2018 India – New Delhi
4th January 2018
Having travelled around Sri Lanka last year, sometimes referred to as “India for Beginners”, we thought we would try the real thing this year. I had read about the chaos and bureaucracy in India and got my first taste when I tried to book a flight. The best deal was with Jet Airways which was India’s second biggest carrier and what a performance that was. The booking process was very confusing and had a five-minute timeout even when I was actively entering data. I would get halfway through the reservation when a message popped up saying I had taken too long. I was then taken back to the beginning having lost everything I had entered. I did it so many times that I got to know the pages and was able to rush through until my booking was made and my credit card accepted. The next day there was still no acknowledgement from Jet Airways and when I contacted them they said the payment had gone through but something had gone wrong at their end so the booking was not made. They said they would hold onto my money for a week before giving me a refund and I could take it or leave it. No word of apology or request to try again as they valued my business, just an email saying, “Bugger off and book with someone else so we can get back to our mobile phones.” OK, they weren’t the actual words but that was the clear message. Enough was enough, I went to British Airways and 15 minutes later my booking was complete and for not that much extra.
One of my greatest travel fears was being late for a flight, especially when all our reservations were made in advance so missing a flight would have a knock-on effect. I liked to get to an airport three hours early but even then a couple of times it was touch and go because of bad traffic on the M25. With that in mind, we decided to spend the night before our flight at the Premier Inn Hotel and what a joy it was not to have to worry about last-minute panics or traffic and at only £45 it was great value. My satnav was determined to take us via Swaziland but we got there in the end. It wasn’t until I took our luggage from the car that I realised that one of the wheels had fallen off my suitcase so it looked like we had our first mishap on the three-metre journey from the house to the car.
At the hotel check-in I was surprised to see a row of machines where we simply entered our name and credit card and out popped our room key. No more waiting in line to check in, irritated that there was not enough staff on duty. Being concerned about lugging a three-wheeled suitcase around India for four weeks, we went to the airport terminal that was connected to the hotel although quite a long walk. As expected, Heathrow terminal was not the place to buy a bargain suitcase as they started at £200. Maybe India would be a better place to look.
The flight was just over seven hours which surprised me as India sounds so far away. On long-haul flights I always pay extra to get a two-seater at the back so it was annoying to find the flight half-empty. It turned out that seven Air India flights from New York had been cancelled because of snow and people from those were supposed to be on our flight. We moved from our paid seats and occupied a three-seater that was free.
We landed in New Delhi at 1.30 a.m. and I was surprised at the temperature. I had always thought India had two temperatures, hot and unbearably hot. I discovered there was a third temperature, bloody cold. At seven degrees it was the same temperature as the UK. I had read that it could be cold at night but I had this illogical idea that seven degrees in India wasn’t the same as seven degrees in England. That there was some kind of magical phenomenon that made seven degrees in India feel like 20 degrees. I was a little disappointed as heat was at the top of my list of holiday requirements. We knew it would be warmer during the day and the further south we went, the hotter it would get but for now, we hadn’t brought enough warm clothing.
I was dreading passport control as I had read several horror stories of long queues and bureaucracy but there was a separate section for people with e-Visas so we were through in 20 minutes. We exchanged some money and bought SIM cards for our phones and our driver was waiting for us at arrival so all went very smoothly.
We had booked a room at the Tatvamasi Homestay in South Delhi because it had a perfect review score and the price was very reasonable. Despite being 2.30 a.m. the owner was there to welcome us and even offered to drive us to the local 24-hour store if we were hungry. Federika had planned for this and bought a sandwich at Heathrow so it wasn’t needed and all we wanted to do was go to bed. With such a high review score and us booking the deluxe room I was surprised to find our room was very shabby, with a small bar heater in the corner and no heater in the bathroom or kitchen area. As so often happened with booking.com, if the owner was very friendly, people didn’t have the heart to give them a bad review which was obviously the case at that homestay. We were five hours ahead of GMT so although we were shattered, it was still only 21:30 GMT for us which was an unheard-of time for us to go to bed but our bodies gave us little choice.
I was concerned that we might lay in bed too long the next morning which would make it difficult to adjust to local time, but I needn’t have worried. The possibility of sleeping late in even the quietest suburb of Delhi is almost non-existent. Firstly I was woken at 4 a.m. by a man walking slowly along the street, blowing a whistle and tapping a stick on the floor. I couldn’t imagine why he would be doing such a thing but fortunately, I soon got back to sleep. Then at dawn, a pigeon landed on the outside of our air conditioning unit and started cooing loudly with the occasional wing fluttering just in case we managed to drop off. Then the car horns started, followed by street vendors competing with each other over who could shout the loudest. Despite all this, we slept till around 9 a.m. which was around the time we wanted to get up anyway. The room was very cold and the bathroom colder but we were in good spirits and always knew that in India we would have to expect the unexpected. I went onto the balcony and the first thing I saw was a woodpecker in the tree a few yards from us. 
The owner showed us around the local hotspots and told us what restaurants to go to or avoid and couldn’t do enough to welcome us. He effectively told us that he knew his homestay was a dump which is why he was there to do everything possible for his guests. A lot of people were nervous about being in India for the first time, so that kind of guidance was invaluable.
