The Smoking Toilet

I arrived in India late last night. During the flight (which was actually wonderful in Business Class - the seats fully reclined into beds and they fed you way more food than you could possibly eat!), I sat next to a British guy who downed four Heinekens, three glasses of white wine and a glass of champagne on top of his curry chicken for dinner. Randomly, while I was asleep, I would wake up to an odor most foul that could have only been a direct result of the combination of Heineken and curry. As we landed in Delhi, this awful stench resurfaced. It wouldn't go away though. I immediately thought "oh my, this guy soiled himself." The familiar smell of burning trash and diesel fuel filled my nose as well - that reminded me I was in a developing country. As I walked down the terminal and got away from my stinky plane neighbor, the foul stench was still strong in my nose. It has not left. As it turns out, Delhi smells like one giant smoking toilet. My nostrils will probably burn until the day I leave. That was my first impression of Delhi.
As for the traffic and people, I'm not phased. It doesn't seem any more chaotic than any other country I've been too. The kindness of everyone I've met so far has exceeded my expectations and has almost made me forget that I'm inhaling a smoking toilet. I've drank some delicious chai tea and whole milk with lots of sugar (they have office wait staff here! when a glass is empty they refill it with water or tea! I'm not even allowed in the kitchen!).
After work today, we will probably switch hotels. The bathing option is a cold shower at our current hotel. I can handle cold bucket baths in the 100+ degree heat of Senegal. I welcome it. But in Delhi, where it is about 60 degrees in the morning, no way jose. Plus, the more high maintenance person with me wants a gym.
Random observations - Ganesh statues are everywhere (the elephant looking god). I need to inquire as to what he does for people. Also, instead of a Bible place in my hotel by the Gideons, a nice copy of the Bhagavad Gita (a large chunk of the Mahabarata) was in the nightstand. Seeing that immediately took me back to my 10th grade humanities class in which we read exerpts.
I am actually here to work, so I must get back to that, but hopefully there will be more interesting things on which to comment in the future.