Category Archives: India

Today we make our second attempt to visit the Red Fort and once more brave the < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /?>
Delhi traffic by auto-rickshaw.  The traffic seems to become heavier as the week progresses.  The ubiquitous scruffy yellow and green rickshaws are everywhere.  Battered buses which look long overdue for the scrap heap paradoxically run on clean fuel hurtle along with people hanging out of the doors and even sitting on the roof.  People ride on the footplates at the back of commercial people carriers  or are crammed into the back of trucks.  A cow trundles along unhurried and completely oblivious to the commotion all around.

The massive 2km long red sandstone walls of the Red Fort loom 33m high at the eastern end of Chandhi Chowk in Old Delhi, the area which was one the city of Shahjahanabad.  Built between 1638 and 1648 by Shah Jahan the the Red Fort is still in remarkably good shape.  Inside are the beautiful white marble buildings of Shah Jahan’s palace;  the Diwan-i-Am (Hall of Public Audiences), the Diwan-i-Khas (the Hall of Private Audiences) are all beautifully ornamented with carvings and delicately inlaid with semi precious stones and the Shahi Burj (a three-storey octagonal tower which was Shah Jahan’s private working area) all linked by a channel which once flowed with water.   Unfortunately some of the buildings in the complex including the Pearl Mosque and the hammam are not open to the public, which is a shame as the interior of the hammam glimpsed through the dust-covered windows looks incredibly beautiful. 

Early evening rush-hour pushes Dehli traffic chaos to new heights.  Grid-locked, fume laden and unbelievably noisy.  An auto-rickshaw wallah is quick to seize the opportunity of a good fair from two tourists and we are quickly seated but have to wait whilst impromptu repairs are undertaken to get the thing going.  It’s quickly obvious that the rickshaw is also low on petrol, but it seems that rickshaws can only fill up at certain petrol stations – those with queues snaking pack along the road for sever 100 feet, and he is turned away from one without a queue.  So we spend the journey back to the B&B on tenterhooks, wondering if we are going to come to a spluttering standstill on the dual carriageway.  But we needn’t have worried we make it all the way back to the B&B without any hitch.

We are discovering that India is prone to frequent, albeit short-lived power cuts and most places such as restaurants, hotels and so on have generators that provide back-up power for lighting, fans but usually not air conditioning.  We experienced our first power cut very soon after arriving and from time to time there have been brief black outs before the generator kicks in.

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We decide to venture into central Delhi by auto-rickshaw, ride the metro and visit Old Delhi and the Red Fort.  Our first challenge is to do the chicken run across a three lane dual carriageway so that we can pick up a rickshaw into Delhi.  The journey in the rickshaw would be hair-raising if it were not for the knowledge that these drivers negotiate the chaos that is Delhi traffic with aplomb day in day out. The speed of the traffic is relatively slow, but it is bumper to bumper driving, weaving in and out of the smallest gaps, completely ignoring lane markings and what we would consider normal rules of the road.  Horns are indispensable and frequently used;  forget indicators, horns are the way to go!  It’s common to see signs on the real of trucks in particular exhorting other drivers to use their horns.  And everyone seems to have the right of way so pulling out is just an accepted driving technique – the person behind just has to give way.

We arrive without incident at Connaught Circus and pick up Andy’s glasses which have been fitted with transition lenses due to some misunderstanding and our failure to check the deposit receipt.  A telephone call earlier this morning to try and rectify the mistake didn’t get anywhere and so for about £75 Andy has a pair of all-singing all-dancing, top of the range glasses. 

The metro is a pleasant surprise – it’s clean, modern, well organised and efficient.  People queue to get on the train rather like they used to on the ‘Drain once upon a time and in-carriage address system announces up-coming stations backed by LCD display boards.  It couldn’t be in greater contrast to the sights, sounds and smells and over-whelming number of people that greet you when you emerge from Chandhi Chowk station in Old Delhi.  If we thought Delhi was dirty then this is something else again.  Heaving with people walking, sitting, lying on the pavement, cooking, eating, delivering or collecting goods, transporting loads on their heads, shopping, shouting, hawking, even people having their ears cleaned.  The smell of urine mingled with spices, incense and food pervades the air.  Note changers sit in front of trays of coins ready to change torn or otherwise damaged notes for a fee.  Rickshaw drivers and begging children are frequent presence hassling and cajoling.  A jumble of peddle rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, horse drawn carts, and cars all vie for space in the narrow street and the sound of hundreds of horns contribute to the general din.  This is the India as we had anticipated. 

Chandhi Chowk is the heart of Old Delhi.  Chronically congested it has numerous narrow lanes running off it, each devoted to a particular trade or type of goods, such as saris, salwar kameez, silver or gold jewellery, shoes and so on.  We venture down the silversmiths lane;  the narrowest of Dickensian passageways that zig-zags between a jumble of overhanging buildings where numerous little business operate from tiny, open-fronted premises.  Some are selling silver ingots which they have piled on the floor, others with mattress seating covering the entire floor space and on which men lounge waiting to do business.  In dingy nooks and crannies men cook and sell food.  The sari lane is full of the most fabulous array of colourful and embellished fabrics imaginable;   glitzy, tawdry and exquisite every taste is catered for.

We work our way up and down this long street which runs between the Red Fort at one end and the Fatehpuri Masjid (mosque) at the other, carefully picking our way around the mass of humanity and the potholes and rubbish.  We stop off along the way at the popular Haldirams,  an oasis of cleanliness and relative calm serving delicious self-service vegetarian food to well-to-do Indians.  We don’t manage to make our ultimate destination before a combination of tiredness and the first drops of a downpour prompt us to hop into a auto-rickshaw before the heavens open.  The rain is moderately heavy but short-lived.  But even so the roads are starting to flood and we wonder how Delhi copes when the monsoon really arrives.

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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 16^th 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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