Delhi: The Agony and the Ecstasy (Part I)
Trip Start
Oct 12, 2005
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34
48
Trip End
Mar 31, 2006
Delhi,
India
Thursday, January 26, 2006
We arrived at the Delhi airport on Saturday, January 21st. We were met by a staff member from our incredible guesthouse (Master Paying Guesthouse) and whisked away toward the city. Our forty minute drive evoked memories of some of the worst conditions we'd seen in Cambodia. It was hard to believe that these third-world surroundings make up the capital of India! In our relatively short drive we experienced many of the "jaw-dropping" things you hear about India -- cows literally standing still in the middle of a four-land road; children and adults relieving themselves at the side of a highway as if we had just driven into their bathroom; a woman vomiting out of a public bus window right next to our car
01 Toes
. We could go on but you get the picture. At the same time we saw some facinating sights: people dressed in white robes heading out on a charter plane to Mecca; monkeys at the roadside; auto-rickshaws loaded with way too many people. After our journey we settled in to our guesthouse (located in a residential area of Delhi) and tried to come to grips with just how we would handle touring around this city ourselves; say nothing of Matt's parents who were set to arrive later that night! It turns out we had no cause for worry -- our guesthouse hosts (Ushi and Avnish) along with other guests (including the vacationing author of a well-known Indian travel guide who shall remain nameless) have been generous with information as well as helping us arrange transportation to and from the sites of Delhi. We can't stress enough how incredibly helpful the guesthouse has been for us.
For our first full day in Delhi we hired a car for a half day to take us to a few "easy" warm-up spots in South Delhi -- Lodi Gardens (a rambling public park filled families picnicing amongst ancient monuments), Humayan's Tomb (precurser and practice for the Taj Mahal) and a great South Indian restaurant called Sagar in Defense Colony Market. It was our first taste in India of the meal called a Thali, which is made up of lots of small dishes of different vegetables accompanied by rice of bread. It was a great first day with very little hassle and panhandling, apart from the street children knocking at our car windows when we stop at red lights. Matt's parents were troopers to the end staying up despite jet lag until past 10:00 pm that night!
The next day we repeated the approach, hiring another car and headed off to the International Toilet Museum based on a recommendation from that famous guidebook author we mentioned earlier
02 Bus
. We know it sounds like a funny place to spend time but it was actually quite fascinating. The museum is run by an NGO dedicated to promoting sanitation and waste treatment standards throughout India. They even had an example of a ground-breaking incinerator toilet which Kristy has used before up in Maine! Our musem tour guide was a passionate advocate for toilets and a visit we thought might last a half hour to an hour stretched into two hours! We were all a little weary and hungry after our extended tour so we headed directly to a restaurant in Karol Bagh called Saruchi's. We enjoyed wonderful all you can eat Thalis from all over Northern India -- our plates were barely 1/4 empty before the waiters would fill it back up again. You had to insist that they stop! Another great day with crazier traffic and a few more touts than the day before but still pretty good! Our day trip to the Taj Mahal in Agra (about 200 km from Delhi) was when we all began to feel some India pains along with those stunning rewards. The drive down was about 4 hours which we took in a lovely looking car seen thoughout India called the Ambassador. Nice-looking car but a little tight for four passangers and a driver. The upside was that driving in India is always interesting because there is always some strange thing to look at. Sometimes it's watching the cars, buses, trucks, motorbikes, bicycles, horsecarts and pedestrians all jostle for their place (lanes? we don't need no stinking lanes!) Sometimes it's the unexpected highway visitors: like huge carts of hay being drawn by camels (you don't see that on I-95).
Finally we arrived in Agra, and hired a guide, who squeezed into the car with us. Yes now there are five of us, plus the driver, in the Ambassador
03 Humayun's Tomb
. This is getting very Indian. The guide proved his worth right away by taking us to the "less busy" entrace to the Taj. Here there were a puny 50 people waiting to tug our sleeves and offer Taj T-shirts, bracelets, or wooden cobras at the "best price". And Persistent! One little boy followed Matt for 10 minutes trying to sell a little glass Taj model, first at 20 rupees, then 10, then finally at 5 he just had to turn around. Sorry kid, no room in the pack.Once inside the Taj (for which admission gets you a complimentary bottle of water and little shoe covers so you do not harm the marble) you are assaulted by the photographers. They all offer to take dozerns of pictures of you for 100 rupees a piece. We finally negotiated with one guy to take just two pictures for 200 rupees, but this turned into two pictures, with two prints each for 400 rupees. That's okay, the pictures are great. The Taj itself is just as wonderful as it appears in pictures, and it wasn't too crowded with tourists, most of them Indian. Our guide showed us some interesting optical illusions, gave us some history, and showed us how to take a picture so it looked like Kristy was daintily dangling the Taj from her fingertips.
Another stop on our trip that day was about 40k west of Agra, though the countryside. It was the abandoned town of Fatehpur Sikri, built by Akbar The Great, one of the Moghul rulers. Akbar was an interesting guy. He developed his own religion which sought unify the religions of his land: Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. To practice what he preached, he married a wife from each religion. Not bad politics, either. A great element in Fatehpur Sikri is the Mosque which is said to have the largest gates in the world and be a copy of the Mosque at Mecca. It was a very impressive buidling, but overun with "helpful" characters offering tours and shoe-sitting services
03.1 Kristy and Her Toilet
. You take your shoes off to enter a mosque and these guys watch them, for a fee. We had had quite enough of this sort of thing and when leaving the mosque claimed our shoes and stiffed the sitters. None of the local people seemed to need someone to watch their shoes.Another highlight of our time here in Delhi was the Republic Day Parade. Our visit happened to coincide with the Indian holiday and we bought tickets to see the big show. Matt's sister, Lauren and her boyfreind, Matt, had also arrived and joined us. We arrived at the parade grounds in Central New Delhi to the tightest security we had seen anywhere. Every car was thoroughly searched and every person frisked. No cellphones, cameras, or even pens were allowed in. There had been threats from extremist Kashmiri factions and no chances we being taken. The Parade opened with the arrival of the Indian President and his guest the King of Saudi Arabia, whom we saw waving from his limo window. Then some Indian military helicopters flew low overhead, releasing huge clouds of flower petals, which drifted through the air and landed on our heads. The parade began in earnest (on time!), and the Indian army tanks came down the road, followed by missle launchers, marching soldiers and camel mounted brigades, all in brilliant costumes. We saw the Punjabi Lancers and the Bengal Brigade (or some such). It was all very Gunga Din.
After the parade the group was treated by Matt's parents to a wonderful lunch at the Imperial Hotel, one of the finest in Delhi. Excellent food, but maybe perhaps too excellent for Matt whose stomache began to disagree with him. Is it Delhi-Belly or has he lost the capability to eat a steak? We shall see.
04 Drinkable?
What we've written about is just a few of the loads of things we have done here, but it is impossible to talk about it all in one entry so we will post part two shortly! All in all, India has proved to be a fascinating and mostly enjoyable place. We have taken an approach of insulating ourselves somewhat from the madness by taking cars wherever we go and we believe this has largely contributed to our good experience. Without that distance, it is clear it could get very difficult indeed. We are looking forward to the next leg of our trip, down to Goa with Lauren and Matt and are thrilled with having had Matt's parents come for the visit (we are also thrilled they will act as couriers and carry some of our junk back home! Thanks Mom and Dad, hope they let that candelabra though customs!
