as delicious as they looked. And we saved six rupees sitting in the non-AC hall!

This morning, we wandered around Mumbai and ended up stopping at the famous B. Merwan & Co. bakery, a much loved Irani bakery that’s been around for over 104 years which is famous for its bun maska pav, mawa cakes, biscuits, and breads. Chris found it when doing a search for must-eat things in Mumbai, and so of course, we had to stop there for a bun maska pav, which is basically a slightly sweet, cottony soft bready bun that’s filled with a layer of butter and cream on the inside. You can tell it’s extremely popular given the number of patrons coming in and out with their breakfast buns. It’s a simple but seemingly nostalgic place where it’s obvious that it’s been much loved and appreciated for countless decades due to the wear of its walls and floors.

As soon as we walked in, a little elderly Irani lady that was probably just an inch or two taller than my own mother walked up to me and put her arm around me. She asked me to sit down and asked what I’d like. I asked for a bun maska pav, and she immediately called out my order in a soft but commanding voice to the staff, who soon after brought over my pillowy bun and chai tea cup and saucer. She came over to check on us a couple of times and was constantly warm and smiling with us. She was like the epitome of Persian and Indian hospitality. You definitely never get treated that kindly at any Chinese spot; I can guarantee you that.

Before we left, I had to use the restroom. She noticed I was standing up and asked what I needed, so I told her. She hesitated. “We have a toilet, but it’s an Indian toilet. And the staff use it. Is that okay with you?” she asked, unsure of how I would respond.

I said it would be fine. She responded, “Are you sure? The staff use it.” She seemed more concerned about how I’d feel that the bakery staff use the restroom rather than the fact that it was a squat toilet.

I prepared my tissues for toilet paper and my hand sanitizer. I can deal with this. It’s the first and only time so far on this trip that I’ve had to use a squat toilet. I became an expert at using these things in China and Vietnam years ago.

That’s where the classist aspect of India still persists; she didn’t think I’d approve of using a toilet that people of a lower class or social status would want to use. She also probably didn’t think I even knew what an Indian toilet was.

I loved that cushiony bun, and I also thoroughly enjoyed my tiny cup of Irani chai. The bun came with the chai, and Chris got a juice, which all just cost 40 rupees, or barely 60 US cents. I’m starting a very long and even more endless lists of things I want to try to make as a result of this trip. That soft, milky, pillowy sweetness could become addictive.

The last time I was traveling in a very conservative place was in Istanbul in July 2011, and it was so hot that I let go of my desires to be respectful and just exposed my cleavage, arms, and legs. The heat was killing me. I figured that since I was a tourist, I could feign ignorance and get away with it. Notably, I got stared at a lot, but I didn’t really care. Occasionally, I will admit I did feel a little bad, though.

This time traveling in India, I made a mental note to stick with covering my shoulders and legs above my knees as much as possible since I read that exposing these body parts would be frowned upon. I packed five different shawls for this trip to cover my shoulders, and I even bought two pairs of loose linen pants so that I could wear pants that were breathable that wouldn’t stick to my legs. Chris hates those pants; he calls them paper bags. But I didn’t care since they were comfortable, and it would mean I wouldn’t garner attention.

Given that we were traveling to five different cities, I read that Mumbai was considered one of the most progressive Indian cities, so if I wanted to bear my shoulders and legs in any city, I could get away with it there. People, even locals, were more likely to push things to the edge there. So I packed one dress that ended above my knees and a pair of (very short…) shorts for this segment of the trip. And… walking along Marine Drive in Mumbai, and in the Muslim district of the city, I got stared at constantly, by men and women alike. Men stared because they just stared… and I could feel the eyes of the Muslim women staring through their burkas. The staring — I honestly wasn’t quite sure how to read it. Were they staring at me disapprovingly or in admiration? Did they think I had beautiful, sexy legs, or short and stumpy ones? And Chris lapped it all up, looking excitedly around as he noticed countless pairs of eyes running up and down my legs. This completely thrilled him. It did not thrill me.

