Cricket, fish and crowds: more Delhi

Delhi, India

Overwealming and chaotic, yet fun and enjoyable - that's about the best way to describe my experience of Delhi.

My first day in India was to be a gentle introduction I decided, as there was a LOT to take in. Once my Couchsurfing host Nishu had gone to his exam I rested in the safe confines of his flat for a while, just to get over the first hour of chaos - it had been a lot to take in. I'd not eaten or drunk since the night before so after a couple of hours I took my first tender steps outside to attempt to find somewhere, but had no idea where to go, what was safe to eat, and where was safe to walk. After strolling through the hospital grounds where Nishu's doctors accommodation is located, I found the hospital snack shop and bought a sandwich with a vegetable patty inside, and a litre of water... all for £0.40. Wow, this country really is cheap.

Dr Nishu, my host

 Make do bed for a few days

Nishu got back mid afternoon and we went to the mess - the staff canteen which ironically is a very unclean, ahem, mess. Cobwebs everywhere, dirty floors, and about four pigeons nesting on the sills near the ceiling and occasionally flying around. It's a good job therefore that the food was superb - Roti's (bread) with subzi (curried potato), Dahl (spicy soup) and an omelette, guess what, also spicy! No hotter than I've had before though. Around four pm we walked to the main road and I then had my first encounter with a cycle rickshaws ridden by a guy, I guess, in his seventies, towing two of us with gears that were so high that he occasionally had to get off and push just to get us going! Nishu was doing the leading, and he then took me to an area called Chandny Chowk, where Nishu hailed another cycle rickshaw to give us a tour of the area. Now this place was like nothing I've ever seen before. Even busier and wilder than the scene that greeted me when I first arrived. First of all there were people everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Motorbikes, cars, lorries, rickshaws, bullocks towing carts, cycle rickshaws, stray dogs. Then the people carrying things on their shoulder, beggars kneeling on the street, homeless people lying on the central reservation. And on top of this, people selling everything you could imagine. I heard, perhaps unreliably that this is the busiest street in the world. Must be one of them at least.

The next morning Nishu disappeared off at nineish to the hospital, and I decided to stay in the room and open my Rough Guide for the first time, to read a bit about India in general and plan a bit of a route for the next few weeks. I also had a few days of the blog to catch up on writing - it's pretty easy to get behind and start forgetting things! I went to lunch at the mess with Nishu, and noticed the food was bought out by a boy of around twelve. I quizzed Nishu on it, and as we hear in the media at home sometimes, it is reasonably common - typically for a few rural boys who's parents can't afford to look after them apparently. Now I, probably like most of you can't get my head around this, and I'm surprised that a group of educated Doctors accept it as well, but guess it's just normal and not thought about. After lunch on my own, I braved going a bit further for a stroll around the local area. This time I saw goats grazing the verge, a horse and cart moving stuff, people cutting hair and shaving beards on the roadside and bikes overloaded with long lengths of steel amongst other things.

Nishu finished work around half four, and along with a female neighbor who's name I forget, took me out for a real experience at the local night market as he wanted to buy some fish for a party the next day. The level of hygiene was poor beyond belief, though I had seen similar in Cambodia a few years ago so it wasn't too shocking - the photos do the talking on this one. It was interesting to watch the way they descale and cut the fish, using a huge fixed knife sticking up in front of them. WARNING! BLOOD AND GUTS TALK FOLLOWS! More eye opening though was the barbaric way in which they killed the chickens. These chickens, which are in an awful condition are kept live in tiny cages for the customer to select, then are slaughtered there and then. The first 'normal' way is to just chop the head off, no wringing. The second 'halal' way for Muslim customers though, is to half cut the throat, throw them in a barrel, then let them bleed to death slowly - you could hear them flapping round for a good twenty to thirty seconds before they finally stopped. It was quite a sight, but totally barbaric, torturous and cruel in my opinion.

Night market

Most doctors work six days a week in India, so on Saturday I headed into town to do a bit of touristy stuff, going to one of Delhi's main sights - the Red Fort - a huge read sandstone complex with many buildings, temples and parks inside, and had a guard blow his whistle (old school) and get quite angry at me when I had almost reached the centre of the complex as I'd neglected to buy a ticket; whoops! An accident of course. There was a small but good museum in there as well on India's struggle for independence from British rule. In case you didn't realise; we shamefully claimed India as our own territory from about 1600 to 1949 and caused much long lasting damage in all sorts of ways, which is partly why our Government has allowed so many to emigrated to Britain since then. Ninety thousand Indians died fighting as part of the British WWII campaign as well. Something to think about next time you hear someone being racist or criticising our immigration policy. 

