Downtown Delhi

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12 hours, 1 transfer, 3 plane meals and one crap Julia Roberts movie later, 3 very tired ex drama students stepped out of Delhi international airport in 3 awesome straw hats. An s far no one has shat themselves 😊

Delhi is EPIC. There is no other word to use. From the moment we hopped into our little taxi van it smacked us in the face like a You've Been Tangoed ad - BAM! Welcome to Delhi. It's just one amazing mess of extremities - traffic, sound, smells, colour. It's just...epic.

The first thing you notice is traffic. You are forced to because it is completely m.e.n.t.a.l. The only way I can think of getting people at home to comprehend just how mental it is is to say imagine being in a reaaaaalllly busy club where everyone is constantly pushing past and trying to get to from one room to another - Tiger fans - think of student Thursdays. Swap the people for a mixture of cars, trucks, motorbikes, tuk tuks, rickshaws, horses, cows, donkeys, bicycles and people all honking their horns VERY LOUDLY and that is Indian traffic.

There are no traffic lights or signals and the white lane partician markings are just there for a game of who can cross over them or drive directly on them the most without being smashed into by another vehicle, cow, donkey or tuk tuk. It is AWESOME! Horns are beeped continuously as a way of letting your presence be known and tailgating is not even a phrase out here - it's a way of life. It you don't tailgate, you don't get anywhere. There is no shaking of the fists, giving the finger or angry words, just a million different people all happily honking away and weaving in and out of each other centimeters apart.

Later on we also found out that what little street lights are in place are switched off after 10pm and this is party time when road rules no longer apply. It is literally both terrifying and fascinating to be driving in. I loved ever second. Although I won't make it sound too much like I was immediately a comfortable touring hippy - bum cheeks were firmly clenched and sweaty hand was tightly around the passenger handle. It's like that feeling you get when you go on your first epic theme park roller coaster - you love it, but you feel like you could potentially shit yourself at any given moment.

Once we managed to get to our destination without dying or crapping ourselves we stupidly got out of our taxi ad paid our driver before making sure we were outside of our hotel. As it turned out, shockingly, we were not outside of our hotel. In fact we were no where near it. Where we actually were was in a side street full of people, tuk tuks, mopeds, dogs and hassling street stall owners with about a million hotel signs sticking out of buildings and above our heads. None of which may i add said Hotel Rama Inn. Within seconds we were surrounded by 'friendly locals' all obviously wanting to help us so they could practice their english and in no way try and part us from our (relatively) hard earned cash. Seeing as we all had heavy backpacks and sweaty bum cracks from all the aforementioned clenching, as well as having no clue where to go, Matt picked the most genuine friendly of the friendly locals that of course proclaimed to know where our hotel was. And so off we trundled behind him....

This was when i got my first experience of Indian traffic when your not actually in the thing moving along the road. Crossing the road in India is different from crossing the road in the UK for 3 main reasons:

1) There are no traffic lights and no lanes
2) When you walk out, cars don't stop
3) You cnstantly fear that a tuk tuk or passing cow may run over your foot

Instead of stop, look, listen we found laugh hysterically, look down and walk straight out as quickly as humanly possible was the best highway code to accomplish a safe crossing of a road. Mr Hedgehog would probably be tutting right now but you really don't have a choice. You have to look down or you will realize a million moving objects are all constantly heading towards you and you will never cross. You have to laugh or you will cry and if you don't just walk out as quickly as humanly possible you will get the fear and never leave the spot that your sweaty bum crack is routed to. Yes, apparently as well as from clenching, i get a sweaty bum crack when fearing for my life.


