3-4 Oct, Monday and Tuesday Delhi
We arrived in Delhi
after a very smooth flight on an Air India Dreamliner. A representative from Tour My India met us at
the airport and stayed with us until we were checked into our hotel – Hotel
Vikram. We will have a local guide
tomorrow to take us around Delhi and then different local guides in Jaipur,
Ranthambore, and Agra. Our driver will
be with us the entire time. The first
thing that hit us was the heat and humidity!
Even at 10 PM it was bad, as was the traffic on the drive from the
airport – it was HORRIBLE!. The hotel is
satisfactory, but I would not call it 4-stars.
The beds are small and the mattress was hard. However, we are only here for two nights so
it will be okay. The next morning we met
our local guide and had a whirlwind city tour of Delhi.
Just when you thought
traffic couldn't be any worse than in Beijing or Hong Kong, you arrive in
Delhi. There appear to be only two rules for driving -- large buses must drive
in the far left lane (everyone drives on the left here) and if there is a
square inch of road space without a car, you can try and squeeze your vehicle
into it. You share the road with bicycle
rickshaws, tuck-tucks, motorcycles, ox-drawn carts, cars, trucks, buses, and even
the occasional horse with rider. The
lane markers are only for street decoration – they have no bearing on the
drivers. A street that has 3 lanes will
actually have about six cars abreast – each one seemingly going in a different
direction. If there are two trucks in
front of you, one in each lane, just honk and drive between the two to get
ahead. And everyone drives with their
horn and flashing their lights!!! As if
it wasn’t bad enough riding in a car, our guide took us on a bicycle rickshaw
ride through the Old Dehli market place.
Pity the poor guy who had to pedal the three of us around in 95 degree
weather. What a terrifying
experience!!. But this is what we came
here for. The streets around the market
area are narrow and filled with rickshaws, scooters, bicycles, ox-drawn carts,
the occasional truck, and hundreds of people.
Or guide took us to the spice market where we decided to b a spice
mixture for beef and lamb – we were told it was not too spicy, but time will
tell.
After our rickshaw ride,
we visited the local Muslim mosque.
Compared to other mosques that we have visited, this one was very small
and plain. Really not much to see. After
the mosque we drove to the Samadhi of Mahatma Gandhi – the cremation site o
Gandhi after he was assassinated on 30
January 1948. It is a very beautiful and
peaceful setting, with crows, eagles, and vultures sitting on the grass
surrounding the site. There is also an
eternal flame and fresh flowers are put on the site every morning.
As we drove out of the
old Delhi, we saw the remains of the old wall ad Red Fort. We did not stop as our guide said that there
is not much left of the Fort and that the Red Fort in Agra is much better. We drove to the Indie Gate, India’s version of
the Arc-de-Triumphe, that commemorates the 70,000 Indian soldiers who lost
their lives fighting for the British Army in WWI. The memorial bears the names of more than 13,
516 British and Indian soldiers killed in the Northwestern Frontier in the
Afghan was of 1919. The Arch stands at
one end of a long road and the President’s Palace stands at the other end (much
like or Mall in Washington, DC). On a
bright clear day, you can see both of these buildings. Unfortunately today was a very smoggy day and
the visibility was very poor. We drove
down the road toward the President’s Palace.
On either side of the road near the Palace were the major government
buildings – mirror images of each other as they flanked the President’s Palace. Off to one side was a large round building –
the House of Parliament.
Then it was off to visit
Birla Mandir, a Hindu temple. It is
dedicated to Lord Vishnu and Goddess Lakshmi.
Built in 1938, the temple was inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi. But, he kept a condition that he would only
inaugurate the Temple if he people from all castes, especially untouchables,
would be able to gain entry inside it.
The main shrine is dedicated to Lord Narayan and Goddess Lakshmi, while
the smaller ones are o Lord Shiva, Lord Ganesha and Lord Hanuman, and Goddess
Durga. At the entrance you could buy
some flowers to give as an offering to the gods, so we bought one. We took it first to the shrine of Lord
Narayan and Goddess Lakshmi, where a priest blessed it, took some of the
flowers, gave us back the two flower leis that he had blessed, and put a red
mark on our foreheads. At the other
stations where people honored the various Hindu gods, we left one or two
marigold blooms. It was a beautiful
temple, but unfortunately you could not take pictures inside.