Anyways, so much happened in five days in Delhi, there'll be a part II soon. This could be a regular thing in India...
 

Smelly Delhi

Delhi, India

Overwealming and chaotic, yet fun and enjoyable - that's about the best way to describe my experience of Delhi.

My first day in India was to be a gentle introduction I decided, as there was a LOT to take in. Once my Couchsurfing host Nishu had gone to his exam I rested in the safe confines of his flat for a while, just to get over the first hour of chaos - it had been a lot to take in. I'd not eaten or drunk since the night before so after a couple of hours I took my first tender steps outside to attempt to find somewhere, but had no idea where to go, what was safe to eat, and where was safe to walk. After strolling through the hospital grounds where Nishu's doctors accommodation is located, I found the hospital snack shop and bought a sandwich with a vegetable patty inside, and a litre of water... all for £0.40. Wow, this country really is cheap.

Dr Nishu, my host

 Make do bed for a few days

Nishu got back mid afternoon and we went to the mess - the staff canteen which ironically is a very unclean, ahem, mess. Cobwebs everywhere, dirty floors, and about four pigeons nesting on the sills near the ceiling and occasionally flying around. It's a good job therefore that the food was superb - Roti's (bread) with subzi (curried potato), Dahl (spicy soup) and an omelette, guess what, also spicy! No hotter than I've had before though. Around four pm we walked to the main road and I then had my first encounter with a cycle rickshaws ridden by a guy, I guess, in his seventies, towing two of us with gears that were so high that he occasionally had to get off and push just to get us going! Nishu was doing the leading, and he then took me to an area called Chandny Chowk, where Nishu hailed another cycle rickshaw to give us a tour of the area. Now this place was like nothing I've ever seen before. Even busier and wilder than the scene that greeted me when I first arrived. First of all there were people everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Motorbikes, cars, lorries, rickshaws, bullocks towing carts, cycle rickshaws, stray dogs. Then the people carrying things on their shoulder, beggars kneeling on the street, homeless people lying on the central reservation. And on top of this, people selling everything you could imagine. I heard, perhaps unreliably that this is the busiest street in the world. Must be one of them at least.

The next morning Nishu disappeared off at nineish to the hospital, and I decided to stay in the room and open my Rough Guide for the first time, to read a bit about India in general and plan a bit of a route for the next few weeks. I also had a few days of the blog to catch up on writing - it's pretty easy to get behind and start forgetting things! I went to lunch at the mess with Nishu, and noticed the food was bought out by a boy of around twelve. I quizzed Nishu on it, and as we hear in the media at home sometimes, it is reasonably common - typically for a few rural boys who's parents can't afford to look after them apparently. Now I, probably like most of you can't get my head around this, and I'm surprised that a group of educated Doctors accept it as well, but guess it's just normal and not thought about. After lunch on my own, I braved going a bit further for a stroll around the local area. This time I saw goats grazing the verge, a horse and cart moving stuff, people cutting hair and shaving beards on the roadside and bikes overloaded with long lengths of steel amongst other things.

Nishu finished work around half four, and along with a female neighbor who's name I forget, took me out for a real experience at the local night market as he wanted to buy some fish for a party the next day. The level of hygiene was poor beyond belief, though I had seen similar in Cambodia a few years ago so it wasn't too shocking - the photos do the talking on this one. It was interesting to watch the way they descale and cut the fish, using a huge fixed knife sticking up in front of them. WARNING! BLOOD AND GUTS TALK FOLLOWS! More eye opening though was the barbaric way in which they killed the chickens. These chickens, which are in an awful condition are kept live in tiny cages for the customer to select, then are slaughtered there and then. The first 'normal' way is to just chop the head off, no wringing. The second 'halal' way for Muslim customers though, is to half cut the throat, throw them in a barrel, then let them bleed to death slowly - you could hear them flapping round for a good twenty to thirty seconds before they finally stopped. It was quite a sight, but totally barbaric, torturous and cruel in my opinion.

Night market

Most doctors work six days a week in India, so on Saturday I headed into town to do a bit of touristy stuff, going to one of Delhi's main sights - the Red Fort - a huge read sandstone complex with many buildings, temples and parks inside, and had a guard blow his whistle (old school) and get quite angry at me when I had almost reached the centre of the complex as I'd neglected to buy a ticket; whoops! An accident of course. There was a small but good museum in there as well on India's struggle for independence from British rule. In case you didn't realise; we shamefully claimed India as our own territory from about 1600 to 1949 and caused much long lasting damage in all sorts of ways, which is partly why our Government has allowed so many to emigrated to Britain since then. Ninety thousand Indians died fighting as part of the British WWII campaign as well. Something to think about next time you hear someone being racist or criticising our immigration policy. 

