Old and New
Trip Start
Sep 28, 2005
1
32
103
Trip End
Jun 24, 2006
Delhi,
India
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Miles travelled: 24498
We're in India! It's only a 2-1/2 hour flight from Dubai to Delhi; we arrived at about 5:00 AM. Our first day in India went smoother than expected -- we were met at the airport and transferred to our hotel -- although it wasn't the one we originally expected, we were assured that, in fact, it was the correct hotel. And that was true, they had our reservation and voucher, so everything is "no problem". We took a nap and then went to visit the tomb of Humayun, who was an emperor in the 1500s; his tomb is very impressive and is said to be a precursor to the Taj Mahal. It is set in a parklike area with fountains and well-maintained grounds. We then took an "auto-rickshaw" into the older section of the city to view the Red Fort and the large mosque across the street.
Delhi is a study in contrasts, the old section with narrow streets and small storefronts reminiscent of our recent experience in West Africa, while New Delhi has wide avenues, streets radiating from roundabouts, and grand parks oozing with British influence. On the whole, however, it is much cleaner and more developed than we had expected. Certainly even the older run-down areas seem much "better" (paved, relatively clean, no trash or animal droppings in the street) than most of the areas we were in West Africa. For such a populous city, the pollution was not too bad either -- about 5 years ago all the auto-rickshaws and many of the buses were converted to compressed natural gas (CNG) as fuel, so there are now CNG filling stations and all the rickshaws are labeled "CNG".
01 Humayun tomb
The traffic, though, has to be seen to be believed.So, that brings us to our 2nd day in India, where we discovered that, in fact, the starting point of our tour was *not* the hotel where we were staying, but a different hotel downtown. "No problem". So we pack up our bags and get into the taxi standing outside the door. Asked if he knows where the new hotel is, the taxi attendant says "no problem". But when the taxi *driver* starts waving at auto-rickshaws and asks them (while moving) where Connaught Place is (which is the exact center of the commercial area and which every taxi driver should know), we begin to think there is a problem. Nathan pulls out his map, finds some street signs, and plays back-seat driver telling him where to go. Needless to say, that driver did not get a tip.
We met up with our new tour group, which is 8 folks -- 4 Americans, 1 Canadian, 2 Australians and a Brit. Setting of on a brief sightseeing tour, we saw some war memorials, a Hindu temple, a Sikh temple, and a memorial to Gandhi.
We learned a little about Hinduism along the way -- apparently there are something like 330 million gods, the main ones being Brahma the creator, Vishnu the sustainer, and Shiva the destroyer. But they also have various "incarnations", so that Buddha, for example, is supposed to be an incarnation of Vishnu. There are also a number of lesser deities that are even more popular, such as Ganesh, which is a chubby elephant-headed god which is supposed to bring good luck. Hence, an image of Ganesh is above many residential and storefront doorways in India. Another interesting fact is the swastika is actually a Hindu symbol for prayer for success, and Hitler mirror-imaged it when taking it for use in Naziism.
