DELHI

13th - 17th April 2015

We left Agra in the early evening on a three hour train to Delhi. It was a local train so we had no seats and no idea what to do. A friendly family on the platform adopted us after noticing we had boarded the wrong train and were shouting at us through the windows to get off quick. They were headed to a town near Delhi so we followed them. 

The train ride was really fun after surviving the surge of people trying to board we ended up finding two empty top bunks over a large Indian family, who luckily were also heading to Delhi. Gradually as their kids gained more confidence and climbed the bunks we started trying to talk to them using Hindi phrases from our book. We were rubbish but soon the whole compartment wanted to talk to us and take pictures. The time flew by and soon we arrived in the madness that is Delhi. 

Our first night was spent in a fairly nice hotel near New Delhi station. Our room was complete with ensuite western toilette, television and most importantly a fan! It was nestled up a little alley off the Main Bazaar. (Crazy shopping street packed full of everything and anything).

The next morning we got on the Delhi Metro to Connaught Place near the city centre to grab some food and relax a little. Connaught Place is a large circle of grand white colonial buildings built by the British. You could be forgiven for thinking you were back in the centre of London, especially with the Delhi Metro rumbling near by. We ended up in Wenger's bakery, it was very posh and so were the prices, but we decided to treat ourselves to a posh picnic. The creme caramel was one of the best things I have ever eaten.

In the afternoon we tuk tuked our way over to Old Delhi to find a place to stay. We were advised against it as apparently tourists don't spend the night there, they just visit the Red Fort and some bazaars and leave for a much more western / holiday area in New Delhi. We were happy to not do what the tourists do, after all we survived Varanasi and Kathmandu, how much more crazy could it be? The answers was a lot more crazy! The roads were narrow and crammed with all kinds of food carts and small stalls. Bunches of electric wires hung low, monkeys strode the roof tops, again bikes, tuk tuks, cars, vans, animals worked their way through the scene. The main difference from everywhere we have been before is the sheer amount of people. Every tiny nook and cranny was taken up by someone. Think of the number of people in Oxford street doing their last minute Christmas shopping, or the walkways at Glastonbury just before a big act is about to come on, then like Kathmandu, imagine them all walking through Brighton Lanes. There is no such thing as personal space in India.

Initially we were quite unsure of theses new surroundings, our Taj view the day before seemed like a distant memory. We checked in to a hotel which was down a small road leading south from the Jama Masjid Mosque (the biggest mosque in India) which stood high over the rickety, cobbled together buildings of Old Delhi. The first place we tried would not accept foreigners, we think a lot of Muslims make the pilgrimage here to pray at the mosque which keeps the local hotels and guest houses filled. We decided to embrace our bonkers new surroundings rather than running for the home comforts of New Delhi. We felt like we were seeing proper Indian city life, not a glitzy, slightly false experience laid on for the tourists. The food we tried was amazing, I couldn't tell you the names of anything mind. One morning we ate these nutty rice pudding things out of little terracotta pots, they were stupidly tasty. 

After surviving our first night we visited the Jama Masjid I mentioned earlier, and climbed the steep narrow stairs of the southern minaret. The views over Old Delhi were brilliant. Colourful buildings squished in to every available bit of space. They were all balanced precariously on top of each other in quite a pleasing way. If you zoomed in a little with a camera the view started to look like an abstract painting made up of haphazard colourful shapes. The entire scene was encased to the west by the Red Fort, looming over the city, with its long red sandstone walls stretching off left and right into the distance. To the east the city stretched off to the hazy horizon, it was hard to see where the two met. After the obligatory group photos with various Indian folk, we headed off to have a potter round the Fort. 

It was a massive place with gardens stretching off as far as the eye could see, after entering you almost lost sight of the walls. The main parts to visit are the Mughal buildings, with their symmetrical proportions and patterns. These were built by some of the great artisans who worked on the Taj Mahal.

After whiling away the afternoon there and having a snooze on the lawn we went wondering around the bazaars. They are an assault on every sense. They are all grouped together by specialty and entire roads were dedicated to the same things such as jewellery, saris, wedding turbans, greetings cards, car parts, textile trimmings, sign making, spices; the list goes on and on. We let ourselves wonder the bustling labyrinth for a few hours into the evening till our legs could take no more.  

After a few nights in the old town we decided to spend some time visiting the sights of New Delhi. We checked in to the New Delhi Zostel and grabbed breakfast from a roof top cafe looking across the city and down onto the Main Bazaar. 

In the afternoon we headed to the Lotus Temple or the Bahai House of Worship. This temple was built for the Bahai religion by Indian-Canadian architect Fariburz Sahba in 1986. The building is styled after a lotus flower with 26 beautiful white marble petals. Although Bahai is a religion in its own right, they encourage people of all faiths to visit and pray in their own way. However we didn't come for spiritual enlightenment we came because the building is amazing. Below the sweeping concrete petals are nine blue pools reflecting this amazing piece of architecture. The photos don't really do it justice and we could take none inside, but I think they give a good idea.

Shortly after we headed to Humayuns's Tomb, one of Delhi's most perfectly proportioned and captivating mausoleums. It was built in the mid 16 century as a tomb for the Mughal emperor Humayun by his heartbroken Persian wife Haji Begum. The mixture of Persian and Mughal styling created a template that strongly influenced the Taj Mahal. Similar to the Taj, symmetry played a big part in the buildings design and its surrounding gardens. Haji is also buried here as is the emperor's favourite barber. We had a good old nose about and then sat on the lawn in the evening sunshine. I still prefer the Taj but it is not a bad second.  

As the sun hung low and orange we tuk tuked by India Gate soaring 42m up. It looks very much like Marble Arch or the Arch-De-Triumph. It is a monument to the 90,000 Indian soldiers who fell in the WW1, Northwest Frontier operations and the 1919 Anglo-Afgan War. The sun was just low enough to be perfectly framed by the arch in the pink dusk sky.

We then walked the long mall to the striking parliamentary buildings originally built for the British government, but shortly after were taken over by the Indians when they gained their independence. That seemed like enough sight seeing for one day, plus the constant hassle you get for being a westerner was starting to take its toll. We grabbed a bite to eat near the hotel and retreated to bed ready to catch our 6am train to Jaipur.