Hattie on Tour

It’s an early start this morning to catch the < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /?>
6.15 am train to Jaipur.  At this time in the morning Delhi is largely traffic free and, unusually quiet.  People are sleeping on the pavements;  some on the floor, others on simple cots.  One large traffic island is completely crowded with sleeping bodies.  There is a cow alongside the central reservation, completely unperturbed by the traffic.  < ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /?>

The station is busy and chaotic when we arrive and we have had to pay the driver before we get to the station because he isn’t an official taxi and should apparently not be dropping off fare paying passengers.   A porter is immediately on our case as soon as we get out of the car and unbelievably carries both our rucksacks, weighing around 30 kilos, on his head! 

India has a very efficient on-line booking system for train tickets and once registered it is possible to book 10 rails journeys per month via the internet.  It’s quite straightforward, if a little long-winded and it seems to work.  There are some 5or 6 categories of seat from 1^st class air conditioned sleepers to second class chairs.  The latter being the cheapest class and the one used by most Indians.  Sleepers and first and second class air con chairs have to be reserved in advance and it’s not possible to buy tickets for same day travel.  Some of the routes, particularly the long-distance ones get booked up weeks in advance and the rail network is so busy that there is at tiered waiting list system for cancelled tickets.   We had originally intended to go from Delhi to Varanasi overnight, but it was fully booked and would have meant spending another week in Delhi.  So instead we have decided to go to  Agra and then on to Rajasthan and perhaps we may get to Varanasi later.

The 2^nd class air conditioned carriage is quite orderly and comfortable and amazingly given the price,  ticket includes a reasonable breakfast  served at your seat like an airline meal.  It’s just over two hours to Agra and we arrive at 8.30am.  We have to fend off numerous rickshaw drivers whilst we wait for the hotel pick up to arrive, which he does after a few minutes and once we have negotiated  the heavy traffic around the station the route to the hotel is along wide, reasonably tidy and quiet streets.   But by the time we reach our hotel the character of the place has changed.  There are few cars in Agra but the streets are congested with other types of transport – pedal and auto-rickshaws, horse drawn carts and carriages, hand carts, donkeys,  cows, camel carts, mopeds and bicycles – and it’s noisy, very noisy.  Like Delhi those that have a horn like to use it … frequently.

The Maya Hotel and Restaurant isn’t geared up for early arrivals and we have to wait until 10.30 before we can register and get into our room.  Registration is an interesting example of Indian bureaucracy – a register has to be completed with all manner of information about our passports, visas, how long we are staying in India, where we’ve travelled from and where we are going to, address, etc, etc.  Then the same information has to be transferred onto a three-part duplicated form.  Eventually formalities completed we can get into our room.  The hotel doesn’t quite live up to the puff on it’s website – it could hardly be described as ‘magical’, but it does have a huge marble bed, a television (always a mixed blessing), a shower with hot and cold water (although it’s difficult to tell which is which from the temperature of the water) and a rather scruffy balcony.

Stepping out of the hotel onto the street invites unwelcome attention from several hawkers, beggars and rickshaw drivers all eager to part you from your money.  We are swiftly adopted by a rickshaw driver who 20 rupees will take us to a restaurant we have identified in Lonely Planet .  He is still waiting for us when we emerge about an hour later and before we know it we have Hero for the rest of the day and as it turns out, for the rest of our stay in Agra.  Somewhere between Agra Fort and the Baby Taj, his friend, Salim, is co-opted to help out and we have two drivers – for the same price, naturally.  But Hero is a wily old bird, he’s letting us decide how much we want to pay him, knowing full well we suspect, that we will pay him well over the going rate (which is so low as to be embarrassing).  Also as the day progresses it becomes apparent that he will supplement any income he gets from us, with commission he picks up along the way from restaurants and shops we visit. 

Agra Fort is probably more impressive than the Red Fort in Delhi in terms of overall size and the extent of the palace complex.  Situated on the bank of the Yamuna River with a splendid view of the Taj Mahal in the distance, it was begun by Emperor Akbar, the first of the Moghul emperors, 8in 1565 and further added to , particularly by his grandson, Shah Jahan, who transformed it into a beautifully ornamented palace,  in which he was later to be imprisoned by his son, Aurangzeb.  The fort is enclosed by colossal walls 20 metres high and 2.5km in circumference.  It contains a labyrinth of interlinked buildings many built in marble intricately inlaid with semi-precious stones – all in remarkably good condition –  a central garden and water features.  Apparently there is a massive underground complex as well, which is not open to the public.