We had breakfast with him and tried some local dishes which were very tasty although more like a light lunch. I asked him why a man was walking around in the middle of the night, blowing a whistle and tapping a stick. I was surprised to learn that it was to scare off thieves and other undesirables. It was a relief to know we could sleep safely in our bed at night knowing a man was patrolling the streets armed to the teeth with a whistle and stick. I don’t mean a stick as in staff which was used in martial arts and could be a formidable weapon, (unless someone was shooting at you.) Judging by the hollow sound that the stick made, it was thin bamboo and the most damage it could have inflicted was to mess up someone’s hairdo.
Later we went to the Lotus Temple which was a place of worship for the interesting Bahai religion. Interesting because the basis of it was that all religions should be embraced as they are part of the same common humanity where we are all supposed to be good to each other. You wouldn’t think anyone could argue with that. I expect the founder believed it right up until the day he was murdered by someone of another faith.
It looked very impressive from the outside and as we assumed the long queue was to go inside the temple we joined it. We were used to taking our shoes before entering temples but we were a long way from the entrance when they handed us bags to put our shoes in and insisted that we stood on the cold stone floor in socks. The queue moved quickly but the further we went, the more we saw it twisting and turning so it was much longer than we first thought. It also seemed to go along the outside of the temple walls which were glass, so it looked like all we were doing was queueing to look through the window into the temple. With that prospect in mind, and with our feet being so cold we put our shoes on and abandoned the queue. Further on we saw that people did eventually go into the temple but from what we could see it was just a large open space so we didn’t miss much.
After a delicious Nepalese meal that night we went to bed shattered as we had lost half a night’s sleep due to the time difference. It took me my customary 30 seconds to fall asleep but I woke up a 2. a.m. wide awake. On the rare occasion that happened at home I would sit in the living room with a glass of port and read for 20 minutes which always made me sleepy but I couldn’t do that there. I did eventually drop off and realised how lucky I was to sleep so well in general.
That morning we were up bright and early to do a city walking tour. I wanted to use Uber to get to the meeting place but Federika wanted the metro experience. The homestay owner told us that being Sunday the station would be nearly empty and I suppose to Indian standards it was but there were still long queues and we didn’t know which queue to join for a day ticket. We joined the wrong queue but as we were late we just took the basic ticket and made our way to the platform. We didn’t get far before we were stopped at a security area where we had to put our bags on a conveyor belt. There were lots of people waiting to get through the metal detector so Federika’s handbag was on the other side long before us. The system might have been secure for finding people with guns and bombs but hopelessly insecure for people’s personal belongings. Federika was panicking that anyone could have walked off with her bag but to her great relief it was there waiting for her.
There were only two directions of travel so although it was impossible to take the wrong train we did manage to take it going in the wrong direction. It was a while before we realised our mistake as the stations had no names and the little lights on the train telling you which station we were stopping at weren’t working. We arrived half an hour late and had arranged to meet our small group at the station exit as it was on the route of the walking tour. There were two English couples and two young American girls so it was a nice friendly group. The area was very busy so we had our first taste of walking through the streets of India where there were no pavements. We had to walk on the side of the road and just hope that the countless tuk-tuks and scooters saw us in time. There were lots of holes in the roads and pavements so I was constantly turning my ankle but my reflexes were still fast enough to recover without injury. The noise was horrendous as everyone drove with their hand continuously on their horns. On the back of a lot of vehicles it said “Horn Please”, which seemed a strange instruction as it was not much of a warning if everyone did it non-stop.
We stopped at a little street vendor who was selling little fluffy things that were made from the foam of boiled milk. It tasted just like eating sugar so none of us were impressed but the locals seemed to like them.
Next, we stopped for a breakfast of light Indian food including little bread things called puris and some different vegetarian masalas. It was good, although one of the dishes was unbearably hot for me and even Federika struggled with it. We walked through the fascinating side streets in places we would never have dreamt of going by ourselves. We climbed some very narrow stairs until we got to the roof of a large square complex of very old and tatty buildings. It was the luxurious home of a wealthy family decades earlier but was now a collection of slums. 
In common with the streets, there was rubbish everywhere. It was Sunday, which must have been bath day as on most of the rooftops there were Indians stripped to their underpants scooping water from a large bucket and throwing it over themselves.
On one rooftop there were two kids making whistling noises and waving sticks with flocks of pigeons circling around them. It was a sport where each contestant had their own flock of pigeons and the aim was to entice pigeons from other flocks. Whoever ended up with the most pigeons was the winner.
Sunday also seemed to be shaving day as there were a lot of men sitting on boxes in the street being shaved by a man wielding a cutthroat razor. I assumed that no one in India knew the story of Sweeny Todd. 
There was rubbish and filth everywhere and at one place, while the guide was talking to us, I looked down and saw a dead rat. By the size of it I think it might have died of overeating. To get to one flight of flight of stairs we had to climb over a mountain of rubbish. I suppose if you live in that kind of environment you end up becoming oblivious to it. 