For lunch, our guide
took us to Lutyen’s Cocktail House, named after Sir Edwin Lutyen, the man who
designed the modern city of New Delhi.
He also designed the round House of Parliament building. We had a fixed price lunch that included a
delicious tomato soup, two appetizers – potatoes and two pieces of spicy
roasted chicken, warm flat bread, and the main course of mixed vegetables,
butter chicken, and rice. Dessert was a
little dish of ice cream with chocolate sauce.
There was a lot of food!! The
meal was not that expensive, but the two glasses of wine and two beers drove
the cost up to $70. I think I’ll stick
to water or diet coke for lunch.
After lunch, our guide
took us to a government-sponsored store that sells genuine articles made in the
Kashmir region of India. The
organization that runs the store also trains the people of Kashmir in the art
of weaving the beautiful silk and pashmina rugs and scarves. We bought a small square that had been woven
with pashmina.
Our last stop was to
Qutib Minar (239’ high), the highest stone tower in India. It has five stories, the first three stories
are made of red sandstone, while the fourth and fifth floors are made of marble
and sandstone. It was built in
1199. It took us almost an hour in
bumper-to-bumper traffic for a 5-minute “stop and snap a picture.” Since you could not climb up to the top, we
did not feel the need to 1,000 rupees just to get an up-close view of the
tower. The staircase inside the tower
was closed following an accident in the early 1980’s when a party of school
girls panicked when the lights failed and a stampede led to a number of deaths.
5 Oct, Wednesday The
Drive from Delhi to Jaipur
Our driver told us the
trip would take about 6 hours. What he
didn’t tell us was that it would take us the first 2 hours just to get out of
Delhi. Again, traffic was terrible and
my ears are beginning to ring with all the horn blowing! At one point the road widened to about 14
lanes and it was still heavily congested.
We then merged onto a road with 5 lanes in each direction. All of a sudden our driver pulled over to the
median strip and stopped. He said that
he had to go to the tax collection stand on the other side o the highway to pay
a transportation tax. And he had to cross
5 lanes of traffic on foot to do so.
Only taxis had to stop – but there must be a better way to collect this
tax.
Once out of Delhi, we
had to share the road with rickshaws, scooters, farm equipment, buses, lots and
lots of trucks, cows, and a camel-drawn wagon.
Cows are sacred in India and they can go anywhere they please. You see them by the side of the road, in the
little grass median in the road, crossing the road, and even sleeping in the
traffic lanes of the road. In one place,
they had even put traffic barriers around the resting cows so cars would not
hit them.
At one point we came to
an area that had shops on either side that sold spare parts for vehicles. All along this part were trucks that were
stopped – sometimes blocking 2 of the 3 traffic lanes. Drivers would be there fixing their
trucks. And all along the highway there
were little road-side shacks that sold food and drink, and there would always
be about 20 or more trucks stopped along the edge of the road. At one such area of food vendors, our drier
pointed out about 30 monkeys sitting by the side of the road eating bananas.
As I said earlier, lanes
mean nothing to Indian drivers. The
lanes are narrower than in the states and cars almost, and I do mean almost,
touch! Honing is the preferred method for getting around traffic. You honk, and the other vehicle either moves
over or lets you in. In fact, on the
back of most of the trucks (which tend to drive in all lanes regardless of how
slow they are going) is printed “Please Honk.”
I don’t get it, but it seems to work.
And if you happen to decide that you are going in the wrong direction or
it is too much trouble to cross over the road to get to the right lane – no worries,
just turn the vehicle around and drive back against the flow of traffic. Just honk, and other cars will move out of
your way! The weirdest thing we saw on
this drive was two men on a motorcycle with the man in the back holding a live
goat in his lap. Even our driver was
surprised at this. I don’t think many
Americans would be able to drive in India and still keep their sanity.
It was truly a unique
experience – I couldn’t make this up even if I tried!!!
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