Ding, ding! Delhi round 2
Trip Start
Nov 15, 2007
1
4
16
Trip End
Jan 22, 2008
Delhi, Delhi, India,
India
Saturday, November 17, 2007
I came to Delhi by myself to get a feel for a place that is completely different culturally from Europe...
...and I got yet another example of this when I stepped out of my hotel and found Babu had been waiting for me for two hours. I had the same conflicting emotions of yesterday of quite liking the attention but irritated by the feeling of being milked (feel free to insert your own felatio-themed gag here).
'I take you on tour of temples'.
'OK, how much?' A simple question you may think but one he avoided with all the skill and experience of a cabinet minister. I've watched Newsnight often enough to be aware of this tactic (although cabinet ministers don't usually have the tactic of broadening a foreign accent to a level of impenetrability to confuse the interrogator. Except John Prescott of course) and so I ask the question another nine or ten times before finally:
'If you don't like, you don't pay'.
The chances of him allowing this to pass are pretty slim but now I'm interested in what other tricks he'll use to extract my money so having set ten pounds as the most I'm willing to be extorted for a day touring Delhi I'm willing to go without agreeing the cost.
Now, a note about traffic in Delhi. It is exactly as everybody says.
No, Doctor Evil doesn't live here. But he should.
Take traffic lights for example. Green means go. As does amber. And red too. They drive on the left like Britain. Mostly. And usually on the road too. But not always (the sight of a bus casually barrelling along the pavement at a good 30mph left me so flabbergasted that I forgot to get a picture).It is absolute chaos on the roads. The main rule is that might is right. If you're bigger, you automatically have right of way. The idea of a highway code (or its enforcement) is alien. This is a land with a curious mix of self determination and belief in fate. You have to fight for every inch but if you end up in a crash and get smeared across the road like a sort of reddish marmite then it was obviously your day to go.
Horns. A horn sounding in Delhi can mean any of the following:
'Mind out, I'm going to hit you'
'Mind out, I'm quite close'
'Mind out, in a short while, I may be quite close'
'I want to get past you'
'I don't want you to get past me'
'I'm bigger than you so get out of my way'
'I'm smaller than you, please don't squash me'
'Bloody pedestrians, who said the pavements were for your use only?'
'You've driving on the wrong side of the road'
'Yes, I may be driving on the wrong side of the road but you really don't want to hit me now do you?'
'We've arrived at our destination'
'We've arrived at somewhere that you think is our destination but is actually a different place entirely'
'I haven't used the horn in at least five seconds so I'd better check it's still working'
And so on.
Then there are motorbikes.
It's just a model
Now there's a standard conversation that happens between teenage boys and their parents (usually mum) that goes like this: 'Mum, I'm old enough to ride a motorbike so I'm going to get one'.
'Over my dead body young man, I didn't raise you from a pup to have you smeared over the road like a sort of reddish marmite'.
'I hate you mum'.
This conversation is then repeated until said child has enough money to get a car (mothers are rather less concerned with their teenager killing somebody else in the car he's just bought. As long as he's OK).
Many middle aged men decide that the life of a biker is also for them and have a similar conversation, this time with the wife.
Not in India though, oh no. For said middle-aged wife is not only likely to condone the purchase and use of a motorbike but will often be found in her finery riding side saddle on the back of the bike. No footrests, hands in lap, certainly no helmet (there's - at most - one of those and it's always worn by the man).
And while in the west, we start thinking about off-roaders and armoured personel carriers when the second child comes along, again they do it differently. They don't see why a motorbike can't provide transport for the whole family. So they may have the kids on the bike with them too (eldest on the tank in front of dad, youngest in mum's lap).
Remind people of that when they insist that they really do need a Land Rover to drive the kids to school.
Anyway, Babu takes me to an assortment of temples. Now, unless they actually finish building the Sagrada Familia before I die (which as they've only completed about a quarter of it in the last century seems unlikely) then I've probably seen enough churches to last a lifetime. Hmmm, maybe I'll add St. Peter's (I think it is) in the Vatican to that list but that's pretty much it.
Nonetheless, off we go to the Lakshmi Narayan Mandir, dedicated to Lakshmi, the god of arms [citation needed]. It's a completely different way of worshiping than in Christian churches (not least because Christian churches don't normally have metal detectors at the door). Not sure how a service would work, if indeed they have such things.
Next was the Baha'i temple. Known colloquially as the Flower Temple, this is as spectacular a use of concrete as I've ever seen as it consists of a huge single space in the shape of a half-opened lotus flower.
The India Gate is quite impressive and just in case you'd forgotten where you were, it has 'India' carved into it in large, friendly letters. However, there doesn't seem to be an India Fence either side of it, thus rendering the gate largely pointless.
There there were a couple of other places of worship that I can't be arsed to mention as they all get pretty samey after a while.
What amazes me though as a mildly nervous passenger back at home (I prefer to be scaring my passengers, not the other way around) is how much enjoyed being taken around Delhi in the Babu's tuk-tuk. I could have spent all day in the back and not seen any of the usual sights at all. There really is so much happening on and around the roads that your mind is a whirl and the tuk-tuk moves at the right speed to appreciate it. And being open to the noise and the smells, you really feel involved.
Babu obviously wanted to take me shopping as the shop owners will pay him a commission for bringing me in. I didn't want to go shopping and was quite firm on this. When I got hungry, I explained that when I need to eat, I really do need to eat and so taking me to a restaurant was the priority. This he ignored (presumably because the one with the payoff is the other side of town) until he experienced how tetchy I can be when hungry (I've also noticed my height advantage over most Indians is most helpful in these situations).
Now eventually we get back the hotel and the haggling starts. Needless to say, he's not an easy nut to crack but I made the mistake after the first round of haggling of agreeing too easily (you have to practice a look of pain even if you've got a bargain) and he sat there repeatedly increasing the price. I then played my trump card; 'if you expect me to pay that, I won't be using your services tomorrow'. This failed completely. We ended up agreeing the highest price (bang on what I'd set as my limit in the morning) and I told him I wouldn't be needing him tomorrow. What I had failed to appreciate is that no matter what I said, he told me he would be waiting for me in the morning with a taxi he would borrow to drive me to Agra.
I don't think so.
