Delhi!

The start of a new adventure - I am in Delhi for a few days before going down to Pushkar to the vet hospital. The flight over was very quiet so I managed to get a row of 4 seats and bunk down properly thank goodness, and arrived bright and early at Indira Gadhi airport New Delhi (looks a bit like a big shed built on a minefield.) Two drivers had been sent by accident, so they had a squabble about who should take me! Eventually it was all straightened out and it was off to the town. The driver seemed to know a short cut - down the wrong side of the road into the oncoming traffic. I don't know why they paint lanes on the road here, correct road positioning is "where my car fits". We were overtaken on the inside by a family of 5 on a wee moped.

Honking the horn serves as a measure of courtesy (you toot to let people in), to let people know you are there, and for 100 other mystifying reasons. Indicators don't work or arent used, you just stick your arm out the window. This is also used to protect you from other vehicles. I have no idea how they manage not to kill anybody, but it seems to work , in an odd way, no wing mirrors to confuse things and give way to cows. There was even a cow walking down the motorway on the wrong side.

As soon as we set foot in the hotel I was whisked away to the tourism office where I had to sign lots of official looking books, have my passport inspected and detail my plans. It was easier getting through customs! Then the guy told me I was doing it all wrong and drew up an itinerary of his own, which was nearly the same but entailed me paying him a vast sum and sitting in a car lots (which makes me very travel sick). I had to sit and listen to his schpeil for ages before he paused for breath and looked at me expectantly. I then pointed out I was doing everything on his listr but in a way that fitted in with my schedule, didn't make me sick, made maximum use of my time, was much cheaper and was already fully booked and payed for. He got very huffy, sat picking his fingers and said "I'm only doing my duty"!

The hotel is bright and clean, the air con works and there's a fan and a good shower. So a quick shower, clean clothes and it was off to Old Delhi!I got as far as the lobby and the monsoon burst. So it was lunch in the hotel instead, Lamb biryani. Mutton actually, and it was wonderful. I also asked for a lemon soda, which turned out to be a mistake as it was a bottle of soda and a lemon squeezed into a glass, no sugar, just a heartburn carry out. By the time I'd eaten and paid the extortionate 1.50 (!) it was drying up, so again I set off for Old Delhi.

Old Delhi is the best argument for colonialism I've ever seen! People literally live on the pavement - they set up a little kitchen in an alleyway or in the gutter, they sleep on their pedal rickshaw, the pavement or bedframes over which have been woven old rope to make a sort of sling hammock effort. Many of these people have no shoes, some no legs. Cows and dogs curl up to sleep wherever they can be it the middle of the road, the central reservation or the rubbish dump. The cows wander freely and graze off the peelings from fruit vendors stalls. Most seem healthy but thin.We took a rickshaw up through the second hand market to Chandni Chowk. I was really looking forward to seeing this historic street which was designed by the favourite daughter of the great 17th century emperor Shah Jehan with a canal running up the middle of the broad tree lined avenue approaching the Red Fort. The street is named after the moonlight it reflected......

Not any more. Old Delhi is falling down and nobody is doing anything about it. Every now and then there is scaffolding of tied together sticks propping up the front, but many buildings are partly collapsed, whilst throught the holes in the brickwork you can see families living in what's left standing (for now)

It is difficult to explain what it is like to be here for the first time. The smell changes every few feet; popcorn, incense, sweat, spices, faeces, chicken tikka, the myriad sweets frying at the roadside. The colour is brown over all punctuated with splashed of lurid colour from a womans sari, piles of green fruits and red apples on handcarts and the green and yellow auto-rickshaws. Chandni Chowk is a bustling bazaar, difficult to negotiate. It is crammed with stalls selling bright shirts, saris and lengths of cloth. Each of the side streets is a specialised market - spices, the gold and silver market, the elecrical market, textiles, wedding clothes. And at the head of it all the Red Fort, stronghold of Shah Jehan after he moved the court from Agra to Delhi when his wife died (and he built her tomb -the Taj Mahal). I wouldn't like to try and storm the walls, it's pretty impressive. There is a 10m deep moat which was filled by the river but is now a shallow swamp fed by the monsoon rains. As with all old building the nooks and crannies have been filled by birds nesting, but here it's not just pigeons- luiminous green parakeets run up the red sandtone walls, squawking to each other.

I fell prey to a real charmer at the gate, just past the man selling fake beards. He had great plans for me - take me here, take me there, see this, very good very good. All on his "Indian helicopter" a muddy rickshaw. I talked him down into taking me back to the hotel. He certainly had the patter well rehearsed and was proud of Old Delhi - "very cheap good quality" as opposed to New Delhi - "Cost much not good". After drop off and complaints about the price paid "Oh Madam - this is very less!" it was back to the hotel restaurant for a fabulous dinner of various potato combinations. Then a quick wander before bed down the thin streets lit by neon hotel signs with names like "Yes Please Hotel". Didn't do much sleeping, still awake at 4.30 am and waiting to go for the bus to Agra. This could be interesting........