“They want to wear what you are wearing,” Chris declared, proud of his wife for exposing some skin on this trip. “Someone has to show them and lead the way. They need to stop being so prudish and just show some skin and kiss in public. Do what they want! Screw what the old farts say! We need progress and change here!”

During our walk along the beach on Marine Drive, we noticed countless couples, all seemingly trying to restrain their public displays of affection as passersby like us glanced at them. Some held hands. Some actually nuzzled and kissed. Others hugged openly. Chris was so impressed; he said that he never saw this twenty years ago when he was here, and that India certainly has made some social progress during this time. One couple had their arms around each other, and as we approached, the man quickly looked up at us, then took one arm of the woman off him, then the other, almost mechanically, and then inserted about a foot’s distance between them. Chris laughed out loud at this. Another couple was sitting with their arms around each other, and as we approached, they immediately removed their arms from each other and separated themselves from touching at all.

Chris, always wanting to be an inspiration, made sure to give me far more public affection than he normally does by constantly putting his arm around my shoulders and waist, and occasionally even slapping me on my butt to be playful (and annoying). And it was ridiculous the amount of attention that drew. Men stared constantly whenever this happened. Some even turned around to watch us. “They’re staring because they want to do what I am doing,” Chris said, gleefully. “I’m going to teach them.”

Now, Chris thinks he’s like a savior, preaching the gospel of open sexuality and love to the people of India, slowly taking away the conservative restrictions that have so plagued the country for decades, if not centuries.

Our time in Jaipur sadly came to an end today. I just couldn’t get enough of the architecture of this city and all the Muslim influences everywhere. It was like endless eye candy, and I couldn’t stop staring at everything.

We upgraded our flight from Jaipur to Mumbai so that we’d be sitting in business class, and Chris pointed out something that I completely overlooked. A man sat himself in a business class seat without any luggage or bags across from us. He was traveling with his servant, who not only placed his bag in the business overhead compartment above his seat, but even rearranged it just so, in the way that his boss asked him to correct. Then, the server went to seat himself in the back of the plane in economy class. He would eventually come back to the front of the plane to pick up the luggage, far after his boss would already have deplaned.

It’s strange for me to witness things like this because I see it so rarely back in the U.S. Even when you do have hired help, it tends to be hidden away in the home, or via women of color pushing excessively expensive strollers with super white babies in the Upper East Side. It’s not so out in the open like on a plane ride. And, I think it would be quite accurate to say that whatever that business class man was paying his servant that it is minuscule in comparison to what hired help is paid in the U.S.

Chris’s mom messaged him that it is customary to tip the servant when staying at Ammachy’s (Chris’s maternal grandmother’s) home. Granted, due to water rationing in Chennai, and being able to shower only between the hours of 6-8am, we ended up getting a hotel for our three nights there. But his mom said it would still be a nice gesture given that she’s doing some extra work given our visit. I suggested to Chris that we not only give her a tip, but also ask her to accompany us to dinner on Sunday night. His eyes widened. The look on his face was as though I just told him I was planning to shave my head bald.

“Babe, you don’t ask the help to go to dinner,” he said, wrinkling his eyebrow, as though he was educating me on the ways of life here. “They are the help. Unless they are doing something like caring or feeding a child, they do not come to dinner with us.”

I told him I didn’t understand what the problem was; it would be a nice, generous gesture, and I’m sure she would appreciate it.

“You just don’t do that here,” Chris insisted. “It would be unheard of.”

“You’re so classist!” I retorted, annoyed. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“I am not classist; India is classist,” he responded. “That’s the way things are here. You just deal with it.”

“You have to be the change that you want to see,” I said back to him. “How is anything going to change with an attitude like that?”

Chris: “I don’t live here, so I’m not going to change anything! I just deal with it for the short time I’m here, and then I leave!”

