writing now, at the end of a wildly varied day, in which we have met many interesting people and made several wonderfully character-building rookie mistakes, it seems like we have been here for a while and also not for any time at all. any preconceptions that we may have had of this place have all meant nothing in the full-on head re-arranger that Delhi supplies to all visitors, especially those as white skinned, green and soft as our good selves evidently appear to be. most of the we have made thus far have involved any of the following; an experience, an adventure, a challenge, an analysis of oneself and of one's dealings with others. and we have been here a day.
awakening in the guilded cage of The Park hotel, and despite having one more night booked in its pampered enclave, the first order of business was to find Hotel #2 - too much time spent in hotels like The Park and we would have to go home in around fortnight due to lack of cash.
located very close to Rajiv Chowk / Connaught Place, one of New Delhi's central hubs, we leisurely strolled out at around, er 11 am (we are on holiday after all), aiming to check out a guest house that phil had discovered online. lots of smiley faces and helpful directions followed. not knowing the auto-rickshaw (think tuk-tuk) going rate, and unaccountably having forgotten reading that very amount in our guidebook, which was also in our bags (!), our very first rickshaw journey was a fairly (and, thus far, fairly uncharacteristically) uncommunicative Sikh cost us R80, around 3 to 4 times what we now know a journey of that distance should cost. it seemed a long journey, but was definitely much more than the 10 minute walk that the website had promised - New Delhi is a huge city of 13 million people, after all. anyway, as it turned out, none of this really mattered, as they were full - for the whole of April. the tiny and very pleasant proprietor gave us tips, ideas and hospitality and offered tea. although unsuccessful, it was a nice few moments of peace from the cheerful insanity that is riding rickshaws the rough Delhi's remarkably undamaged road users, air thick with heat, exhaust and dust.
the very first street child we saw was, as it turned out, unusually working solo and from her appearance lived in a coal scuttle. she performed feats of acrobatics and contortions in the road in front of us of which the Chinese State Circus would be proud. she was about 5.
deciding to walk to the nearest of Delhi's very new and very few Metro stations and start again - possibly after a hotel recharge as unseen jetlag effects began to kick in (well, it was 6am in the UK) - we at first declined and then accepted an auto-rickshaw ride with a very pleasant Sikh we now know as Chandra. it had certainly not been our plan, but we ended up spending over an hour with him, seeking out our Hotel #2.
we ended up spending at least some time with Chandra both that day and the next. we don't have any photos of him, regrettably, but he proved an excellent introduction to Delhi and India in several ways. smartly dressed in the Punjabi style, he had spent some time in Wimbledon (!). he gave us good advice on what we should be paying roughly for different distances by auto-rickshaw in Delhi, taught us some words and provided tips - nice bloke. of course, he had his own agendas to a degree - we are knowingly and happily staying currently in his recommended hotel, so he will be getting some commission out of it, since he is friends with all of the staff. and, naturally, he has taken us - notwithstanding our entreaties - to at least a couple of shops with which he clearly has an affiliation. but that is often the way, here, and it all makes sense, now, even after a day or so. he is trustworthy and communicative and has underlined how everything works, here - mutual back scratching, a little grease for the wheels, and learning to part with both sides content,.
he had taken us to our first optioned hotel, at what we know is a good price, but the rooms were not great, even for budget travel, and were lacking in most things, apart from lizards. we are now booked in at the Amax Inn until Monday morning. then we had to deal with going back to The Park for our last night - via his friend's tailor, naturally.
the Amax is in the north of Panharganj, popular backpacker centre, but away from the more Western crowds. we feel really at home, here. instead of wide boulevards, macadammed roads and heavy traffic, it's narrow. pot holed and dirty streets - and heavy traffic. no deals are being finalised in hotels, here - this seems a lot more like Delhi as it's lived by many of its inhabitants. we have got much better acquainted with the area, now, of course, but the memories of its noise, dirt, large numbers of blasé cows, colour and vibrancy cling on like the dirt under our fingernails long after we have found ourselves rather incongruously back at The Park for (thankfully) our last evening. Chandra arranged to meet us to check out and transfer on the morrow, and we had a feeling he would be there.
