Delhi Bed and Breakfast is in a middle class enclave; a gated area known as the New Friends Colony East. It is a vast walled suburb with gates that are not always closed, or at least the one by the B&B never is. Once inside the walls the noise and crazy traffic is left behind, replaced by quiet lanes and large, if slightly shabby, houses behind high walls. Despite the gates and evidence of watchmen in little booths dotted here and there the house gate and front door are unlocked despite or perhaps because of the somewhat low-key security. So the area seems safe, safe enough to walk around at night.
Breakfast is with the family, Pervez, his wife, Lubna, and Padma, Pervez’s mother. There are two sons as well, but we haven’t been introduced and we are not sure whether they are the two young men who frequent the kitchen and prepare breakfast in the morning! The large house is spread over three floors with terraces on each floor and is comfortable if a little cramped and we have a small marble-floored wet room. What makes it good value for money are the little extras that we are not used to: free broadband connection in the room, complimentary filtered water, and flat screen tv(!). Breakfast is a delicious meal of lentil pancakes, chapattis, spicy potatoes, papaya, cereals, eggs and toast – a delicious feast – of which Andy only has the eggs, toast and cereal, leaving me to try to do justice to the Indian home cooking. Our rather homely room is on the top floor with a view from the terrace down onto the quiet land below. The family has a maid who does the housework which includes scrubbing the laundry on the floor of the terrace that separates our room from the rest of the house.
We soon discover that the biggest drawback is the B&Bs distance from both the centre of Delhi and any local amenities. The nearest area with any restaurants is a 25 minute walk through the colony. The distance from the centre isn’t such a problem as for 1000 rupees (£13) it’s possible to hire a car and driver for the day. So today we are ferried around by Chopti, who soon takes us in hand and takes us to some of the sights. We start off with Connaught Place the notional centre of New Delhi. A huge roundabout surrounded by colonnaded buildings in a state of serious decline, their mildewed and crumbling facias looking as if they haven’t been maintained since the days of the Raj. Our primary purpose is to find an opticians and get Andy some new glasses. The ones we got in Koh Samui have been lost somewhere along the way and his back-up pair are falling apart. We dive into the welcome air conditioned coolness of the first optician we come across and in next to no time have selected some titanium, rimless frames, with anti reflective lenses, had a swift eye test all for an amazing £46. We just have to come back tomorrow to collect them.
Monday seems to be a day when many shops are closed and we are surprised just how quiet the streets in this business district are. But there are touts around waiting to pounce on unsuspecting tourists. We make the mistake of getting involved in a conversation with one before we realise what is happening. He wants to get us to a government emporium presumably for the commission he’ll receive. He’s insistent that we take a rickshaw rather than walk claiming (falsely as it turns out) that there is no parking for our own car. He takes some shaking off, but finally we escape back to the car.
Next to Rajpath a wide avenue with Rashtrapati Bhavan, the former viceroy’s residence and now the official residence of the president of India, at one end and India Gate, a 42m high stone memorial arch to soldiers killed in WW1 at the other. The vista down Rajpath is quite impressive and has something very vaguely Parisien in the way the monuments are aligned and the roads radiate almost boulevard-like from the India Gate. On either side of Rajpath are the imposing Secretariat buildings which house the government ministries. Rows of identical white official vintage-looking cars, festooned with curtains to keep prying eyes at bay, are lined up outside. These readily identifiable cars must surely make their occupants easy potential targets as they travel around the city. Just beyond the northern Secretariat building is the Sansad Bhavan – Parliament House – a circular, colonnaded structure 171m in diameter.
Next stop is Humayun’s tomb which was built in the mid 16th century and is an impressive example of early Moghul architecture and an early forerunner of the style that was later to be exemplified by the Taj Mahal. A squat building with a domed roof and high entrance ways standing on an expansive terrace the building and set in formal gardens, is a series of interconnecting tombs arranged in such away as to provide angled visas through the building. The tomb of Isa Khan is adjacent to this complex. An example of Lodi architecture, this much smaller, squat octagonal building is set in a walled enclosure along with a small mosque. We climb up a dark set of stairs onto the terrace that surrounds the dome for a good view of the surrounding area.
We lunch a Pindi’s a small and busy restaurant situated in a rather scruffy and unlikely-looking shopping court. Not a place you would wander into if it hadn’t been recommended (we discover later it’s in Lonely Planet) or are brought to by a knowledgeable driver, as in our case. It turns out to be very popular with both Indians and tourists and we have to wait for one of the closely-packed table. But the food is definitely worth it and I have an excellent Muttar Paneer.
After lunch we visit Qutb Minar complex, the conserved ruins of an enormous red sandstone mosque, the first to be built in India, a madrassa and associated buildings dating from the onset of Islamic rule. Started in 1193, the Qutb Minar itself is a remarkable soaring tower 73m high which tapers from 15m in diameter at its base to 2.5m at the top. It has a rubble core with a red sandstone inverted scallop facia with some beautiful stone carving.
First impressions of Delhi are of a city where maintenance is low on the public agenda; dusty, dirty, litter-strewn, shabby and in a general state of disrepair. Delhi is characterised by chaotic traffic, a cacophony of horns, beat up buses, ubiquitous green and yellow, three-wheeled auto-rickshaws, unpleasant smells and the most wonderfully colourful and richly decorated saris and salwar kameez. Its hot and humid but the monsoons are late in arriving so there has been little rain to cool the air. But it’s not as in-your-face or as frenzied as we had expected.
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