Delhi, India>, Apr 12, 2008
Our flight decended into Delhi just as the sun was creaping over the horizon, which gave the city a beatiful, warm, hazey glow, this was the first Indian sunrise I had seen and as we were still some way over the city the views (when the plane tilted enough for us to see) were amazing. When we landed it was still very early in the morning and we made of way through the battered old airport (some parts of the airport even had fish nets suspended across the walls to prevent rubble from the ceiling falling onto passangers), through passport control and out into the baggage reclaim area. We had flow to India via the now notorious T5 at Heathrow and suprise, suprise one our bags did not show up. After realising the bag was probably never on our flight we informed airport staff who instructed us to fill in some forms and after moving from one que to the next, we were eventually told our missing bag would be delivered to our hotel later that day (which it was thank god). After nearly 1.5 hours we eventually made our way out of the baggage reclaim area and met our tour rep for the further 1 hour drive to the hotel.
By now it was still only about 7.30am and the streets were not too busy which made for a surprisingly pleasant drive. Along the way we saw some shocking scenes of poverty, people just seemed to have built shanty towns out of anything they could find, corrigated iron, old building rubble, even paving slabs which they had ripped up from the pavements outside their homes. Everywhere you looked there were people sleeping, under bridges, on the grass at the sides of the roads and some of them just slept on the middle of the pavement with the sun beating down on their exposed faces (how the hell anyone could sleep like that is beyond me). One other thing that struck in my mind was the amount of monkeys, they too where everywhere, it was a real eye opener of a journey.
After a while we entered ‘old Delhi’ as all of a sudden the streets became more packed, there were people, cows, rickshaws, rubble, noise and chaos everywhere you looked (even at this early hour of the day), there is definetly a very distinctive line between old and new Delhi. Our hotel was in the old part of the city and after we pushed our way through the busy streets, we eventually made it. We checked in and pretty much immediately made our way to bed as we had all been up for nearly 24 hours and we had also previously arranged for an afternoon tour of old Delhi, so a rest was certainly required at this point.
It took a while to get off to sleep, what with the heat and generally just being in a new place, but when my alarm went off in the afternoon it took all my energy to force myself out of bed. Once showered and fed we made our way to reception to meet the guide for our afternoon tour.
The first stop of the afternoon was the famous Red Fort complex, right in the heart of the old city. The Red Fort and the city of Shahjahanabad was constructed by the Emperor Shah Jahan in 1639 A.D. The architecture of the fort, or rather palace complex, was stunning. It’s amazing to think that so much extreme wealth existed only a few hundred metres from the extreme poverty of the old city. We were informed by our guide that the palace buildings, when they were in their prime, would have had jewel encrusted carpets draped across the arched doorways and floors. We were also told the walls and ceilings were all inlaid with precious stones and jems and that everything was marble, it must have been an amazing site to anyone fortunate enough to see it. We spent some time looking round the various courtyards and palace buildings taking the usual boat load of pictures. before making our way back out to the main entrance.
After the Red Fort we had arranged for a rickshaw ride to take us through the heart of Chandni Chowk (the ancient quatre of Old Delhi). What an amazing experience this was, we made our way up through the main street before suddenly turing down into a narro maze of alleyways barely 3 metres wide. The sights, sounds and smells were amazing, around every corner there were men working giant vats of curry with stoves baking fresh chipatti bread, serving an endless stream of customers, this produced an intoxicating aroma. There were little stalls and shops selling anything and everything from cheap dentistry and old car parts to clothes and fabrics of every colour know to man. People pushed and squeezed past each other all trying to navigate the narrow alleyways to find the items they were looking for. I must admit some parts of the old quatre were quite disgusting, there were flies and mosquitos everywhere probably drawn by the equally strong smells of rotted food and rubbish. As soon as the rickshaw stopped moving the flies were atacking you aaaaargh! Another thing we noticed about the Chandni Chowk was the amount of electricity cables just above our heads, it looked as though everyone in the area who needed power simply hooks themselves up to the national grid regardless of the obvious dangers. This wiring, together with all the delapidated old buildings and pavements (some of which looked as though they were about to collapse at any minute) would be a H&S nightmare to anyone in the West. Still it made for some great photos of the street life and an unforgetable experience, this certainly was the real India, no tourists here.
Once we managed to get through to the other side of the twisting alleyways we found ourselves outside the gateway of the Jama Masjid Mosque, which was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in 1656. The Mosque itself was quite an impressive structure and it also offered some great views of the nearby Red Fort. It felt surprisingly calm inside the mosque, there wasn’t much noise and it was a great escape from the bustling streets outside. We spent some time walking around, taking pictures and people watching before heading back to the tour bus for our onward journey to the Raj Ghat the memorial to Mahatma Gandi. One thing that struck me about Delhi as we left the Mosque, was the amount of giant birds that seemed to fill the sky. I’m not sure what type of birds they were but they seemed to be everywhere, just gliding about like some giant bird of prey ready to strike.
After the mosque we made the short drive to the park which houses the walled memorial to one of India’s best know people. Raj Ghat, a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi is a simple black marble platform that marks the spot of his cremation on 31 January, 1948. It is left open to the sky while an eternal flame burns perpetually at one end. Again we spent a little time here enjoying the peaceful atmosphere before deciding we had done enough site seeing for one day and that a few beers and a dip in the pool would round off the day nicely.
Link to the original site
