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Published: January 24th 2007
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Delhi Streets
Delhi is a very busy city. The crowds of people and jams of traffic are quite horrendous. The 'Paharganj' area in Delhi is where most of the budget accommodation resides and therefore where most backpackers tend to head for. It's conveniently located nearby to the New Delhi Train station for most connections in and out of the city as well as being pretty central.
I arrived in the early evening by pre-paid taxi from the Airport. I noticed it was getting pretty chilly at night, the distance between Goa and Delhi is considerable and it is winter after all. I found it a bit unusual that my taxi driver kept protesting "No English, No English" even though I wasn't inclined to chat with him - I was feeling pretty tired. Still he seems friendly enough smiling into the mirror. When we arrived the traffic was grid locked outside the train station and cars beep furiously. My driver decided to stop in the middle of the road, take my pre-paid voucher and point me in the direction of the station. "Night charge! Night charge! 50 Rupees" he blurts out with a big frown just as I am about to exit the taxi. Fortunately I've done some homework en-route and read the conditions on the back of the ticket
Me outside the Secretariat
These imposing buildings topped with wee domes, now house government ministries. Nice One. so I knew quite well that night charges only apply after 11pm and besides the pre-paid booth at the airport would have taken that into account. I looked at him questioningly and got out of the taxi. He soon gave up without a fight - a tell tale sign. Other visitors I suspected will have become duped by this kind of routine. Don't feel victimised however, taxi drivers - I've learned - try it on with just about everybody. They are like a force unto themselves. In my nightmares they huddle round oil drum fires sharing malicious tactics and plotting deviously against the masses.
Apart from the normal everyday rituals of "Yes Sir, Rickshaw?"... "No Thank You", thank goodness I didn't have to wrestle with too many other auto-rickshaw men or taxi drivers during my stay in Delhi (amongst the biggest complaints is they refuse to use their meters with tourists). Instead I made a brilliant discovery. It's Delhi's reletivly new underground system - or Metro as it's called. It's another world underneath India's noise making mecca. It's new, well lit, clean, quiet, spacious, tidy... and appears to be made almost entirely out of marble. World class looking you
Rajpath
The view up to India Gate might say. It's easy to use, fast and incredibly cheap. Without it I might have left Delhi to it a lot sooner.
North Delhi is where you can find old crowded shopping bazaars and the Red Fort amongst other things - busy polluted areas that are best visited in moderation. In contrast I found Central Delhi to be spacious, green and relatively free of traffic which made wandering down Rajpath from the President's Estate to the India Gate memorial and round to the nearby museums quite pleasurable. Connaught Place is also nice with modern high class shopping and eating areas and a recently opened park in the center overlooked by impressive looking commercial skyscrapers.
Delhi is also the capital of tourism and predictably entry prices for the main attractions can seem steep when compared with what Indian nationals have to pay - tourists tend to pay between 10 and 25 times as much. Most of these places however are heavens for getting away from the noise and pollution and so many tourists are glad to pay a few quid for this luxury. As a tourist it can be worth checking what queue your expected to join as I
India Gate Memorial
This memorial has the names of 90,000 odd Indian soldiers who lost their lives during World War I, the Northwest Frontier operations and 1919 Afghan fiasco. discovered when entering the Red Fort that I could skip the 2 hour or so queue winding its way back towards the road.
Meanwhile arriving in Paharganj for the first time I found myself walking down the colourful neon, narrow shop lined streets with my backpack on looking like the new arrival in need of a hotel. Touts were out in force desperate to get you into their hotel or later on keen to book your onward train tickets for you to save you the grave hassle involved of using the near by, purpose built tourist reservation office (read go to the reservation office). "Patients" I say to one of them, "I'd like to check out these other hotels on route." Hotels I find are particularly busy and are full up except this guy's hotel who has now been pestering me for some time. There's not much left to choose from however and so I decided to continue looking but this guy won't leave me alone. Now I've picked up two of them who've been tailing me for a good 20 or 30 minutes. But at every hotel it's the same, a quick word from my new found friends
Sandstone walls of the Red Fort
The Red Fort dates from the mid 17th century. Aurangzeb was the first and last great Mughal emperor to rule from here. Sorted. and the response is that they are full. By now I'm getting suspicious and just a little annoyed so I decided to explain to one owner that these guys won't leave me alone and he tells me I should come back later! And sure enough after a few words to my touts that they should leave me alone now, several recently visited hotels miraculously developed vacancies.
I stuck around long enough to see the main sights and then headed off to Mussoorie in the mountains. But you can't go too far in the north of India without passing through this major transport hub and so my return visit to Delhi I took advantage of a special rate offered to me when I left my hotel. "Don't worry I do you a special rate" probably should have rang alarm bells but the staff were so very friendly and I couldn't help myself in trusting them to do a decent deal. I politely asked several times to confirm exactly what rate I would be getting - I'd seen the guy write down 50 on check in but that clearly wouldn't have been right - but he didn't want to tell me.
New Delhi Train Station
New Delhi Train station is seriously big. There were like 14 platforms, crowded with people and trains so long they disappear into the distance. I offered to settle up the night before but my new friend said we could do it early in the morning before I left for my train. My special rate turned out to be the same price I'd paid last time (apparently already heavily discounted) and I noticed he'd added an extra digit to the front of 50 he originally wrote down. The room wasn't even as nice as the one I'd been in last time. I hadn't expected much but still I was quite astonished so I politely questioned this special offer in light of everything (to my annoyance I'd even recommended the hotel to a friend who was also staying there) - but all I received were brash responses, my friends were suddenly not so friendly with several of his colleagues joining in and demanding I give him the money. Special rates it turned out are not up to him, prices are set by the hotel manager who after 10 seconds into the phone call started shouting down the phone at me reciteing room rates. It's not easy to digest everything that is going on in such a situation and make rational judgements but somehow I managed to
Delhi Metro System
It was a complete surprise to me that Delhi even had a metro system let alone one that is such pleasure to use. By the way, your not allowed to take photos in the metro. keep my cool and much to their disgust, walk out calmly having paid only what I thought I owed them. Instead I said I'd settle the rest when I had more time to argue with them - after all I had a train to catch.
With all this going on you would be forgiven for thinking Delhi is a tourist's nightmare! It could be unless you quickly realise a lot of it is just a big game. These are simply minor glitches. The real scams are the 're-confirm your hotel booking using our telephone so we can tell you its no longer available and rip you off' con and the classic gem scam which you need to be aware of. Neither of which I came across fortunately. The rest is mere childs play and as many Indians will point out "it's very cheap". In their view - if tourists are stupid enough to pay inflated prices then that's fair game! What makes it difficult is that they are so well rehearsed many tourists easily give in or simply don't have the energy to argue over few quid. Often you can rumble them all you like and bargain for England,
Sher Mandal
Mandal slipped on the stairs here and later died in 1556. Later used by Humayun as a library. they won't back down because they know there are plenty of other tourists behind you willing to pay up. Once I got into the swing of things however I actually found all this stuff a good source of cheap entertainment rather than an hindrance and it wouldn't put me off returning to Delhi because it can actually be quite a nice place.
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