Road crossing accomplished I started to realise we had bee following our friendly local for a VERY long time. After ten more minutes of walking through a million different streets and having no clue where we were I decided to listen to that little voice in the back of my head that was saying, ever so quietly: THIS MAN WANTS YOUR MONEY AND WILL PROBABLY LEAD YOU DOWN A BACK ALLEY WHERE HIS FRIENDS ARE WAITING AND WILL MUG AND PROBABLY RAPE YOU... A LITTLE BIT.
So in true diplomatic style I got narky with him and stomped off into another hotel to ask if they had any clue where Hotel Rama Inn was to see if their directions matched that he had given. As it turns out, they did. And as it later turned out, we didn't get mugged, raped or murdered and he didn't want our money and genuinely was a very nice student boy that just wanted to practice his english.

I would have probably felt bad about this if I didn't have jet lag and sweat running down my bum crack at this moment in time. So for the time being I indigently stomped into our kindly found hotel and went for a bucket wash. Yes that's right - no shower for jazzy - just a bucket, a sponge and some cold water. Bit tricky to shave your legs in but you'd be surprised how quickly you get the hang of it. Today is actually the first day I had a semi-hot shower and it sort of felt a bit weird. Bucket washing is surprising refreshing.

After a quick nap and a bucket wash each we all went down to explore Delhi and find some form of dinner. You will never GUESS who was waiting outside. No, not Ghandi, not Sir David Attonbrugh or Noel Edmunds - it was our little hotel finding friend - who's name turned out to be Naresh. I mumbled an apology for being a stereotypical English woman and he seemed to take it in good heart and then decided to drive us around the city for the evening in his tuk tuk, which he drove in his spare time to make cash outside of uni. In my new found non judgmental light I decided to believe this and hopped in. In fairness, you can't really blame me for my cynicism when a guy with a leather jacket and an earring that keeps talking on his mobile phone a lot is leading you through the back streets of Delhi. Just goes to show not everyone in the world is trying to rip you off. Sometimes people are just nice. Naresh was one of these.

He took us for an awesome first dinner at some local cafe where we had Thali dips with naan and Dosa stuffed pancakey things with rice. We ate everything with our hands like the idiot tourists you see gauffing 'when in Rome' whilst walking along like absolute dildos in what they think is local attire but is actually tourist crap that is sold to them at double the value. Six days and two pairs of Ali Barba pants later and I can safely say that we ARE those people. But you know what - I bloody love it! It's part of the whole experience and if you can't dress like a great big fanny when on the trip of a life time, when can you?! I'm sure I will rock my asia-pants once again at Glasto or something and will try and act all modest when some 18 year old that doesn't know better says 'cool pants man' and I get to retort 'thanks, i picked them up in India, mwaaaaahhaaaughhaaaaw'. Yes I am that pretentious fanny I hate and I am loving every last second. Plus Ali- Barbar pants are AMAZINGLY comfortable. You can sit in all sorts of un-ladylike positions and no one can see you 4 pound a pack Brazilian knickers. Unless you stand behind a big light, and then they can as they are mainly made of a very thin material. But ho hum, I'm in Inida in multi-coloured Ali Barba pants that cost me two pounds a pop - life is good 😊

Anyway, after our pretentious hand eaten meal and some walking around and being allowed to smoke in a pashmina shop (yes INSIDE) Naresh took us to a little tourist office to pick up a map and find out about some train times out of Delhi so we could consider making a move in the next two days. 3 hours, 2 cups of Chi and a few free cigarettes and weird silver sweet treats later we had handed over the best part of 250 English pounds to hire a driver and go on a tour of 'Colourful Rajistan'.
I don't really know what happened....

Well I do - they saw us coming. This is a whole other story that I will tell some other time as this blog is already faaaarrr too long and I haven't even got past the first few hours. So for now, all you need to know is we got ripped off a little bit, then reaised and had a bit of a squinny, then came to the conclusion that we are actually having an amazing time and sucked it up and got over it. Back to Delhi:

Day 2: we now have our own driver: Sanjay - who I will write about when we are no longer with him as he deserves a blog entry aaaaaalllllll on his own - believe me. So anyway, 2nd day in, bucket wash done and no signs of Delhi Belly squits, we headed off for some good old sight seeing. Here's what we saw:

Red Fort

The Red Fort was constructed between 1638 - 48 by Sha Jahan who was the guy that also built the Taj Mahal.

