Delhi Daze

We touch-down at Indira Ghandi International Airport at 5am. Stepping off the plane it feels more like midday than early morning, but it's only a brief taste of things to come as the terminal is air-conditioned. Having spent an hour queuing to clear immigration and customs and collecting my backpack I'm stood looking puzzled trying to work out where the ATM is, conscious that just beyond the desks waits an avenue lined with taxi touts signalling. Fortunately I meet a fellow traveller, Aubrey from California, and she has a guidebook so we can find the main backpacker area.

Aubrey has a reservation at a hotel in the Parahganj district but our taxi driver says he doesn't know it but he can find out where by stopping at a official tourist office, which is actually a private operator. (This is a scam listed in the guidebook which we avoid, sort of, by luck). After some discussion he drops us at a metro station and we get another ride in a rickshaw to the main bazaar where the guesthouses and hotels are located.

First impressions, the main bazaar is a constant flow of traffic, pedal or motor rickshaws, mopeds and motorbikes slaloming to avoid stray dogs, cows and water buffalo, accompanied by the sound of a bell or horn, stealthily approaching then announcing an impending collision with a ear-drum piercing siren. Some of the motorbikes have an altogether different-sounding horn which is employed almost constantly, which could provide a clue to the sound that is like a duck which has smoked too many cigarettes, an evil emphysemic quack.

However, very quickly you become accustomed to the noise, and side-stepping fresh-pats. Walking along the bazaar towards New Delhi station the road is lined shops selling cheap cotton shirts, sandals, breakable souvenirs and ephemera, street-carts sell fresh lime juice. The place smells, a mix of dust and exhaust fumes, methaney dung, sweet mangoes and occasionally a potent hit of chilli and spices from a roadside takeaway kitchen. Overhead, a mass of wires bend and loop between buildings forming Gordian knot intersections. It's possible to escape the excitement and heat of the streets to one of the numerous roof-top restaurants attached to guesthouses and hotels. As with other places it seems a tourist can confirm their inflated economic status by retreating to higher ground, the poor literally remaining to the gutters.

'Ninja Budgies' (a.k.a. auto-rickshaw)

Getting around to the further away places usually requires transport. On hand at all times are the fleet of motor rickshaws. These green and yellow carriages fly around the main roads and back-streets of New Delhi at improbable speeds, their stuntman drivers accelerating and breaking sharply in turn, deftly dodging pedestrians with consummate skill (luck), like souped-up canaries, displaying contortionist ability to dart between other vehicles, with cars and buses blaring horns indignantly to try and assert their superior size but unable to match the agility of these ninja budgies, flying in a bee-line to your destination.

Lal Qila - the red fort

Lal Qila, the red fort, is about an hours walk from the Main Bazaar (at least if you're not sure of the directions) passing through the old city. The contrast with the tourist-oriented areas becomes apparent as English signs disappear and the shops selling cheap-made cotton clothes and trinkets are instead selling cooking ingredients, vast piles of spices and cylindrical wads of ghee, kitchenware pots pans and knives, the streets densely packed with people and snack vendors selling bhajis and pakoras, and shop-keepers watching you walk past with a smile or a look of curiosity, or possibly indifference, rather than trying to attract you to purchase something.

At the booth we buy our tickets and a smiling woman stood next to the barrier beckons and pins a mini-India flag to our tops, which is done so smoothly as if to be part of the official entry process only to be asked for a donation to the 'Delhi High School' she represents. It may be genuine but definitely a slick routine to generate small contributions.

We pass through the Lahore Gate and along the main chowk with expensive souvenir shops to reach the interior grounds. The War Museum has a ground-level passage through to the gardens before the Diwan-i-Am, 'Hall of Public Audience', where an emperor would meet common people. The impressive scalloped arches are repeated along the pavilion passages, resembling clouds or the way kids (and some adults still) draw thought bubbles in cartoons. Inside is an intricately sculpted marble seat which is a popular draw for crowds of visitors wanting photos. Around the gardens trees occasionally provide shade and a chance to spot some of the wildlife, including chipmunk-like squirrels and well camouflaged green parrots that suddenly swoop from a tree if they spy a stray morsel left over by picnickers.