Fine – that’s fair enough. Sure, you just deal with that here. But you want to change Indian society and get them to be more sexually open?!

Chris has his priorities laid out.

I studied a year and a half of art history. The first year was during my sophomore year in high school when I took Advanced Placement (AP) Art History, which is basically a class you can take to get college credit assuming you take the College Board’s AP exam, pay the stupid fees, and score at least a certain level (I surprisingly scored a 5, which is the highest score… my art history teacher didn’t think very much of me and probably would have been floored if I told her after). The second semester I did was during my first year at Wellesley, where it was a requirement to take a writing course. Because I felt a bit insulted that I was going to be forced to take a course just on writing (I already had an ego then, clearly), I figured it would be the most efficient use of my time if I took a writing course that combined a credit for some other requirement, so it was a writing course on art history in the end for me.

The academic study of intro-level, general “art history” in the U.S., if not in the western world, really stinks because the powers that be do not give a crap about Asian art. All the focus, because most of the world seems to value the accomplishments of white men, is around Western European and American art. The one surprising thing about my American art study was that it actually did cover some Mexican art (maybe because Mexico is part of North America… I have no idea what the logic there was), which was how I learned about famous Mexican artists like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Maybe it was because Rivera was commissioned to do some pieces in the U.S. Who knows?

I thought about this today because given that the Persian/Mughal empires used to control the subcontinent of India and the general sounds for centuries, Persian/Muslim architecture and art in general is so massive here, notably in Jaipur where we’re spending our next two days. I’d been exposed to this type of architecture while in Istanbul seven years ago, and I was already in love with its intricacies then. So much love and passion is apparent in these stunning mosques, forts, and archways; the level of complexity of Persian art in general is hard to rival. Their culture, like Indian culture, is so colorful and ornate, so it’s no wonder that everything from their walkways to the walls of their buildings would be so lavishly decorated. It’s as though every wall is a work of art that wants to command your attention.

The highlight of the day for me was at the Amber Fort, which sits just 11 kilometers outside of the city of Jaipur atop a hill. It is a fort and palace that is built of red and white sandstone, and is known for its blend of Rajput and Hindu style of architecture and its mixture of Hindu and Muslim ornamentation. The ornamentation is a mix of paintings, carvings, and jeweled pieces.

Sheesh Mahal or the Mirror Palace is the most beautiful part of this fort. This hallway is embellished with glass inlaid panels and multicolored ceilings; since the mirrors have a convex shape and are designed with colored foil and paint, the walls and ceilings would glitter brightly under candlelight at the time it was in use. The mirror mosaics and colored glass were called “a glittering jewel box in flickering candlelight.” Although we were there during the day, even in the regular bright daylight, the entire hall glittered endlessly no matter what angle you were looking at it or walking past it. Unfortunately, it was packed with tourists, so it was really hard to get a photo without people in it, so I resorted to just taking photos of the tops of the arches and its ceiling.

I’m just in love with the arches of this palace. I took so many pictures of them and stared at them constantly. I’m still looking at the photos I took on my phone now. The idea that someone could arbitrarily decide that this type of art is not worthy of being covered in an art history course is just so stupid and ignorant to me. The level of creativity and craftsmanship that went into structures like this rival, if not outdo, artwork that is famous in France or Italy. People in the west can be so oblivious and deluded.

Before coming to India, these are the things that people told me to be wary of:

1. Do not, under any circumstances, drink the water. Always, always drink bottled water. Watch the server, if relevant, break the seal and pour the water into your glass for you.
2. It will be dirty and smelly everywhere.
3. The cows and other animals will walk in the street with you.
4. Indian traffic = the definition of chaos.
5. Poverty will be extreme.
6. Beggars, as a result of #3 above, will be very persistent.