It's absolutely massive and is full of ornate little buildings covered in carved sandstone and flocks of birds constantly fly in and out of them. Apparently it used to have even more palace buildings but when us lovely British rocked up to carry out a bit of Colonization we burnt them all down to make room for army barracks. We also shot al 10 of the emperors surviing sons and then booted him out of Delhi so he died all sad and alone in exile. 154 years later a Matt, a Dodds and a Jaz potter around like the three snap happy tourists we are, muttering how it's a shame that there isn't more of the fort left. Insert appropriate Alanis Morrisette lyric.

Anyway, what was left was stunning and we thoroughly enjoyed our visit. This was also helped by the fact that the fort was the first time we discovered the fame and celebrity status that we all knew would eventually come our way. It started rather humbly with a small group of teenage school boys asking to take our picture. Being the camera shy wall flowers that 3 years of drama study has made us we coyly accepted. Ten minutes later we were surrounded by twice as many boys and several groups of families all wanting a picture with the three best dressed tourists you have ever witnessed. at least that's why I figured we were so popular - who could not ask for a picture when there's matt's straw trilby and my amazing leopard print tribal hareem pants involved. Being white and Western may have also helped somewhat...

Not everyone was as respectful of our celebrity status as others. Most were lovely and just wanted to ask where we were from but one creepy man that followed us round for a bit thought it was appropriate conduct to cup hold of Dodd's breast and my bottom whilst posing for a shot. Luckily Matt went into protective man mode and batted him off.

Jama Masjid

Next we went here, which is India's largest mosque - also built by good old Sha Jahan. The coolest thing about the mosque is that it's located smack bang in the middle of Old Delhi which is just a mashed up jungle of backstreets jam packed full of people, mopeds, cars, tuk tuks, cows, goats and chickens all trying to get somewhere by beeping continuously and accelerating into any suitable 'gap' in the traffic. Up above the streets is a tangled mess of electric power cables that look like they could fall down at any given minute. Mix that al in with 101 different food stalls ad bazaars with merchants all shouting out their wares and you start to get an idea of the chaos that is Delhi.

Seeing the massive serene domes of the mosque towering above the hecticness of the back streets as we approached was amazing. We then ascended the steps, whipped off our flip flops, donned some 'appropriate clothing' (multi coloured dressing gowns for us girls and a sarong for Matt) and padded into the centre.

Now most of you know I'm not one for religion, most of all a religion0 with as many constraints as Islamic rule has, but I couldn't hep but feel pretty calm and serene once I got inside. The middle courtyard had a central pool with little squares aligning it that people were kneeling and sitting on to make their prayers, and when you padded inside there were people on mats quietly stretched out in 'lying dog' position. It was all quite lovely. I found it quite surreal that a religion that has sparked such violence and controversy is at it's core, just a man lying on a mat making his peace with his god. Anyway, that's enough philosophy for jazzy - don't want to over analyze the world too early or i'll have nothing left to do in my mid-life crisis.

India Gate

After Mosque tranquilness we went right into India Gate mentalness. Apparently it's quite popular to come on school trips to India gate (which is a memorial to the 90, 000 Indian soldiers who died in WW1) and Delhi has a LOT of schools. Within minutes we were surrounded by hundreds of school children each with a mobile phone or a camera and all wanting a picture. Not wanting to dis-please our public we of course accepted but after about 15 minutes of trying to look at the gate and incessantly getting surrounded for pictures it got a bit tiring. It was the closest experience I think any of us will get to being mobbed - we were just surrounded by hundreds of kids all shouting "hello, hello, what's your name" before shaking our hands and laughing hysterically. There were hands ans cameras jutting out at us from every angle. At one point I freaked out and decided everyone was clearly trying to mug me, so I clutched my bag ans stepped back only t bump into another hoard of excitable children. It was pretty intense.

