Delhi Dallying
I finally woke up and faced my first Delhi day at sunset- dragged Boyan out the door and up and down Main Bazaar in Paharganj in search of the elusive Kitchen Cafe, where I sit now, 4 stories on a rooftop terrace above the madness of the streets below. Leaning over the cement railing, I have a bird's eye view of the bizarre traffic patterns at a fork in the road: mosaic of cars, bicycles, rickshaws, cows, carts, and pedestrians moving, halting, horns blaring, everywhere a near collision. The road is more chaotic than usual, but there's actually less traffic- space has been taken up by giant trenches and concrete pipes that are lined up in the streets, ready to assume position in the underground waterworks. In the centre of the fork, there is an island- an electrical hub- a leaning tower of masses of electrical wires and poles, surrounded by lazy, shivering, complacent cows lying in piles of dirt and garbage, and one brave merchant, who uses the poles as free clothing display racks.
We arrived last night, 10:30pm or so, to Indira Gandhi International Airport, where we grabbed our (1!) checked bag & attempted to prepay for a taxi to Manu-Ka-Tilla- a quiet, Tibetan Buddhist community next to the Yamuna River. Sounds nice, right? Yeah right. This is Delhi. Anyway, the official-sounding Indian Tourism Agency Taxi Service wanted a whopping 680 rupees to take us there, but the next taxi stand signed us up for 365- no haggling required- although he did of course pretend that he didn't have any change.... Walking out the door, a charming young tout grabbed my prepaid voucher and when I protested, gave it back, but insisted that I follow him to the cab. He babbled away on his cell for a few minutes as we waited for the supposed taxi, when suddenly I got my bearings, gave up on Canadian politeness, and bolted to the Real prepaid cabs. Our smiling driver- "Sorry, no English", drove us with some impressive maneuvering- we cheered him on as he nearly drove off the road to pass a delivery truck- all the way to the other side of Delhi.
Manu-Ka-Tilla was completely dead, eerily void of anything but a few mangy, but subdued street dogs who ducked out of our way, and the odd maroon-robed monk brushing past in the shadows as we tried hotel after hotel- no room in the inn. After some incomprehensible exchange with a high-as-a-tree Austrian tourist, we gave up on the place and jetted over to trusty Paharganj via motorickshaw. Dirty, noisy, busy, chai brewing, people warming up over garbage fires- this is the India I know! I'm smiling and I don't know why, suddenly comfortable, a single cell in the rumbling body of India. An angry dog runs alongside the rickshaw, snapping at my legs, and I pull them up as the driver roars past, laughing, stopping once we're clear and pulling a stick from under his seat, keeping it handy. Finally we ended up at the Downtown Hotel, filmy sheets, but no bedbugs! Woohoo! The hotel has a strange muffled echo, due to the fact that it appears to have been built inside another building. There is about a meter of space between the inner window, and outer window, and they don't line up- so the room is pleasantly dark for jetlag recovery. The chamber echoes in our bedroom as though we have extendable ears on all of India- clanging bells, horns, plates clinking, conversation, groaning diarrhea all filter into my ears as I drift off to sleepy land..
We arrived last night, 10:30pm or so, to Indira Gandhi International Airport, where we grabbed our (1!) checked bag & attempted to prepay for a taxi to Manu-Ka-Tilla- a quiet, Tibetan Buddhist community next to the Yamuna River. Sounds nice, right? Yeah right. This is Delhi. Anyway, the official-sounding Indian Tourism Agency Taxi Service wanted a whopping 680 rupees to take us there, but the next taxi stand signed us up for 365- no haggling required- although he did of course pretend that he didn't have any change.... Walking out the door, a charming young tout grabbed my prepaid voucher and when I protested, gave it back, but insisted that I follow him to the cab. He babbled away on his cell for a few minutes as we waited for the supposed taxi, when suddenly I got my bearings, gave up on Canadian politeness, and bolted to the Real prepaid cabs. Our smiling driver- "Sorry, no English", drove us with some impressive maneuvering- we cheered him on as he nearly drove off the road to pass a delivery truck- all the way to the other side of Delhi.
Manu-Ka-Tilla was completely dead, eerily void of anything but a few mangy, but subdued street dogs who ducked out of our way, and the odd maroon-robed monk brushing past in the shadows as we tried hotel after hotel- no room in the inn. After some incomprehensible exchange with a high-as-a-tree Austrian tourist, we gave up on the place and jetted over to trusty Paharganj via motorickshaw. Dirty, noisy, busy, chai brewing, people warming up over garbage fires- this is the India I know! I'm smiling and I don't know why, suddenly comfortable, a single cell in the rumbling body of India. An angry dog runs alongside the rickshaw, snapping at my legs, and I pull them up as the driver roars past, laughing, stopping once we're clear and pulling a stick from under his seat, keeping it handy. Finally we ended up at the Downtown Hotel, filmy sheets, but no bedbugs! Woohoo! The hotel has a strange muffled echo, due to the fact that it appears to have been built inside another building. There is about a meter of space between the inner window, and outer window, and they don't line up- so the room is pleasantly dark for jetlag recovery. The chamber echoes in our bedroom as though we have extendable ears on all of India- clanging bells, horns, plates clinking, conversation, groaning diarrhea all filter into my ears as I drift off to sleepy land..