Namaste! India, finally.

We arrived into Delhi late in the evening on August 11. As we descended, the warm glow from the city lights informed us that we had almost arrived. I grew a bit anxious, knowing that I was going to be really out of my comfort zone in a few minutes. I would not be dissappointed.

Complete sensory overstimilation - Sounds: incredibely loud and bustling. Indian drivers use horns at least once a minute (we averaged our driver's use to be significantly higher over a 20 minute data sample). Smells: foods that I had never seen or heard of before are prepared by street vendors. Some on carts shout the names of the food as they move with the ebb and flow of humanity on the street, which is useless to me since I do not speak Hindi. The pollution problem on the street level is astounding - as a matter of fact we could smell it at least 5 minutes before we landed. Sights - the sarees, salwar kameez, kurtas, dotis - are all so colorful and interesting to look at. Soon after we have left the airport we quickly become social anomolies - my blonde son and wife are stared at, sometimes open mouthed. People outright stop what they are doing and just watch. Gazing seems to lack the taboo status it has in the US! Sometimes people will follow us in small groups, closing the distance behind us over time as they become more comfortable.

Although I cannot describe the street-level instensity, this video attempts to do just that. It was taken from the car as we were approaching Agra, in Utter Pradesh (state), home of the great Taj Mahal.