Delhi, India (Post #66)
Hello from India! (Michele here….) It is 7:00am East Coast time in the U.S. and 5:30pm Delhi, India time. AND it is Mike’s 30th birthday today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE!!
We left Cairo on Friday, Dec. 2nd at 1:25p and after going through Amman (our stopover city) we arrived in Delhi at 5:00am. The problem was that although it was 5:00am Delhi time (and thus the beginning of the day), it was only 1:30am Cairo time so we essentially didn’t have a night of sleep. We had arranged for someone from the hotel to pick us up so we quickly got to the hotel and checked in at 7:00am then crashed until noon. We are staying in our usual type of area – the budget hotel area – and by most standards the place is a bit seedy. However, we sort of like to stay in these parts of town because you get to see and experience the real culture. When you stay in the nicer parts of town you only see tourists (plus the hotels are more expensive). So, the part of India we are in would send someone into extreme culture shock if they came from the U.S. but since we have been in countries in North and East Africa, India isn’t so shocking. Still, it is an extremely crowded place with the craziest driving we have ever seen. The bicycles, bicycle rickshaws, auto rickshaws, larger taxis, cars, buses, and sacred cows all complete for space on the narrow roads. In fact, when we have been in the rickshaws we have run right into people riding bicycles but because the streets are so incredibly crowded no one is really driving very fast (so little damage is done).
One of the most interesting sites is the very large cows walking down the middle of the roads. The cows are sacred and cannot be killed. People feed them and they just wander, eat garbage, or lay around the streets. (See the photo of Mike and cow below). Another interesting site (if you can call it that) are the many people urinating. Now, this only happens closer to where we are staying (and not in the nicer parts of town) but it appears that people just use the streets as a toilet and when you are walking around there is the ever-present smell of urine.
So anyway (back to the story of our arrival)…. when we woke up after crashing at the hotel in the morning, our intention was to go to the train station to buy train tickets and inquire at the tourist office about transport between a few of the cities we planeed to travel between. However, we got somewhat lost (thanks to me listening to someone who pointed us in the wrong direction) and we ended up in the back of the train station. The events that occured next are somewhat of a blur since a) we were both incredibly tired, b) I had a massive headache, and c) it all happened so fast.
We couldn’t find where to go once we were in the back of the train station and we asked a man. He said the building was under construction where the tourist information and reservation office was (and yes, we saw a building under construction) and that we should go by auto rickshaw to the tourist information center in another part of Delhi. We had our guidebook with us and he showed us where we should go (yes, there was a legitimate Govt. run tourist office there). O.k., so he goes with us to the auto rickshaws and gets us a good price for us (33 US cents) and we speed off. We arrive at a place called the Tourist Information Center and it has an internet cafe next door to it, just like it says it should in the guidebook. We go in and talk to a guy there about arranging transportation between all the cities we want to visit in India. The guy pushes hard to sell us hotels in addition to his quote for our transportation (part train, part private driver). Mike insists that the costs for the hotels is too much and we are only interested in the transportation. Meanwhile, I have such a headache that I can’t even think about the costs or what the guy is proposing. We think this tourist office is closed on Sunday so we feel somewhat pressured to get all our transportation set up on Saturday. The cost seems a bit high but even if we went with the guy’s proposal we would still be under budget for India. So, we agree and pay for all our transportation while we are in India.
Later, we realize that this whole experience was probably a scam. First, we had read in the guidebook that people will try to tell you that the tourist office in the train station (where you can book train tickets) is closed or no longer in operation. We knew this but were so tired it didn’t even register when the guy showed us the building construction and said it was the building where the tourist information office used to be. (Sadly, today we saw the building and the sign for the tourist information office at the train station.) Second, after we paid, we look at the receipts closely and saw that the name of the office is the Tourist Information Office and today we walked by the GOVERNMENT Tourist Information Office on the next block. The names were almost identical and there is also an internet cafe next to the REAL Government Tourist Information Office. The strange thing is that somehow, the office we booked our travel with is loaded with travelers. We think the auto rickshaw drivers take people to the place we booked our transportation instead of the govt. office on the next block because this place pays them a high commission. In the end we will never know how much extra we paid but we know we paid more than we should have. That being said, in India when you pay more than you should have, you are not paying that much more. For example, we took an auto rickshaw for 15 rupees or 33 cents (the real price) but we have heard of people paying as much as 50 or 60 rupees (about $1.20-$1.40). We also went to a restaurant where the waiter served us salads and tea we didn’t order. These extra items came to a total of 25 cents. Like I said, in the end, we will still be under budget for India (assuming all the transportation works out as we were told it would). We’ll let you know if it doesn’t.
As part of our transportation “deal” we have a private driver for 2 days in Delhi (Sunday, Dec 4 and Monday, Dec. 6). We went with Kul, our driver from Nepal, to many of the famous Delhi sites yesterday (Sunday). These included the following:
– Red Fort (built 1638)
– Jamai Mosque (largest mosque in India)
– Raj Ghat (square platform of black marble where Mahatma Gandi was cremated following his assassination in 1948)
– India Gate (42 meter high stone memorial with the names of 85,00 soldiers)
– Humayun’s Tomb (built in 1565, it houses the tomb of the second Mughal emperor)
– The lotus-domed Baha’i House of Worship
– Lakshmi Narayan Mandir (beautiful Indian temple)
Pictures of some of these places and a friendly monkey and sacred cow are shown below:
Mike and Michele in front of Humayun’s Tomb
Mike in front of another tomb:
Me with a friendly monkey on my lap:
Lakshmi Narayan Mandir (temple) at sunset:
Mike walking down the street with a sacred cow in Delhi:
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Tags: Category #19: India
Michele Harmon
Howy kids:
Great posts, and amazing photos – what an fantastic trip you two are having! We miss you here in the land of the VHTRC, though. Prompted to post today, since it is still Mike’s birthday here in the States for at least another hour. I assume that the monkey in Michele’s lap is her present to you . . .
Happy birthday, Mike, and both of you continue to enjoy this adventure of lifetime!
Gotta run,
Quatro
Happy Birthday, Mike! What better way to celebrate your birthday than with a monkey!!!
-Smith
Mike – we’re all suprised you made it another year! Congrats! I’m pleased to see that the cattle helped you to celebrate, and that there was some hot monkey action.
Hope you guys have a great Xmas + new year. Keep taking some nicey nice pictures for us to drool over…