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Published: January 1st 2010
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Bold Text Delhi, Danger-loving Dave, touts, scams and many amazing things.
So we are writing our first blog from the hostel in Delhi (luckily some girls from Denmark arrived this evening so we have had some company for the last few hours).
Arrived safe and sound in the early hours of the 30th December and were greeted by the hostel owner Rajiv. On the drive back to the hostel me and Lucy started to think 'what the hell are we doing here?' this feeling was tripled when we saw the hostel and realised we were actually just staying in someones house (but enough of that it has all been fine and we have had an amazing time here).
Our first nights sleep was somewhat disturbed at 5am then again at 7am by ridiculously loud Indian music coming from outside. A few days later we found out that it was coming from a megaphone around the corner...not sure why.
On the first day we did a tour of some of the sights around Central and South Delhi courtesy of Rajiv and his car. We saw The Lotus Temple, Humayan's Tomb (very impressive, similar to the Taj Mahal),
and The Qutb Minar (a big tower). We also went to the Dilli Haart which is a controlled and calm arts and crafts market.
By the second day we were feeling braver and decided to venture out on our own. We got an auto- rickshaw from the main road to Connaught Place and the surrounding area (it was at this point that we realised that the hostel we booked was very far out of Central Delhi-not really an ideal location but okay never the less).
Connaught Place was an intense experience and we feel quite proud of ourselves that we listened to everyone's advice and managed to not get conned or taken to the 'government tourist information' which many men 'working for the nearby bank' 'kindly' tried to show us!!!!!!!!
After getting a wee bit lost we located the nearest Metro and hopped off at the station so we could book some more of our train tickets.
After all of this effort and stress we headed to the Pahar ganj Main Bazaar (a true Indian market with hundreds of people, sellers and many cows weaving their way through the narrow streets) for some dinner at a restaurant recommended by
The Lonely Planet. By this point we had got Delhi a bit more sussed and got a pre-paid rickshaw (run by the kindly Tourist Police) from the station back to the hostel.
We woke up this morning with a growing confidence in our abilities to navigate our way around this crazy city and avoid all the touts and scams. We headed to the station from where we got the Metro upto Chadni Chowk- the main road in Old Delhi. Chadni Chowk road was even busier that the streets in New Delhi but we managed to make our way to the Red Fort at the top of the road in one piece-i.e not getting our toes ran over by a car/bike/rickshaw/bus or stray animal.
The Red Fort was huge and we spent a few hours wandering around inside and really relaxing for the first time since we arrived. We got lunch at the restaurant inside the Red Fort where we met a guy called David from Germany who was doing a bit of sight seeing on his own. We later, secretly, renamed him danger-loving Dave (we'll explain in a few lines).
David asked if he could join us
for the rest of the afternoon as we were heading for the Jama Masjid (the biggest Mosque in India) and we think he was a little bit scared of being in Delhi on his own.
We walked to the Jama Masjid in about five mintues thanks to Lucy's brilliant map reading skills. It was a very impressive sight. We started to question David's behaviour when he repeatedly walked infront of moving vehicles, called the locals 'buddy' and kept giving them the thumbs up when they didn't run him over.
After this David asked if we fancied going to Gandhi's memorial so we agreed. With David leading the way we turned onto a road in Old Delhi which had what can only be descibed as an ominous vibe. With the Delhi Police holding machine guns on every corner me and Lucy quietly discussed turning around and going back.
At this point Danger-loving Dave got really excited by a 'market' just off the main road. This market was actually a rather huge slum (me and Lucy hung far back close to the police). We thought that Dave couldn't get anymore unappreciative of where he was until he put his bag on
the ground (unattended) and whipped out his professional $1300 camera to get a great photo opportunity of the goats in the slum. While me and Lucy quietly questioned his sanity and firmly decided to turn back and ditch the moron he returned, beaming, and told us he didn't know they had goats in India.... did we have them in England.
Back in New Delhi we had dinner in another cafe from the Lonely Planet. We got Thali (a few dishes served together with rice and Chapati) for 2 with drinks for 100Rupees...Bargain.
So that completes our first blog from Delhi....sorry if it's too long but we have many new and funny experiences to share.
It is now 9pm and we are getting the train to Agra at 7.10am tommorow morning where we will spend the day and night.
Hopefully we will write our next blog from Jaipur, and ad pictures for this one (the usb doesn't work here).
Lots of Love,
Luce + Clare
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Tracey Bowen
non-member comment
Sounds like your settling in to traveling really well, just be careful and be on you guard at all times, your going to have a fab time !!!!