Transit from Totton to Delhi went smoothly as first Sammy, then National Express and, finally, Qatar Airways delivered me in reasonable comfort and without delay the following morning.
Expecting a bureaucratic nightmare at Delhi Airport I was pleasantly surprised to swiftly clear customs without a hitch. After a quick visit to the ATM to charge up with rupees I set about finding my taxi driver, as arranged, at Exit Gate 6. Nowhere to be seen, the gate security guard enquired as to the problem then got the relevant member of staff to first phone my hotel, then the taxi driver, “Harry”, who turned up two minutes later somewhat flustered. Panic over and helpfulness above & beyond the call of duty from all concerned.
We were soon heading into town amongst the chaos & cacophony that is Delhi traffic. I was, however, pleasantly surprised at how much greenery there was en-route, though, I hasten to add, very little of it is publicly accessible land. While Harry’s English was pretty good, I don’t think his hearing was as he constantly came back with something completely unrelated to the conversation, which was equally amusing, bemusing & confusing. Affable though he was, his pains to stress his reliance on tips wore a bit thin, but not enough to begrudge him the fiver he got for the hour-long journey.
A warm welcome awaited at the Hotel City Star, a reasonably new hotel in the backpacker district of Paharganj and I was soon checked into my spacious, well-equipped room which was to prove a very homely base for the next three nights, which was handy as my sleeping pattern was all over the place! After a failed attempt to catch-up meaningfully on much-needed sleep, I set out to explore the neighbourhood. On setting off I soon realised that the seemingly easy route to tourist hub Connaught Place was anything but. I knew I’d be viewed as easy prey for the ‘well-meaning’ scammers worried for my safety wandering this dangerous neighbourhood but, in reality, wanting to guide me to whichever outlet would pay him & his tuk-tuk driving cohort the best commission but I was prepared for it and played along until we got to Connaught Place, where a firm refusal to play ball after coughing up the princely sum of ₹40 for the ride.
My smile of smug satisfaction was swiftly dimmed when I got hit with one of the more recent, and disgusting, scams where a small dollop of sh*t is deposited on your shoe necessitating a shoeshine from one of the dozens lining the pavements. While this was being done someone else started cleaning my ears!?! As they’d both failed to give a price beforehand there followed a bit of a heated exchange which resulted in shoe man getting ₹120 and ear man getting nothing . . . . . 2 – 0 to me
I have to admit I was grossly underwhelmed with CP as, apart the constant bombardment from hawkers, there doesn’t appear to be any outside eating and drinking and I didn’t feel compelled to go inside any of the heavily curtained bars I came across. I did have an enjoyable conversation with a young photography student, Davish, who I figured couldn’t be trying a scam given the very expensive camera he was carrying. With energy running low I decided on an evening at the hotel where the rooftop restaurant proved to be an excellent place to eat, drink and mix with fellow travellers. After a meal, beer & a chat I was ready to hit the hay early, dozing off within 10 minutes of starting the movie I’d decided to watch.
Next morning I was out bright & breezy (awake since 2am!!!) after a delicious breakfast, with a driver booked for the day through the hotel travel desk for ₹1,850. Conversation with Mazeer proved easier than with Harry, though in hindsight the choice of a car over tuk-tuk might not have been the better way to go. We started in Old Delhi at the Red Fort which, in spite of the imposing exterior, I found pretty underwhelming. Foreigners are charged a premium entry price at most sites of ₹250. From there it was over to New Delhi to Humayuns Tomb, a very impressive and interesting site in a similar vein of the Taj Mahal. Then it was on to the furthest out of Delhi’s UNESCO heritage sites, Qutub Minar, which was my favourite of the day and the oldest in the city. By now my ‘culture light’ requirements had been satisfied for the day so I asked Mazeer to drop me back at the hotel after a drive past of India Gate, seeing little reason to take a closer look.
After a short siesta and a refreshing shower I was ready to seek out the neighbourhood bars I knew of. A long, buzzing little sidestreet took me to the Main Bazaar and Metropolis Hotel, a popular backpacker haunt, there was however little of the usual interaction so I moved on after one, pretty overpriced, Kingfisher. Next up was My Bar, a long, dark and narrow bar popular with the locals, providing cheap drinks to a mainstream dance soundtrack, much more enjoyable so I had a few more Kingfishers before heading back to the hotel to see out the evening again, where everyone was exchanging valuable info on there Indian experiences so far. Man City fans, Bob & Anne, were a great source of info and really good company while enjoying another delicious meal at the end of a very good day!
After finally getting a proper nights sleep I decided to having an easy day with my only objective to visit the step well Agrasen Ki Baoli in Connaught Place. Stepping outside the hotel, tuk-tuk driver Sanjay barged his way through the others to command my business. ₹100 later he’d dropped me there and insisted on waiting as he knew that, as impressive a structure as it is, 10 minutes of looking around covers it. Pretty much at his insistence, we then went to Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, a Sikh Temple not even included on my tourist map but an absolute ‘must-do’. With shoes off and head covered, Sanjay guided me around the kitchens where they were busy preparing for the 5,000 people they feed free every day with volunteers doing three hour shifts. Absolutely fascinating and awesome to see, it was incredibly humbling to witness their generosity and the architecture was pretty impressive to. An added bonus is that entry is free, though there are donation boxes to aid their benevolence, it'd be churlish not to.
I probably should’ve made the effort to go to Lodhi Park, which others confirmed is a beautiful green space with some interesting ruins to see. Hauz Khas is another area I think I should’ve tried, if only to see if any café culture does actually exist in Delhi. Instead I got dropped at the only ‘official’ tourist information in CP, as opposed to the dozens of others which purport to be. Even then you get some smartarse trying to direct you to one 50 yards away, you’d think the local government would sort it out but, as they all say, ‘this is India’! As it was only a short stroll away I did take a look around the interesting Jantar Mantar, entry ₹100, a series of architectural astronomy instruments constructed in 1724, one of five such built in west-central India by Maharaja Jai Singh II. Failing to find anything redeeming about CP once again, I decided to head back to My Bar for a beer, only thing was I inexplicibly took the wrong main road out of CP causing me to take a convoluted route through a maze of sidestreets to, incredibly, get where I wanted. Once inside I was soon invited to join three young engineering students who believed I shouldn’t be drinking alone. We actually had a real good chat for an hour or so until the beer began to befuddle their young heads but it all made for a bit of fun before we went our separate ways. Back at the hotel the rooftop numbers swelled with the addition of Norwegian Andrea and German Stefan, and another enjoyable evening ensued over yet another marvellous meal. Next morning I’d be moving on to Agra.
