Delhi (part 2..)

  Delhi, India
Wednesday, October 18, 2006

So, 3 days into the trip and I prepare to say goodbye to Delhi - leave here at 4 tomorrow morning for the trip to Jaipur (who says I can't do early mornings!!)

As I said on the first day, Delhi's a city of contrasts - the splendour of the Parliament and Government buildings

Part of India's Parliament

offset against the crushing poverty - the kids, no more than 3 years old begging , the hundreds of people sleeping on the street and in the parks, in the hope of something - I don't know what. I know it's a cliché to bang on about this, but until you see it, its difficult to comprehend. Old Delhi around the Red Fort is particularly depressing. I walked down a side street with slums on either side. The squalor was unlike anything I've ever seen , yet remarkably the kids seemed so cheerful. It's difficult to know what to do or where to look. Walking up to the giant mosque of Jama Masjid, the road is how I suspect most people imagine the sub-continent. Traders of every description, noise, colours and smells. Yet again, it's the beggars who catch your eye - the crippled, elderly, young - everything you wish you hadn't seen.

However, parts of Delhi are surprising, and you can see the British influence over many parts of it. Rather like London's parks, you can turn a street corner and find yourself in a beautiful garden or park, where games of cricket

Lunch....

and hockey at lunchtime sit alongside prayer meetings and card games. Once you move away from the hustle, noise and pollution of the main roads, Delhi's surprisingly tranquil. The people are more relaxed than I'd expected, certainly compared to London or Bangkok.

Of course, there are always things that inevitably going to happen - faux tour guides, Tuk-Tuk drivers who won't leave you alone, etc. "No" seems to be the one English word they don't understand, so I've resorted to claiming to be Czech (sorry Jitka!) - German, French and Spanish, didn't work, but a simple "Czech, no English", seems to put off even the most determined hawker. Inevitably I did get caught out in one of Delhi's famous and disgusting scams. A bloke taps me on the shoulder and points out that a monkey's shat on my shoe (good shot)! Fortunately for me there's a shoe cleaner right next to me as well, who'll happily clean it off - which he did - and a very good job he did to. And then he wants about 250 rupees..... Suffice to say he didn't get quite that much, but hey-ho, another tourist suckered - unfortunately it's one of those scams you can't quite avoid - if they catch you, what are you going to do - walk around with monkey shit on your shoe. Nope! Another nice one in the hotel is the guy coming in to turn your room down about 2 minutes after you've walked in - it's happened three times now, each time at different times of the day, so not really a co-incidence. Seems happy enough with 20 rupees!

Cricket's fairly high on the agenda here at the moment and the Indian's have spent the last 2 days trying not to collectively piss themselves laughing over Pakistan drugs affair. The headline in the Hindustan Times (great read!) "Body Tampering" speaks for itself. Cricket is undoubtedly as popular here as footy is at home and the reaction to Pakistan's misfortune is not exactly sympathetic. They were, however slightly disappointed when Pakistan won yesterday.

So that's Delhi and tomorrow I leave the first stop on this little trip. As an introduction to the sub-continent, I suspect its about as intense as it gets. Next stop Jaipur and hopefully a bit more relaxed, a little less polluted and some good cricket!

Rob

PS - Disappointed to see Arsenal lose their first game since I left - hope this isn't going to be the opposite of my brother, otherwise I'm just going to have to come home.....