So, I think there’s some truth to all of the points above. The water out of the tap while brushing my teeth tastes pretty horrendous, but it’s not anything worse than what I’ve tasted in China or Mexico. The water in Oaxaca out of the tap was notably horrid to me. I’m fine with the animals walking in the street as long as they don’t attack me, and as long as the cars and autos mind them and don’t run them over (no one needs road kill anywhere). The dirt and the smells don’t bother me very much because I’ve visited other developing countries that have similar smells… though I’ll be honest and say that as racist as it sounds, Indian body odor is just… different, and that’s mainly because of the spices that are heavily in their diets. That’s just life.

It’s not just the beggars who have been persistent here, and more persistent than anywhere else I’ve visited, but even the auto/tuk-tuk drivers have been very determined to get our business. At the same time, though, they’ve actually been quite friendly and helpful. They will drive alongside us as we’re walking on the side of the road, strike up conversation with us by asking where we are from, note that Chris has an Indian face, question where we are going and how we are going to go there. Some have even parked their autos and simply walked along side us for blocks, chatting us up. They really do not want to take “no” for an answer here. They’re not even being rude or mean about it; they’re mixing friendliness with insistence on our taking their business. They give us funny looks when we say we want to walk (why would you want to walk in India?!), and they’ve even told us when we’re walking toward the wrong entrance and tell us how to get to the right entrance for tourists.

Chris and I both believe that the best way to see a city is by foot. You will always see and notice a lot more walking around a city or town than driving through it; it’s just a fact. You can see and interact with people, smell the scents and hear the sounds of daily life. You notice more nuanced things, whether it’s how people interact with each other, signs, or little nooks and crannies on side streets. I’m sad when I hear about people who visit places like China and India and want some protected experience within some car being chauffeured from site to site because in that case, you’ve basically lost half if not more of the joys of traveling to a new unfamiliar place. You don’t get a real sense of the city’s energy and vibe that way; it just becomes a method to tick off sites to see off your list and bring that home so that you can tell your friends your bucket list items have been superficially knocked off and done, yet you haven’t really learned much of the culture of that place at all.

In these interactions with the auto drivers, even though their ultimate motive is, of course, to get our business, they’re genuinely there just to make a living for themselves and their families, and they’re doing it in a way that is not only honest, but kind and friendly. If at the end of the day, they get nothing from us, they still would have treated us with the kindness of strangers that we as tourists and citizens of the world rely on. And that gives me faith in humanity.

After a day exploring New Delhi, we dedicated today to a day trip to Agra to visit the much-anticipated Taj Mahal, the “baby” Taj that the Taj Mahal was modeled after, and the Agra Fort. Since the “high speed” Gatimaan Express train that takes only about an hour and half had now been in operation for a few years, we decided to use that to get to Agra to then meet our driver and guide at the Agra train station.

Our guide, Tushaar, recounted the famous story (and potential myth since it has various iterations) of the Taj Mahal. An emperor of the Mughal Empire in the mid-1600s, Shah Jahan, had three wives, two of whom he wed for political reasons, and one of whom he wed out of love, which was very revolutionary at the time. This favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, was a Persian princess who was extremely intelligent and beautiful, and oftentimes consulted him in major decisions he made. She even accompanied him in battles that he fought. She bore him over a dozen children, and unfortunately, died during giving birth to their fourteenth child. They often times talked about what he would do if she were to die, and he eventually told her while she was alive that he would have a great palace built to bury her, where he’d eventually join her. This eventually became a reality. The emperor was devastated that the love of his life had died so tragically and abruptly, so he followed through on his promise and commissioned to have built what would eventually be known as the Taj Mahal, or in Arabic, “the crown palace,” to be the mausoleum to house the remains of his favorite beloved wife.