We finished the tour by stopping at the house of the owner of the tour company. It was a Haveli, an old house once owned by a noble. It had fallen into disrepair and so the owner spent a fortune on renovating it to the highest standard. He showed us around and each room was filled with valuable antiques and furniture. We were led to a large dining room table and served lunch prepared by his wife. It was excellent and came as a surprise as we had no idea it was part of the deal. I suppose by Indian standards $50 each wasn’t a cheap tour but it was a thoroughly enjoyable morning and worth every penny.
We then took a tuk-tuk to the Red Fort which was once the residence of the reigning moguls of the time. It had been quite cold all morning but by now it was warm enough to make a pleasant temperature. As always happens at tourist attractions someone approached us to be our guide which we were happy to accept, especially when his fee was only £3.50. I couldn’t believe the number of people queuing and not only was the line at least half a kilometre long but there were two of them. Our guide advised us to buy a foreigner ticket which entitled us to jump the queue, and although it was ten times the price of tickets for Indians, it was still very cheap. When we got near the entrance, both queues merged into one as they approached a single metal detector. Only one person at a time was let through so people were literally fighting to get to the front while security guides struggled to keep order. I had never seen anything like it and the lack of concern by the authorities for the people it served defied belief. What possible excuse could there be for not having more metal detectors to prevent people from having to wait for so long in queues?
I didn’t feel comfortable about jumping the queue just because we paid more than the locals but it was either that or abandoning the visit. We bought tickets and followed our guide who shouted at everyone and made a path for us, although there was still a lot of jostling. It was a relief to get to the other side and start the tour but when I felt in my pocket I realised my mobile phone was gone. I had always been very security conscious and constantly checked that everything was in place as well as securing my wallet to my trousers with a leather strap. I was mortified, as my phone was fine-tuned so it contained absolutely everything we needed for the trip. We couldn’t travel without phones if for no other reason than Federika and I were constantly losing each other. On one occasion before the days of mobile phones, I waited half an hour outside a café for her only to find that she was waiting inside.
The guide advised us to go to the police but I knew it would be a waste of time. The last thing I wanted was to spend the afternoon filling in forms that I was sure would end up in the waste basket the minute we left the building. We continued the tour but not a single word entered my brain while I was considering what security steps I needed to take to secure my stolen phone. It was password protected so in theory, there was no danger, but I was happy to get back to the hotel where I used my laptop to remove all my credit cards and sensitive data and wipe the phone remotely.
With a mobile phone being essential to me I wanted to put the whole thing behind me so I could wake up in the morning without it hanging over my head. The owner of the homestay took me from shop to shop and couldn’t do enough to help. When I told him I had to have an iPhone he said it would be hard to find a second-hand iPhone and why didn’t I buy an android phone like Samsung. In common with most iPhone users I had always looked down on Android from a great height so the thought of switching was unthinkable. After visiting six shops I knew I had no choice but to buy a cheap Samsung until I got back to the UK. What a revelation that was. Having my iPhone stolen was one of the best things that ever happened to me. The more I used the £60 Samsung, the more surprised I was to discover how much better it was than my £600 iPhone. Not that I would ever have paid so much for a phone as I always bought them second-hand.
Next morning I woke up with the distressing incident behind me and could continue to enjoy the holiday. First stop was Qutab Minar a 73-metre tower built to celebrate Muslim dominance after the defeat of Delhi’s last Hindu ruler. I can’t say I am heavily into towers but it was a pleasant morning walking around the grounds and a security guard latched onto us to show us all the best places to take novelty photos. 
We were also approached by a group of young lads who were thrilled to have their photo taken with us which I have to say was quite thrilling for me as well. Having spent most of my life seeking fame I knew that was the closest I would ever get. 
Getting around Delhi was easy as the homestay owner advised us to use Uber rather than tuk-tuks. We liked using tuk-tuks but it was such a pain going through the bargaining and being taken to places we didn’t want to go which never happened with Uber drivers. After lunch we went to Lodi Gardens which was a very welcome haven compared to the craziness of the streets. By now, all the places we had visited had merged into one in my head and although it was all very pleasant, I was more interested in the exotic birds than the gardens.
When it was time to return to the hotel we thought we would take a tuk-tuk as there were dozens of them waiting outside. The first driver quoted an absurd amount but we eventually agreed on what was only a minor rip-off. We were sitting in his tuk-tuk waiting to leave when he asked if he could make a stop at a “Government store” where we could buy gemstones at very special prices. We had been through all this before so said no but he insisted because he would get 100 rupees from the shop owner. The conversation got quite heated so we got out the tuk-tuk and called an Uber. The road was chaotic so the Uber we booked couldn’t find us. We returned to the tuk-tuks but no one was prepared to take us unless we stopped off at a store first. So it was back to Uber but we waited in a more accessible place and this time he found us. What an unpleasant experience it was and how self-destructive was the behaviour of the tuk-tuk drivers in the face of competition from a service that offered a fixed fare without any haggling.
Despite the unpleasant experiences, the chaos and the filth we enjoyed our stay in Delhi and I had never been anywhere with such a sense of adventure.
2018 India
