Day 1 (New Delhi)

After 36 hours of traveling and a 1:00 am arrival, we kicked off our India tour with a visit to the Red Fort. We got there by driving through Delhi in a 50-seater tour bus (air conditioning!) with dangerously unhinged seats. This was our first experience with Indian weather...and Indian tourists, who followed our group around the entire fort. The fort was also our introduction to Mughal architecture, which our guide declared "simple" but actually seemed very intricate. Also, the harem building had a stream running through it and once served as barracks for the British army...who trashed it (pat on the back for Western culture).

Onto another phase of Indian history, with a visit to the site of Gandhi's cremation and the house where he spent his final days. We had to take our shoes off to visit the cremation site and thus lost the first five layers of skin thanks to the burning hot stone! The house is now a museum and memorial to Gandhi, with his bedroom intact and biographical billboards throughout the house. Upstairs houses interactive artwork. A path of bronze footprints leads from Gandhi's bedroom door through the garden to the site where he was shot (a path apparently captured well in the movie).

For lunch we stopped at a massive mall that, to our dismay, was actually more Western and up-market than the shopping centers we have at home (Sasha sadly forced herself not to go into Dior as she was not properly dressed). However, the food court had some amazing Indian food (even though we were all a little daunted by the spice level...lassis are very useful!)

We finished this jam-packed day with a visit to Prayas, a rehabilitation center for abandoned, runaway and abused children (which now has branches throughout the country). The administrators work with the police to rescue children (mostly ages 6-8) in terrible situations such as working in the sex trade or forced to beg. These children then live at Prayas up to 18 years of age, where they are educated and taught useful trades (such as sewing and printing). The children put on an adorable dance display, even coercing some of us to join (videos to come later!) Though few spoke any English, many were excited to interact with us. We also got to stick our heads into the dorms, each room of which houses 35 children in bunk beds. We finished on a tenser note with a slightly heated discussion with the head of the Prayas center, who claimed that America did not have these levels of poverty and exploitation, which we found difficult to both accept or contradict. We were defended by our contact Kumar, a TV journalist and family friend of Salil's, who urged this man to take more pride in India and not to seek pity. All in all, this visit was one of our most powerful experiences.