Paris, Wednesday, 1995-10-11 05:00 local (Z+1)
It's great to be back where I can conveniently communicate. We came Delhi to Paris yesterday and, since we were coming off the Air India contract, they said we could stay at either hotel. All 3 of us elected to come to the regular Tower Air Hotel, the Meridien. For the other guys it was a matter of this hotel having a better breakfast and a more central location. For me it meant that I knew I could successfully navigate the phone system.
Yesterday in Delhi I made the mistake of depending on the airplane being its usual 3 to 4 hours late. I ran (interesting run) right up until the scheduled wakeup, figuring I would have the delay time to sleep. Unfortunately they almost got the airplane back on time. I had no sooner crawled into bed than the phone rang. I wound up having to fly the 9 hour leg without my nap and having already been up for 10 hours since my body was out of sync. Had to pack my sopping wet running clothes in my bag (no plastic laundry bag in the room) and that has made everything damp and smelly.
The run was interesting, though. I ran the length of the mall on which the government buildings front. The mall looks great at first glance. Close up it's badly in need of repair. The long water pools are scummy, and people (not a lot of them, thank goodness) use them to bathe and to wash their clothes. The park benches and the like are falling apart. Typical India I'm afraid.
The Indian bureaucracy is in no hurry to get to work. They seemed to be just arriving at about the 09:30 hour. At the end of the mall is the President's Palace, an imposing building. You can't get close to it: high fences, guards with Uzi style automatic weapons. Maybe they're really Uzi's. One of them got pointed at me when I ran to the Parliament building. Apparently the sight of a Westerner running directly toward the open gate surrounding Parliament was in some way threatening. I was just planning on asking if I was allowed to go through the Parliament grounds to the other side, which I could see clearly also had an open gate. As I approached the gate, one of the many guards stepped forward and raised and swung his weapon in my direction. A guy in civilian clothing and with a radio stepped from the guard house rather quickly and told me to stop. I did and asked if I could run through and take a look at the Parliament building. They answer was a definite “no” accompanied by an order to leave the area.
I went back down the length of the mall to a big memorial that turned out to be their memorial to their war dead and had another slight run in with officialdom. The memorial was surrounded by a very low, heavy chain and then a graveled area. A single soldier guarded the inside. It looked like you could simply step over the chain and go to the center of the memorial. Not so. When I stepped over the chain, the guard ordered me out. I asked if I could come look at the center of the memorial, but he said no. So, Indians it would appear are not allowed to get close to their own seat of government or the memorial to their war dead.
I got into a short conversation with a tuk-tuk driver (the 3 wheeled vehicles—scooters really with a bench back seat). I noted that everyone had a shirt on, even in the heat. I said that if I was running in my country, I would have my shirt off in this kind of heat and asked if their was any problem with that here. Definitely not allowed, he said. You can't have your shirt off here, even while running, although you can walk to the side of the road and pull your dick out to piss or drop your pants to shit—don't even have to clean it up. Perhaps the shirt thing is a local Delhi restriction.
Came over Iran again, again over Tehran, and this time in the daylight. Imposing city. It sits on a plain backed up against high mountain, on the other side of which is the Caspian Sea. We got rerouted and wound up flying over the Black Sea, Constantinople (I know, it's really Istanbul now) on our left, Russia, unseeable in the distance to the north over the expanse of the Black sea.
Time to shower and pack. My running clothes have dried during the night, but my entire bag now still smells slightly.
Terry