Rumor has it that it took over 22 years and the labor of over 20,000 men to build this lavish palace, designed in shades of white, beige, grey, and purple marble, and inlaid with jewels on the interior and the exterior, both local (such as the shiny brown Star of India), and foreign (cousins of emeralds and rubies). The technique used to inlay the semi-precious gemstones is unique to the city of Agra, requiring hand-chiseling of the marble to them insert the unique shape of each unique, custom shaped gemstone. And because the emperor did not want the technique to be copied, since he wanted just one unique palace to be the memory of his beloved wife, he chopped the thumbs off of each of the 20,000 workers to ensure they’d never flee and build something similar elsewhere (other iterations of this story claim that he blinded each of them and performed other variations of torture, but this is what our guide told us). The estimated cost, in today’s dollars, for what it took to build this embodiment of undying love and marital devotion, is about $830 million USD. I wonder if that amount discounts the cheap or even free slave labor that Shah Jahan probably used to get this masterpiece done.

Like many works of art and architectural masterpieces, the Taj Mahal is so much more in person than it is in photographs or textbooks. In photos, it looks very bright white, but in person, if you look closely at the minarets, the domes, and the walls, the marble ranges in color from white to beige to grey to even subtle shades of purple. And if our guide never pointed out the gem inlays and the method used to create this type of art, I probably would never have thought much of it and would think it was mass created. The technique employed to inlay the gems is so painstaking and takes years of studying and practice to get correct. After we walked through the grounds of the Taj, our guide took us to one of the family-owned businesses that still uses this same technique to make crafts such as framed marble inlays, tables, jewelry boxes, and table tops. I tried to chip away at the marble myself for a few minutes, but the workers got worried that I was ruining their work, so they immediately took the pointed instrument away from me. The method is called parchin kari (literally meaning “inlay” or “driven-in work”), a decorative art that uses cut and fitted, highly polished colored stones to create images. The stones are glued one by one, and stability is achieved by grooving the undersides of the stones so that they interlocked like a jigsaw puzzle. It’s hard to imagine anyone back in the U.S. being this devoted to a craft to learn a technique as intense and difficult as this one. You truly have to love this to do this.

The Taj is so grand and awe-inspiring, and it’s a romantic, sweet thought to think that a man was inspired to have this built in honor of his wife. Although, I do think at the same time it may have been even more romantic if he chose to have it built as a place to live with his wife while she were still alive, especially given that she bore him so many children. The other thought I have is that although he may have done this out of “love,” a lot of sweat, toil, and literal blood went into this, given that 20,000 men worked day in and out to have this built (and even got blinded or had their fingers chopped off after – what a reward!), and if we factored in real wage living costs into this, $830 million USD may actually be just a fraction of what this palace is truly worth. That is a chilling thought. People’s livelihoods changed all because of a crazy emperor’s obsession over the death of his wife, so everyone else has to “pay” for her death.

I don’t usually say I have favorites, but since I’ve been wanting to see this building since high school when I studied art history (and of course, because the U.S. is racist, and Advanced Placement Art History completely skips over all of Asia in favor of Western European and American art, I had to read about the Taj Mahal and Persian art in general on my own), I can honestly say that this really blew me away and is one of my all-time favorite buildings I’ve ever seen, next to Falling Water, the Frank Lloyd Wright home in Pennsylvania, and the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California. It inspires me to want to see even more Persian art… how can I get there?

We awoke to our first full day in India together this morning, here in New Delhi, where the humidity today was at 85 percent, and the temperature, depending on the time of day, was anywhere between 85 to 92 degrees Fahrenheit. I’ve never been a fan of humidity and dislike it when people rave about how good it is for one’s skin; I don’t care how good it is for my skin if I am stifling for air to breathe and get through the day. Who cares if you have great skin if you can’t breathe and die?

