- Dec 26th I finished organising my stuff in my house, before leaving around noon on a 4hour minibus ride to Chiang Mai.
- Two hours after arriving in Chiang Mai I was on the sleeper bus to Bangkok.
- I arrived in Bangkok at 6am & checked into Sawadee Guest House on Ranbuttri Road in the Kho San area.
- Had 2hrs sleep, then went out to the Sta Travel office in Patpong to pay and collect my flight tickets to India.
- By 6.30pm that night I was on my Air India flight to Delhi.
- Arrived in Delhi airport around 9.30pm, got my luggage, exchanged Thai for Indian currency, then took a pre-paid taxi to my hotel.
I was told 'never let go of your taxi coupon until arriving at the destination'. This proved impossible, as the taxi driver himself has to present the coupon to about five different people before they can leave the airport! My first taste of Indian bureaucracy. It was also to be my first taste of Indian traffic. At that time of night I found the roads fairly quiet and the driving wasn't as outrageous as I'd been told. However, one thing impossible to ignore is the rate that drivers sound their horns. The roads were quiet, almost dead after leaving the airport, yet upon overtaking a lorry the driver beeped his horn and didn't release it until we were maybe another half k down the road, with absolutely no other traffic anywhere in sight!? It was quite funny at first, but after a few days of hearing the mass of traffic frequently beeping their horns around you...
In the morning, excited & curious, I left the hotel & walked around the streets of Paharganj, Delhi. On first observations - the place is crazy! Busy, polluted, noisy, smelly, with endless traffic - be it in the main streets or in the narrow side streets and alley-ways. Traffic consists of cycle & auto rikshaws, buses, cars, scooters, bicycles, carts, goats, stray dogs, cats, cows...you name it? Add to that the mass of people, and it all makes for quite a sight. I admit, I loved it. I found it very hard not to walk around laughing at the things I saw. Cows are sacred here and freely roam the streets as the people do. One time I found myself having to turn back down an alley and find another route due to a small herd of cows blocking my path!
I made my way through the main bazaar of the Paharganj area to the New Delhi train station to make a reservation for our trip, seven of us, on Jan 24th to Jhansi. Afterwards I walked 5mins down the road to Connaught Place, an area full of more expensive restaurants, clothes shops and numerous travel agencies etc. I found a small snack shop just outside the main center where I treated myself to some Massala Tea (and so the addiction began...). I don't normally drink sweet tea or coffee, but this stuff is just too good. They mix the tea with either cinammon or ginger, sugar and milk, and the taste is just great. Being so readily available and for so little money, I found it hard to stop drinking the stuff. One cup from this particular place cost me 5Rps (about 4.5p).
Above Left: Leaving the front door of my hotel, Major's Den, in Paharganj - My first glimpse of India in daylight.
Above Right: Taking a walk around the streets in Paharganj.
Below Left: Main Bazarre, Paharganj, New Delhi.
Below Right: Some narrower alley-ways leading off from the main bazarre.
On my way back to my hotel I turned down a series of narrow alley-ways and was greeted by an old Indian man sitting by his doorway. The ledge where he sat was decked out with a blanket and pillow. He sat reading his newspaper. He asked me to sit with him a while. I thought 'why not?'. I had nothing else to do. We exchanged names and usual pleasantries. His name was 'Permanan Sherma'. I smoked one of his cigarettes with him, which he offered me as a 'bouree' - the same name used for cigarettes in Thailand. I was introduced to his wife who was inside & tucked up in bed nursing a painful leg that she has been plagued with for the last few years, she told me. I felt sorry for her, but she seemed happy enough. I was welcomed into their very small home, and in fact, sat on her bedside (it was about the only seat available). I drank some home made Massala tea, and could instantly taste the difference from those I'd bought in shops; sweeter, fresher and altogether tastier.
Above Left: Perma's son making some Masalla tea in their home.