As Matt said, it becomes very easy to relate to the Britters head shaving incident when the pressures of fame become too much fr you. I'm not saying I immediately wanted to shave my head and down a bottle of gin, but we did all want to sit peacefully on the grass and enjoy some candyfloss and a cigarette. The crazy things the pressure of fame drive you to.

Ghandii memorial

We eventually managed to escape the fan base and have our (incredibly sweet) candyfloss on the grass. Then off we pottered to become enlightened at the Ghandi Memorial. Built over the place here ghandi was assassinated a simply black marble block stands with a burning flame. You can walk around the gardens and read little words of wisdom from the man himself and enjoy the serenity that is naturally stored here. it was nice. Matt and Dodds bummed it a lot more than me and when I have my midlife crisis and become all philosophical and possibly religious I will probably wish i took it in more, but unfortunately I couldn't get into it. i did appreciate it was sad though and that the man was an icon and an aspiration to many people. For now though, i like big fancy temples.

Houses of Parliament

Now, I know we're currently going through a wee bit of an economical crisis back in Britain s i don't expect David to be calling in the decorators, but after seeing the Indian version of 10 Downing street I'm thinking it's a bit more fun to be a prime minister of India than it is of England. No modest one front door, two up, two down for Mr India Prime Minister - no no. Try one big fuck off domed mansion set in acres of gardens with perfectly trimmed lawns ans a beautiful orange sangy drive way leading up to the main entrance. If that wasn't enough we suddenly spotted a monkey through the ridiculously beautiful surrounding gates and all ran along them to get a better look. Turns out Mr India Prime Minister has not just one monkey but a whole lot of monkeys all happily catching some rays whilst lazing around and eating the grass. Mr Cameron does not have an array of monkeys. Not even one monkey. I would definitely like him more if he had a monkey. I shall write and tell him on my return.

Quitib Minar

After getting parliament envy we headed rather sleepily over to Quitib Minar which is an old Islamic temple ruin with a big towery type thing rising high from the ground. Ironically there is a flight path over it so every time I went to get a picture of said tower there was a plane flying directly towards it.

It was a very pretty temple complex set in nice gardens with lots of birds but unfortunately we we all pretty pooped and templed out by this point so we spent most of out time here laughing about ridiculous things like a fat man pretending to na on a bench. You had to be there really.

There was also a rather excitable family that (obviously) wanted to take our picture with their various different children. The father was a rather loud Punjaby man who was either very VERY excitable or did that thing where you speak more loudly to foreigners as that obviously helps them to understand what you are saying. It was quite nice being on the receiving end of this and releasing just how ridiculous we sound when we shout things like"WHERE IS THE TOILET - TOOIII - LETTTT" to strangers. Still we've all been there - British abroad at their best.

So yeah - those were the sights of Delhi. As awesome as they were though, they are still not really what makes Delhi... Delhi. Yeah, they are cool to see and it gives you an overview of the places history but it's the actual everyday toads, backstreets and people that makes Delhi so different. There's just so much chaos and colour. The chaos is mainly the traffic and the colour is the women in their saris - eve the very poor are brightly dressed and it just makes such a harsh juxtaposition with the desegregation of the streets and buildings. Chuck in a million and one different street stalls all with different smells and a couple of random cows and BAM - there you get it: Downtown Delhi.

I've tried to take some pictures to explain what i mean but we've all agreed it's virtually impossible to do. So here's my top ten of things tat make you realise you're no longer in Kansas:


1) Traffic- think we've covered this!

2) Beggar children - enough said.

3) Men in glitter vests - little glittery tank tops of joy. Boys trade in your cheeked shirts pronto.

4) School buses - these consist of a man on a bicycle pulling a 2 by 2 black and yellow box behind him containing about 16 school children. An i used to moan about the school bus.