Across the Yamuna is Itimad-Ud-Daulah – also known as the Baby Taj – the tomb of Persian nobleman Mizra Ghiyas Beg.  It was the first Mughal building to be constructed entirely of marble.  It is extensively decorated with delicate pietra dura – inlayed semi-precious stones.  A forerunner of the Taj Mahal but on a smaller scale, it is a stunningly beautiful building , remarkably preserved to say that it was built between 1622 and 1628.

Our final destination is to a spot on the east bank of the Yamuna River for a view of the back of the Taj Mahal.  This is supposed to be a good vantage point at sunset, but we arrive here far too early and in any case there is far too much cloud.  Unfortunately a razor wire fence recently been erected protected by an armed guard prevents visitors from walking along the river bank to get a square on view of the Taj in all its symmetrical glory.  A blatantly commercial decision designed to encourage tourists to cough up the entrance fee to the gardens directly opposite the Taj and one that must make life difficult for local villagers who earn a living along the river.

We decide to hire a car and driver again today and we set out around < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /?>
noon.  It’s definitely worth the £13 charge for eight hours just to have an air conditioned car to retreat from the heat between the various sights.  It doesn’t necessarily mean you get to see more, but it does make it possible to see some of the places that are further out from the centre.  We start out with a long list of things to see but end up only getting to three;  the Swaminarayan Akshardham temple, the Jama Mosque and the Lotus Temple.  Our day is partly curtailed because we set out to see the Mosque first but when we arrive it’s closed to non-Muslims until 2pm so our driver, for some inexplicable reason, heads right out to the suburbs to the Akshardham Temple instead staying in Old Dehli and going a few minutes’ drive to the Purana Qila (Old Fort).  We are beginning to learn that it’s not a good idea to leave the organisation of the itinerary to the driver.  Plus half-way through the day we have to return to the B&B to get Andy’s glasses because his contact lens is playing up!

The Swaminarayan Akshardham temple complex was inaugurated as recently as 2005 and occupies a vast 100 acre site.  Amazingly given its ornamentation and carvings it was built in only five years.  Like many places we have visited there is some rather peremptory and superficial security screening of visitors which involves walking through a security arch and submitting to the most cursory of physical checks.  Bags, camera and mobile phones are not allowed and we got the impression that the search was for nothing more offensive than cigarettes – but that might be an over-simplification! 

The Mandi (temple) is the focal point of the entire complex.  Built of pink stone and white marble it features 234 intricately carved pillars, 9 magnificent domes, 20 pinnacles and over 20,000 sculpted figures.  Unforutunately it’s closed for maintenance so we don’t get to see the ‘don’t miss’ interior.  The mandhi is surrounded by the Narayan Sarovar, a moat containing holy waters from 151 rivers, lakes and stepwells of India visited by Bhagwan Swaminarayan.  An impressive two tier colonnade in red standstone encircles the mandir, each is tier is 3000 feet long with 1,152 pillars.  There are various other buildings in the complex as well as a statue of the boy Swami himself who is said to have spent 7 years from the age of 11 walking 12,000 miles around India and a 8-petal lotus-shaped three dimenstional garden.  The whole complex is certainly impressive, but it’s hard not to question whether the money might not have been better spent helping India’s dispossessed.

The Jama Masjid mosque built in 164-58 by Shah Jahan (he of Taj Mahal fame) is the largest in India.  It is constructed in alternating vertical strips of red sandstone and marble with two minarets and a huge courtyard capable of holding 25,000 people.  We climbed one of the minarets for a fabulous view of Delhi.    Despite the heat, the removal of shoes is obligatory, and there is conveniently a shoe wallah to look after your shoes and a sock wallah to sell you socks to protect your feet from the searingly hot paving.  There is also a wallah providing a coverall robe which I must wear despite the fact that I’m already covered from head to foot in a long skirt and long sleeved shirt.  All, of course, expect payment.  Entry to the mosque itself is free, though. 

Our final stop is to the distinctive Lotus temple also known as the Baha’i House of Worship strikingly shaped like an unfurling white lotus (think Sydney Opera House shapes re-arranged).  The temple surrounded by nine large pools of water which not only enhance the building but also play a role in the natural cooling system of the prayer hall. 

Our hosts have recommended Karim’s Restaurant about 20 minutes away from the B&B so our driver drops us close by with instructions on how to find it down an alley way.  The area is heaving with people and rickshaws and we can’t find the restaurant.  So we retrace our steps to find the driver, but he seems to have had to park some way off and we can’t find him.  We are just wondering what to do next, when to our relief the driver turns up;  he’d gone to check that we arrived at the restaurant safely and not finding us there had come looking for us in the street.  It turns out that his instructions had not been entirely accurate and the restaurant is in another alleyway.  Karim’s is a very popular Muslim restaurant over three floors and rightly so, the food is delicious.

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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.

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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