Delhi
Trip Start
Sep 04, 2006
1
10
87
Trip End
Aug 20, 2007
Delhi,
India
Saturday, October 7, 2006
Your nose does not know what has hit it; one minute a delicious roadside curry and thickly spiced air in the markets. Next, it's pungent street toilets and cow dung - nice!
Horns are blaring constantly 24 hours with no apparent rules of the road except 'Bigger is Better'; trucks have priority, then tuk-tuks, rickshaws and lastly people/animals. King of the Road are the hundreds of Holy Cows wandering the streets, they give way to nobody. 6 months in prison awaits if you kill one so people ensure they steer clear.
The streets are full of activity and lined with 'untouchable' people who have set up home. The roundabouts are prime locations for small communities with tents made from old plastic bags. Many of the people have moved to the city from the countryside with the hope of work and a better life. Unfortunately, Delhi already has 12 million people and is struggling to cope with the 30,000 additional arriving each day. We visited a Sikh temple which serves as a soup kitchen and helped with the preparation - Chas' time in the Wetherspoon kitchens came in useful!
One thing is clear in Delhi - you have to keep your wits about you the whole the time. If you are not getting ran over, someone is dragging you into a shop, all keen for the commission they get from introducing a sale. Delhi is the only place we have been to where the people seem to know better than you where you want to go to. Getting into an auto-rickshaw is a bit of an entertaining gamble as you don't know where you'll end up - you ask for a certain museum/hotel/restaurant and Harry Enfield like they say 'you don't want to go there'. They all have great elaborate stories of what has happened to the place you want to go hopeful of extra couple of rupees on the fare - adamently telling us the main train station had closed down even though we'd been there the day before.
Despite all the sanitary differences that we see with home, the never ceasing activity is infectious and you find yourself being swept along on the hectic pace. There are great museums particularly the one honouring Gandhi and the monuments to the Mugal Maharajas are breath-taking (Taj Mahal was based on these). After a few days in this city, we are sure the rest of Rajastan will be full of peace and harmony!