5) Cows - as I'm sure you all know the cow is pretty damn wholly in India and therefore eating is a no no. Instead they just aimlessly wander the streets, bazaars and main roads and from what we can gather the locals feed them. It's a ver odd adjustment to be driving/walking down the street and come head to head with a cow, but they are literally everywhere - towns and cities alike.

6) Food - there are no fancy-shamanzi restaurants in downtown Delhi - just random little eateries with bubbling pots of different sauces out front where you can pay 200 rupees (about 2 - 3 pound) for dinner for 3. That gets you 2-3 dishes, 1 rice and some naan to share. Then you've got your back street stalls selling everything from samosas to popcorn to fresh oranges to fried little bisicuity treats and hollow balls of fried flour. An of course the super sweet treats. They love a sweet in India so the streets are lined with little shops selling an array of weird sticky assortments.

7)Women in saris - they just make the place s damn colourful! Even more fascinating when you see one sat sideways on a motorbike balancing a suitcase on her lap whilst doing her make up and adjusting her hair. now that's multi - tasking.

8) Chicken transporters - a mpedn with a cage on the back stuffed full of chickens with some more strapped down to the top of the cage. ot a good sight for animal lovers.

9) Poverty - sad but a fact of life out here. It's weird because it's clearly everywhere but at the same time is hard to always distinguish. outside our hotel at night there was a man in one of the back-alleys that was clearly on his last legs. you could hear him coughing and retching all night long as he wandered up and down the alleyway. but then at the same time that was probably the closest we got to witnessing poverty in India so far and we didn't actually see it. Don't get me wrong - there are people sat on the streets al over the show but it becomes quite difficult to establish how poor someone is when they are dressed in a colorful sari because they still look beautiful. It's not until you get up close and see the sari isn't very clean and there is dirt all up their legs that you realise how they are livng. It's a very sad but very eye opening side of Delhi that you both dislike but feel quite humble to witness at the same time.

10) Tuk Tuks and rickshaws - Indians love a good tuk tuk and can amazing squeeze in whole families into what is essentially a moped with a small box around it. The most basic are just lawn mower engines. Rickshaws are also masively popular and i ver much enjoy seeing regal looking Indian men with fancy pats mustaches and turbans being cycled about in these contraptions. For me tuk tuks beat rickshaws hands down as they are more terrifying at speed in traffic and have music. I think one of my best highlights so far was being in Naresh's tuk tuk bopping along to a bit of Cocco Jumb at full blast. that's why I love Asia - bad driving and bad music - the perfect combo 😊

Wow, that was an immensity looong blog, but I hope it sets up India or you. I promise the next won't be dissertation length. Anyway, best log off as not sure what time Gucci Internet cafe closes.

Jasmina Asiapants over and out.

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Comments

[Chelle Belle]

WOW!!!
Wow Jasmina - what an amazing 1st blog. Was almost with you but so glad I wasn't!!! Look forward to the next installment! Glad the belly thing hasn't hit you...... yet!!!! Have fun honey. Michelle x x x x

[Sarah Millam]

Blogging
WOW, this was seriously interesting. Sounds like you guys are having an amazing time!! You write extremely well, I could easily visualize everything you were saying. I have to bookmark this now and keep up with your travels.....brilliant. I can live vicariously through your words now lol. Huggles and stay safe! Sarah xx

[Gaurav]

I think in you are in the wrong area of delhi
I think if you want to travel in a safe and pleasant manner you should travel by Delhi Metro which is one of the most efficient and cleanest mode of transport. If you want to dine at good restaurants, they are plenty of them and they are really expensive. If you want to watch movie, go to any multiplex (PVR). South Delhi is more advanced and more cleaner. I hope these tips help you. The part of Delhi where I live has red lights and street lights during the night.

[Amy]

Jazzypoobum, you've just made my day :) so glad you're having a great time! Miss you! Hugs and kisses xxxxx