Fan-assisted oven (adjust sleeping [cooking] time accordingly)

The day-time temperature is reaching45 degrees and at night it's only marginally cooler. It turns out that getting a room with fan only is false economy. Loud-whirring blades rotating and precariously hanging from a decaying wire that only serve to circulate the heat feels like I'm being slow roasted whilst trying to sleep. After maybe 3-4 hours broken and restless sleep, getting up at dawn and opening the door to the balcony is like stepping out of an oven, quite a neat trick for winter months but in summer unbearable! During the afternoon and evening the guesthouse experienced power-cuts, which it turns out happened all over the city due to record energy consumption in the heat-wave.

Purana Qila

We catch a rickshaw in the late afternoon heading towards the Nizammudin area, which has a number of monuments, but we've no specific plan. Along the way we pass an interesting looking collection of buildings and stop the driver to go an check them out. The compound is the Jam-at Khana Masjid. We climb through a knee-high door within a fortress door and find ourselves in an old mosque grounds with two old men sat apart praying at the farside.

Across the main road there are signs for the national zoo and Purana Qila. We had intended to find the Humayen Tomb and gardens as described in the guidebook, however this fort looks interesting. Inside there are buildings dotted about large garden, including towers and a centuries old hamman building.

Ticket to ride

Travel Philosophy Musings - recurrent question: is it better to plan or to go with the flow (so to speak)? Getting a train ticket to Agra could (should?) have been a simple process but turned out to be something else....

PART ONE - MORNING

There are plenty of adjectives and phrases that could be used to try and describe New Delhi Railway Station - fascinating, crowded, confusing, major travel hub, over-burdened infrastructure, bastion of resilient administration, meso-cosm of Indian life? Our experience was maybe these and more. Despite arriving at 7.45am to buy tickets (the listed opening time is 8am) we find that there are already hundreds of people inside queuing. We join the 'enquiries line' and find out possible train numbers and where to get a necessary form to fill in, from the cloakroom outside (obviously!). The young woman helping us is patient but looks flustered, it's only 8.15am, gonnna be a long work day! Because Aubrey's here she can join the women only queue which is smaller and moving somewhat quicker. It is a curious phenomenon to watch as women sit on benches perpendicular to the counter waiting their turn and men sit opposite, husbands or male relatives presumably. Whenever a woman reaches the counter a man jumps up and issues instructions, which seems to result in a rapid threeway exchange as information is passed: male relative - female queuer - female counter clerk - female queuer - male relative. Sometimes the women-only rule is transgressed and the man tries to deal directly with the female counter clerk only to receive a rebuke from one of the wandering officials walking up and down behind the clerks. It takes 45 minutes but eventually we have tickets for travel this afternoon.

PART TWO- AFTERNOON

Back at the station loaded with back-pack, ruck sack and guitar, we're scanning the boards or clues as to which platform our train departs. Though we're there in good time before the minutes count down and it's not looking good. Something is bugging me, I think I read in the guidebook, sure enough when I check the ticket it confirms my concern, trains to Agra depart from Nizamuddin station not New Delhi... our train leaves in 10 minutes and the station is 40 minutes by rickshaw crosstown... bugger! There is a 'reservations and cancellations' office outside the main station building. It's smaller than the office we booked the tickets from and feels like a sauna inside. Trying to salvage something if we can we join a queue and spend half an hour edging forwarding, trying to keep guard to prevent various attempts to muscle ahead by all kinds of characters amidst noise and general pandemonium of people anxious for tickets. About two people from the counter a young guy finally gives in to what has, it seems, been vexing him for a while queuing behind us and says "you know, there's a foreigners office with air-conditioning where you can get your ticket inside". We're unsure, it seems a risk to give up our place now we're so close so we stay only to be told exactly the same. Upstairs on the first floor of the station building is the foreign nationals ticket office. It is heavily air-conditioned and for the first time since arriving in India I feel something close to being cooled. A very helpful clerk immediately understands our request to cancel and rebook for tomorrow and is a bit puzzled why we didn't just come here first. We're also able to book onward tickets to Varanasi from Tundla (near Agra) so the next destination is also covered. Two hours after we should have left we return to the guesthouse to dump our bags and go to Golden Cafe for food and a much needed, under-the-counter beer. Try again tomorrow....