I can’t say more things about how intense and overwhelming the traffic has been. We took advantage of Uber in the city and also did quite a bit of walking, which apparently is not “normal” here for people who are not of lower classes. Upper class people get driven; lower class people walk. Since we’re foreigners who are visiting this country on holiday, by default, we are “upper class.” “Autos” or motorized tuk-tuks kept stopping to ask us if we wanted a ride, and when we said no and that we wanted to walk, they gave us befuddled stares and said we didn’t need to walk if we could get a ride. There are dotted white lines along the roads to indicate different lanes to drive in, as well as a double white line in the center of the ride to denote traffic going in opposite directions, but none of that mattered since there was absolutely no semblance of any order whatsoever. The dotted lines sometimes didn’t exist, and they didn’t really need to since no one really saw them or paid them any attention. A road was simply a road to drive a vehicle or walk on. Our own Uber and auto drivers would drive across the double-white line into oncoming traffic to then make turns. Autos along the road would almost drive into each other before swerving at the last minute to avoid each other. The autos, which at best could fit three passengers plus the driver, would stuff in as many as six or even people into the backseat. And we haven’t even gotten into the fact that it wasn’t even just auto and cars along the road; there were also pedestrians walking in all directions, with and against the traffic, plus cows and the occasional goat. We even saw chickens coming from who knows where and walking into the streets. Somehow and quite luckily, I didn’t see one chicken fatality.

Although New Delhi is the capital of India, it felt far less like a government city today and more like an enlarged rural area. The roads are paved, but if they weren’t, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it given how overwhelming and chaotic the traffic flow was. The crowds, the humidity, the frenzied traffic and total disorder: this is actually kind of how I imagined India to be. Although I will say that contrary to what others have warned me about (because it seems that everyone has an opinion on India and its lack of cleanliness), it’s nowhere as dirty as people have told me it was; I’ve seen similar if not worse levels of filth and trash in places like Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Brazil, and even parts of South Africa where the slums are.

After a seven hour flight to London, a four-hour layover at Heathrow, and another nine hours from London to New Delhi, all I wanted was to just teleport to India and get this trip started. Luckily for us (and especially Chris because he’s an Uber addict), Uber is readily available in pretty much every major city in India, so we “ordered” an Uber to pick us up from the airport late tonight to take us to our hotel. As we rushed through security and had our e-visas cleared quickly, I took a deep breath and realized… wow, the New Delhi international airport is redolent of cardamom and rose water. Yep, that’s it. Now, I know for sure that I am truly in India. All these beautiful spices and flowers are going to surround me for the next ten days (as well as the smell of sewage and garbage and fragrances of human and cow and dog and goat pee and poo, but.. we’ll get into that later).

Unfortunately, although English is technically a national language of India… well, guess what: not everyone knows how to speak it. So we experienced massive communication issues trying to tell our driver where exactly we were, and Chris couldn’t understand him, so we waited over an hour for this guy to show up when he ended up cancelling. We eventually did get another Uber who took us on a smooth ride to our hotel… in the midst of an endless sea of “autos” (really, motorized tuk-tuks), scooters, and lanes that have dividing lines but really are not real lanes because no one is following anything, even the double white dividers in the middle of the road. I’ve seen some really orderless traffic in China and in the middle of Vietnam, but New Delhi truly takes the cake for the level of insanity and complete chaos.

I must have really terrible luck when it comes to fire drills with customers because when I remember the times when really bad events have happened at work, they always tend to be around the time when I am about to leave for vacation or when I am actually on vacation but am still incessantly checking e-mail (which means that the person backing me up has to deal with the drama, which is not great). It happened today again while I was in transit to JFK with Chris and his parents. We got stuck in ridiculous rush-hour traffic (which… I guess starts at 2pm now on a Wednesday during summer time?!), so it took almost two hours to get from the Upper West Side to JFK. As we were stuck in traffic with my phone in my backpack, which happens to be in the trunk, and my computer is obviously packed away, I could feel my Wesoo buzzing on my wrist because my customer is not only calling but texting me, and she never does this unless it’s an emergency. As soon as we got through security and go to the lounge, I had to make three different calls while also Slack messaging four different people to get the problem resolved.  My head hurt. And I downed the glass of red wine that Chris got me in two gulps. I had just enough down time to resolve everything before I could pack everything away and get ready to board our flight.

Please don’t let anything bad happen at work while I am out. The last thing I need is a pile of crap waiting for me when I get back.