Delhi Day Two

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Our tour started today around 8am, with a walk to the metro station to make the trip to Old Delhi. The metro was like most large cities, but rather neat and clean compared to the rest of Delhi. We were each giving a metro card to use (and return to the guide afterwards) for our trips today. One thing this is different about the Delhi metro is that all trains have 1 or more “women only” cars, usually in the front of the train. Some women did choose to ride in the other cars, but only women in these. My wife said they were usually just as crowded, standing together tightly packed like sardines. The men’s cars were always like that. You learn quickly that you can’t be polite, just push your way on and off. After a couple stops along the way, we got off in very crowded part of Old Delhi. One of the first things I noticed, besides the crowds, were the electrical wires strung all over the place, willy nilly. Any American electrician would find this to be a nightmare to work with, besides being exceedingly dangerous. I’ve included a photo so you can get some idea. We wound our way through the streets, ogling all the vendors and stores, along with the ridiculous situation of trying to walk through streets crowded with people, bicycles, and motorcycles. What an experience!

Our first stop was at the largest mosque in Delhi, and I believe India, Jama Masjid. They had a courtyard that could hold 25,000 people! Given the current situation, I opted to pass on going inside, but my wife and most of the others entered, after proper ritual of removing their shoes, getting a scarf and paying the 300 Rupees for each camera, iphone, or video camera! I waited outside with the shoes and bags. I’ve included a couple of the photos that my wife took inside. From the outside, the mosque was fairly ornate in style, but without all the gold, silver, and other colors found in the Indian temples we’d already seen.

After leaving the mosque, we headed through what our guide called a wedding market, where you could buy any and all of the gaudy things the Indians wear for a wedding, from clothing to jewelry and everything in between. Our next destination was a famous Parantha restaurant. Apparently this place has been in business since 1875 and has had numerous famous clients, some of whom have photos on the walls. I ordered a mixed vegetable one and my wife ordered a cheese one. Both were only 70 Rupees each ( about $1) and were quite tasty, coming with 3 types of “sauces”, all of which were on the spicy side.

We finished our paranthas and headed for a visit to the famous Sikh Temple in Old Delhi. Here, we all went in, after being given a thorough history lesson of the temple along with the requirements to be covered (we used head scarves provided), removing our shoes and socks, and leaving any tobacco products and lighters behind. We entered the temple with a prayer session already underway and were instructed to sit on the floor near the back of the crowd for about 10 minutes to be respectful and soak in the atmosphere. The place was fairly crowded and had a lot going on all around us, besides the musical prayer session. After our moment of contemplation, the guide took us to their kitchen, explaining that they fed any and all comers, or at least those who had contributed offerings over the years. I’m not sure just how that worked, or even if you had to have paid, but the kitchen was rather large and busy with people making stew, mixing flour and such for the typical bread, along with a crew standing by to wash dishes. After watching everyone working, we checked out their dining hall. There were cloth mats on the floor, about 5 I think, running about 100 feet across the hall. Diners would come and sit back to back on the cloth mat to eat and drink. One unusual thing is that you could take however much you wanted, but you had to finish whatever you took.

We returned to the hotel for lunch and a brief rest before we left for the train station for our overnight sleeper train to Varanasi. I forgot to mention that we had all packed our bags and left them in the hotel baggage room for our evening departure. We all ate lunch together at a vegetarian restaurant called Saravana Bhavan, which we only a couple of blocks from the hotel. Manoli and I both had the South Indian Limited meal for 145 Rupees, which include a lot of variety and more than enough for the average person. It included a bowl of steamed rice, two kinds of bread, 2 tins of sauces, 3 tins of “toppings”, a tin of yogurt or sour cream, and a tin with a small but delicious dessert. It was all quite tasty and not too spicey.

After our late lunch, we went back to the hotel to relax a bit before leaving for the train station. Manoli picked up some assorted fruit for dinner on the train, and I ordered a chicken and rice dish from the hotel, to go. It took 3 cars to carry us all along with our luggage. The ride to the station wasn’t nearly as harrowing as our tuk-tuk ride the day before, but traffic was still horrendous. We all got to the station, put our bags through their scanners and waited to find out where our train left from. There were already some folks asleep on the bare floor outside the station entry, but not like I’d seen on The Amazing Race. After wandering around for a while so our guide could get the logistics down pat, around 6pm we all headed to our platform… almost the last one of about 20 I think! Our guide gave everyone our bunk numbers and which car we were in, and we got on board. Unfortunately, we weren’t all able to get bunks together or even in the same car. In our car, we had the girl from Tasmania and the girl from Germany. I’ll get their names straight soon. Originally I had the top berth of three with the two girls below me, and my wife had the bottom berth of two across from us. When she found out a middle-aged Indian lady in full “costume” had the berth above her and her husband the top berth across from me, she volunteered to trade so the lady could take the bottom berth. We all sat, ate our dinners and chatted for an hour or so, then made up our berths to get some sleep. The bottom berth serves as a seat until you fold down the middle berth. We had our main luggage under the bottom berths, but we had to keep all our other belongings, including our backpacks in the bunk with us, so it was rather cramped. On top of that, the bunks are narrow and not very long. My top bunk also had an air vent to deal with, but I eventually was able to get to sleep.

Tomorrow, the silk capital, Varanasi.

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