Today I decided to revisit the Qutb Minar. On my drive to there I decided to take some official counts. There were 11 men peeing on the side of the road, 4 children lined up on the sidewalk squatting, 15 cows, about 100 water buffalo hanging out under a bridge in the river for shade, I am guessing 1,000 hawks flying between the river and the dump – the sky almost looked black in some areas – I am guessing a wingspan of about 3 feet. I don’t know if it is for food or mating season.

The funniest thing I saw at the Qtab Minar was there were about 50 guys lined up to take a picture with a blonde lady wearing bight purple Converse shoes. I have never seen anything like it.

I walked around for about 1.5 hours in the 100 degree heat. It is cooling down but I was still in a full sweat.

I find my cab driver, Amarjit Sing, and he says “go mall one hour”. I told him I wanted to go to Connaught Place after Qtab Minar so I thought he was saying I only one hour for you at Connought. I was wrong. He pulls up to the Kashmir Palace. I thought “Oh sh@t” I am for in now. I have heard stories about the cab driver taking you someone and forcing you to buy something. I get in and they immediately take me downstairs to a room full of rugs. The guy explains his family is from Kashmir and it is too dangerous for you westerners to go there, thus they set up shop in Delhi for their fine rugs. He takes me to a loom and shows me how they make a rug and explains the average rug takes 1.5 years to make. I am still sweating away and praying I get out of this ok. He takes me to another room and whips out three sizes of rugs. They were beautiful with satin interwoven into them. They had a shine. I told him not interested, my cab driver walked down, I said "lets go" and mumbled to myself "no tip for you".

He takes me to Cannaught Place. I walk out and it was like a pack of wolves on me. Within 5 minutes I had 20 people on me. I walked through a little area like a flea market but it was packed that you could not even see what was on the tables. I was getting bumped into, people asking where I am from as there come on line. I just put my hands in my pocket and walked in a zig zag fashion. When I walked into one of the same guys again I would zag the other way. There was no personal space and I was a big dollar sign. To escape I took some stairs upwards and there was a walking area. All of a sudden I have another 3 college age guys on me. I told them I was from Canada. They warned me not to walk in the flea market I was just at because of pick pocketers. I am thinking the 3 of them are. I make a zag and 1 of the three continues to follow me and tells me to go to a certain building to shop. I start ignoring him and he ask “You angry with me?” I said no and zagged again. Now I was just across the street from the cab and made a run for it.

The lack of personal space and feeling like prey did not sit well with me. If I go back there again it will be with a local who can show me where to go.

I get to the cab and Amarjit says no money – you pay for parking. I said how much? First he says 30, I give him 30 and he says no 20. I give him 20 and notice he only gives 10 to the parking attendant. That was his tip for the day. Then he asks to go to another mall and I said no, go to hotel. I signed my slip at the hotel and he looked back for his tip, but I was already out the door.

It all got to me today. I went to the pool to cooled off by swimming a few laps. At the pool I met the English ladies who are here for 6 months. They were friendly and said we will have to get together. Hopefully I will have a crew to hang out with.