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Published: August 13th 2006
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From Assam, we flew back to Delhi for the end of the Sierra Club trip. It was sad saying goodbye to all my 8 new Sierra Club friends from all over the US and Canada. But it was also exciting to be on my own to do some independent traveling. For our last night we were booked in the Delhi Radisson and ate at an Italian restaurant in the hotel.
The next morning I took advantage of the internet access at the hotel and caught up on some emails. Then I did some research to try and figure out where I was going to spend the next few nights. I ended up deciding on a neighborhood called Sunder Nagar. It is a bit more laid back and upmarket than the busy streets of Delhi. They have some decent mid-range hotels with AC, which is nice in the 90 degree heat. It is only about 3 miles from the center of New Delhi, Connaught Place, and is walking distance from the zoo, which I was planning on checking out.
From my new home base in Sunder Nagar, I spent a few days exploring the bazaars and shopping areas of New
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All bills seem to have Mahatma Gandhi on the front. $20 bill shown for size comparison. Delhi and researching where I was going to go on the next part of my trip. My new mode of transport was by auto-rickshaw (aka tuk-tuks). They were all over the place and a little cheaper than a regular taxi. I could usually get most places around New Delhi for about $1-2. But you have to be careful with the drivers. Many of them were in cahoots with various shop owners and travel agencies around town. They would be really friendly and chat with you. But then they get very pushy about taking you to a particular shop or travel agency. I sometimes had to act a little angry to get them to take me where I wanted to go. A couple of times I went ahead and took their advice and stopped where they wanted. It was usually disappointing with just a touristy shop full of expensive souvenirs or a travel agency that wasn’t certified by the government. The shops and travel agencies give the drivers commissions when they bring in customers.
One of the bazaars I checked out was Palika Bazaar on the south side of Connaught Place. It was underground and was the closest thing I
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Back side saw to a mall. But it was very crowed and a little dirty with narrow walkways. There were just a few types of shops that were repeated throughout the bazaar. There were electronics/camera/phone shops, souvenir shops, clothing shops, and DVD/video game/porn shops. As in all of the bazaars, the shop owners were constantly asking me to “Come take a look”. Being a young male on my own, I was especially hounded by the ones selling porn.
The main circle in Connaught Place had several individual westernized shops. The chain stores, like TGI Fridays, the Gap, McDonalds, and Pizza Hut, all had unarmed security guards standing outside, probably to prevent vandalism. I stopped in a McDonalds at one point to see how different their menu is. There is no beef or pork on the on the menu. The short menu included veggie burgers, a couple chicken sandwiches, fillet-o-fish, and a couple “McCurry” Pizza pocket thingies…no joke. The more upscale Sunder Nagar Market right next to my hotel specialized in crafts, antiques, and tea. One shop owner talked about traveling all over the US selling his crafts.
I found that most of the travel agencies were fairly pushy, even the
ones recommended by the government office. They tried to sell me on package tours of certain areas. Many of them tried to talk me into going to Kashmir which often has military activity since both India and Pakistan claim it as their own. The agents claimed Kashmir is much safer now and has lots of very satisfied tourists there. From the brochures and photos they showed me, it did look very scenic and had cooler temperatures being at the edge of the Himalaya Mountains. They kept trying to talk me into chatting with Australians and Europeans on the phone that just returned from their trips. But the Lonely Planet guide said that the airport in the capital city (where tourists fly into) looks more like a military installation than an airport.
I finally decided on going to visit the beaches of Goa on the west coast of India for my last week there. Most of the travel agencies were offering relatively expensive package tours which included the $500 flight. I ended up just going directly to an airline office in Connaught Place to get my tickets and just find hotels from my guide book once I get there. I
found a flight with Sahara airlines for $300 and booked my first night in a hotel since I’d be getting there in the late evening.
One of my days in Delhi, there was a break from the 95 degree weather when we had a short rain, which is pretty unusual that time of year. It was cloudy that day and only got up to about 80 degrees. While waiting for the rain to slow down outside a travel agency, I chatted with a guy from Australia who had been living there for 6 months. He said it was the first time he had seen it rain in Delhi.
On my last day in Delhi, I visited the Delhi zoo. This gave me a chance to see some of the wildlife that we didn’t get to see on the Sierra Club trip. Most of the parks we visited had leopards, sloth bears, and hyenas. But we never got to see them since they are usually just out at night. The zoo was pretty big, covering 214 acres, and mostly had ample room for the animals to move around. Walking through the zoo though, I felt like I was one
of the exhibits. I got lots of stares being one of only a few tourists there.
On the way to the airport to head to Goa, I saw a couple fairly disturbing scenes. In Delhi when the taxis stop at intersections for traffic lights, beggars will dodge cars and come right up to the taxis to ask for money…especially when there’s a tourist in the taxi. They will knock on the window of the taxi and make sure you see their injuries if they have them. On this taxi ride a man came up to my taxi and showed his forearm that had a cast on it. The end of the cast was cut off to show the open wound where his hand used to be. During that same taxi ride a few minutes later, a woman came up to my taxi carrying a small child with a pretty horrific injury on its head. The child’s head looked like it had a big chunk of its skull missing. It had a bandage over part of the wound. But the bandage was removed over part of it to show the raw flesh of the open wound.
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