Above Right: Perma's wife, and their other son Arun, a great artist!
Bottom Left: Me & Perma's wife.
Bottom Right: That's Perma, my guide for the day.
'Perma' as he likes to be called offered to show me two famous temples in Delhi; one Sikh and one Hindu.
We walked together through some more alley ways before exiting onto the busy main street where we waited for a public bus. This was an experience in itself. There are no such things as bus stops, people just wave down the bus (or step in front of it to get the driver's attention) from the side of the road. And he doesn't ever come to a full stop, god forbid, he just slows down enough for people to jump on. Slow enough by his judgement that is, not neccessarily the person trying to get on. I guessed the reasoning behind this might be due to the difficulty getting back into the moving traffic again once momentum is lost. This seems to me to be a big part of the Indian phsyce, at least when it comes to traffic and moving around, and certainly in busier places like cities; always in a hurry, and wanting to be first. Either that or just not wanting to be last? I first witnessed this on my flight here...
As we approached the runway upon descent, the 'fasten seatbelt' signs were still lit, and the wheels of the plane hadn't even touched the tarmac yet, as the Indian passengers were all off their seats, racing to get their hand luggage from the overhead compartments, and on their mobile phones. I swear, one old Indian guy, who must've been at least 75 or 80yrs old, tried to muscle me out of the way for his bag as I stood in the isle reaching for mine. That's the truth. I couldn't believe it.
I quickly realised that a good sense of humour would be required for this trip.
Perma and I were now on the bus and on our way to the first of the two temples. I got a good look at the traffic whilst on the bus. Some of the manoeuvres these guys pull on the roads are unreal, including those on pedal driven vehicles. Back home this would result in a pile-up as wide as the road, yet these guys always manage to avoid eachother - organised chaos.
We arrived at the Hindu Temple. I was immediately struck by the size of the statue; A statue of Lord Shiva - I think? - and it stood perhaps 50 or 60mtrs high. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me to take a photo, but it was big.
Inside the entrance were steps leading down to the temple's underground passage ways. All along the narrow passage ways were impressive wall paintings, carvings, and 3D models of Gods, animals, and the likes, dating back thousands of years. I really felt that these could be appreciated more if I knew who the figures were, or what they symbolised. Perma would mumble things about 'Shiva...' etc, but it was difficult to understand. I was more impressed by the underground passage ways & the age of it all. Perma told me that it was all built sometime in the 10th Century.
Afterwards we took an auto-rickshaw to the Sikh temple, which was really amazing to see, particularly whilst the sun set and night fell over Delhi. The lights were then turned on around the temple, giving a whole new atmosphere to it. The architecture of the building was as I'd have imagined from having seen on TV and Film; I immediately thought of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, at the beginning - before Dr Jones enters the caves.
The greeny-blue lighting against the pale grey stone work, with the moonlit sky above, gave the place a real Arabian atmosphere about it. Again, unfortunately, I captured none of this on film.
We entered the temple and sat amongst the hundreds of Sikhs there. Im not a religious person really, but I couldn't help but be moved by the energy of it all. Especially once the chanting started and the tabla was beating. The music and the chanting inside this huge temple, with its amazing natural acoustics, sent chills down my spine.
After I was done experiencing a little of 'the Sikh way', Perma and I left for home, this time by cycle-rickshaw. By this time it was cold and dark outside, and not easy to cycle with two passengers aboard on a single-gear bicycle. The guy peddling his heart out on the front seemed to be not much more than skin and bones, and I couldn't help feeling guilty as we sat there. The charge for the journey home?...20Rps (18p)!
I said goodnight to Perma and gave him 200 Rps for his troubles...
Below, is how I found him the next morning - drunk as a skunk having spent his winnings. Not spent on the medicine he told me his wife was desperate for. What can you do? Actually, I gave his wife a couple of hundred Rupees without him knowing, then left.
My good guide, Perma - wrecked!