our evening plan to grab some food and have a walk lasted all of 5 minutes after leaving the hotel. we emerged at rush hour, and the hole of Delhi was suddenly alive, on the streets, in the gutters, on the pavements. so many handkerchief hawkers - who buys them in a place where serious sinus clearing noises areas ever-present as car horns? we bumped into a smiley Hindu called Vinoot, with whom we ended up spending over an hour.
it started well, visiting his Hindu monkey temple for evening prayers, a welter of colour, noise, chanting, incense burning and lots of bell ringing, metal banging and general brouhaha. fun. like most Indians, we exchanged family histories within about 2 minutes. excited and caught up in this as we were, he then decided to take us in a rickshaw to a Sikh temple about 5 minutes walk away, which apparently cost R60! it doesn't. we compounded all of our mistakes by then gleefully jumping in a cab with him and having him show us the sights of the city at night, for a cool R900 - yes, the same amount we were to spend on food, drink and transport for the rest of the week!
Vinoot and Philippa - have you seen this man?still, we learned a lot, and saw some great sights. the Bangla Sahrb Gurudwara is Delhi's largest Sikh mosque and is a sight to behold, and demonstrative of the Sikh way - hospitality to all and a fine welcome, and free food three times a day.
Sikh temple, Delhithe Parliament and Presidential buildings are massive and massively impressive, and we finished by going to India Gate and having a stroll by night, suggestions to which we acquiesced with a quite impressive lack of consideration and nary a peep to the driver about costs first. sadly, he did not take us anywhere to have the words 'New in Delhi' stamped on our foreheads in Hindi.
India Gate at nightIndia Gate and the surrounding buildings and undeniably impressive. massive, sandstone-hewn edifices spaced dramatically apart along enormous malls that make the Champs Elyseé look like Covent Garden's Seven Dials. it was revealing to see Vinoot and all of the other Indians get as much attention from the child-hawkers, dancing monkey handler and other assorted purveyors of neon tat as the rest of us, but India Gate - a war memorial and a true Sight of Delhi - is a major tourist attraction for all.
bells continued to ring somewhere in our heads by the time we got back near our hotel and were taken to the same tailors and travel agency as Chandra took us to, of all places in a city this big. the taxi fare only works out as 12 quid for those of you in the UK, but that's a ridiculous price for what we did, here. taxi hire for a day is around R400 or less.
Vinoot had told us that he worked for a government NGO, which seemed plausible from all he has said, but this part of the evening ended when he then proceeded to ask us for a donation to said body on our parting. we already had to go back to The Park to replace all of the notes we had just given to the taxi driver for his highly lucrative hour's work, so we had little or nothing to give him, but the muttered words of a European tourist we had heard emerging from the Amax Inn - 'Is everyone in this country trying to rip you off?' - loomed large in our thoughts.
we know, now, that this is not entirely true, of course, but we chewed the concept over at dinner at the Kwality (sic) restaurant - good food, quite steeply priced, and 'requiring' a strange sort of 'second gratuity' - and late into the night back around The Park's pool and in our room, where we retreated from a sudden squall. the notion that everyone is out to scam you is a very persuasive one when you've spent the day surprisingly but willingly being led through the various hoops of the hapless and pliant newbie. our usual assertive and decisive natures had been derailed by distractions on the line, our treading water simply overpowered by the sheer strength of the current, here. winded by the impact of this intense city, we faded away to a broken sleep sure that we would bounce back wiser and stronger tomorrow, and hoping that the scamsters would occupy less space in our thoughts than all of the open-ness and smiling faces that we had encountered everywhere. living is learning, after all.
all our best
edd & philippa
PS - we won't have the time to post every day, so don't panic (parents) if we do not! {:-)
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