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Delhi, India - five and a half weeks and another world away. I arrived off my flight from London fully prepared for the chaos that I was warned Delhi airport was, only to find a small terminal with 2 neat rows of people patiently holding up name cards. Found my airport pickup and took the car into town, experiencing my first taste of driving Indian style. Basically the roads are a free for all, lanes are ignored, horns are used constantly and dirty children wander up to the windows of any stopped traffic to beg.

Checked into my hotel in Karol Bagh and asked for the Intrepid noticeboard, which I’d been told would have useful information about sightseeing and the upcoming trip, however this didn’t exist so I just went to sleep for a couple of hours. Investigating the roof top bar later, I met the first of my group - 4 Canadians who’d been in Delhi for a few days. We had a chat and a few beers before heading off to bed.

The next morning after breakfast I hopped into an auto-rickshaw and headed off to the Red Fort. Before leaving I’d been terrified about spending my first day in India by myself, but once I was here I just found it quite amusing to sit back and watch the craziness unfold around me. I got to the fort early so it was nice and peaceful before the hoards of organised tours arrived, there were just a few Indian tourists (taking photos of me on their mobile phones) and some school kids who took the opportunity to practice their english on me. I was very impressed with the flocks of green parrots that flew around the fort and they looked beautiful against the red brick.

Leaving the fort I was followed by some very persistant cycle rickshaw drivers who wouldn’t tell me their prices. I crossed the road under an underpass and walked for 10 minutes before I could escape into an auto-rickshaw. Took the auto to Connaught Place and felt very underwhelmed - I was expecting more of a city centre but all of Delhi looks the same - dusty, polluted and full of people. I wandered around in circles for a bit before deciding to walk to India Gate. Nobody seems to understand the concept of walking in Delhi and many people shouted at me “where are you going? there’s nothing that way!”. One guy even followed me for half an hour, trying to persuade me to go back to his house for a massage… hmm I don’t think so!

After visiting the India Gate, I hopped in another auto to get back to the hotel for my trip meeting. The meter was already on 240 rupees when I got in so I told the driver I wouldn’t be paying that! After hearing so many stories about being ripped off by delhi auto drivers, I was convinced he wouldn’t take me where I wanted to go or demand more money. I was so pleased that he actually took me back to my hotel and didn’t try and rip me off that i paid him extra!

I arrived back just in time for the group meeting and we headed out on a walking tour. Took the metro to a Sikh mosque where we watched people making chapatis in the communal kitchens and were fed an offering of a mixture of flour, ghee and sugar. We took cycle rickshaws to the spice market (which is really more of a nut market). I found this experience hilarious and couldn’t stop laughing, even though I was convinced I was going to fall off. At the end of the day we all went for a few beers at an english themed pub in Connaught Place (complete with a fake bar that you couldn’t actually order drinks at) and caught the metro back to Karol Bagh.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at 7:24 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.