Anyways, so much happened in five days in Delhi, there'll be a part II soon. This could be a regular thing in India...
 

Petra to Delhi

Petra, Jordan to Delhi, India via Sharajah, United Arab Emirates

I'm in India, and am sat here writing this in the doctors accommodation of a mental hospital in Delhi! I'll explain later. From from what I've seen so far though, the whole population should be in the hospital - it is truly the craziest place I've ever been.

The journey here began in Petra, Jordan on Wednesday. I had to get to the airport for midday, which in theory meant a very early bus, a taxi, then another bus, until to my relief the hostel owner told me one of their staff was taking some people directly to the airport, and offered me a good price. I shared the jorney with a Canadian-German couple who lived in Dubai and were cabin crew for Emirates, and they shared their stories - big salaries, an opulent lifestyle, but a hot, wasteful and very fake city they basically said. We got to Amman airport - freshly built this year by a British architect - in plenty of time thanks to a pretty nippy driver, and I sat outside in the cold morning sun and relaxed for a bit.

Amman airport

It was time to say goodbye to Jordan, after two weeks there. It's a small country, and in many ways there isn't that much there, but what is there is superb. I know it's a cliche, but the people are so welcoming and friendly - people would often come up to you and chat, and I've never heard such use of the word 'welcome'. You're welcome here, you're welcome to that, welcome to Jordan, welcome welcome welcome... And people were kind - in Amman, a guy walking past us with his family was eating a bag of biscuits, and offered us some as we passed. And it felt so safe. Unlike the surrounding countries of Syria, Iraq and Egypt; Jordan has been at peace for a long time, and despite effectively being a dictatorship; survived the Arab Spring a couple of years back because on the whole it's pretty well run. And a bit of a hidden gem in the region really.

A few random notes on Jordan I made and haven't mentioned before:

-The Muslim call to prayer is broadcast five times a day from all mosques on loudspeakers and can be heard across the area. People often down tools at the moment and pray.

-The Arabic language is written from right to left, is completely incomprehensible to non-speakers, and is spoken in all Arabian and Most North African countries.

-Women are nearly always covered up; generally just with a headscarf but sometimes almost everything.

-Speed bumps are everywhere in random places like on dual carriageways.

-There's a massive contrast between rich and poor, but the poor rarely appear to be in absolute poverty.

-The only natural resource Jordan extracts is phosphorous, so most of their money is made from general services and tourism.

-Hotel bookings at the last place I stayed were down by nearly fourty percent I was told, because foreigners are scared by the troubles in Syria. Yet in reality those troubles have in no way affected Jordan except some refugees spilling over the border.

To get to India, I had to go via Sharjah and wait there for six hours - a city in the Emirates, around twenty miles from Dubai. The flight interestingly started with a Muslim prayer for a safe journey being shown on the in-flight video screen! Once landed in Sharjah, the flight attendant told me I couldn't leave the airport but it sounded like an opinion more than a fact, so I checked with one immigration official, then another, and found it was fine as long as I got my ticket re-issued, which I later did with no hassle. Me being me, I wasn't going to just sit in an almost windowless air-conditioned airport lounge, when there was a rich and mysterious country outside so I got my passport stamped and went for a wander. The first thing that hit me was the heat - despite being autumn, the mid-afternoon sun was still nearly 35 degrees. I didn't really have enough time to go into the city so made do with a stroll outside, and with the airport isolated by main roads, the best I could do was walk around the grounds, so the experience was a bit limited but worth doing anyway. A young guy who worked there, in full traditional Arab dress spoke to me for a minute, then I sat down on an area of grass to read, watching the stream of posh cars coming and going.

Sharjah airport

I boarded the next flight, and crowd was different this time - very few Arabs, but a whole lot of Indians. judging by the size of their luggage, most of whom had been working in Dubai - Indians do a lot of the jobs the Arabs won't apparently. Waiting to take off, I started getting nervous, and I don't get nervous often. It wasn't the thought of flight itself, but India. It's a huge diverse country and I'd heard so many horror stories from friends who have visited, from the media and from books. Would I love it or hate it? Is it all poverty or a mixture? Would it be safe? Would I get ill straight away?! I'd soon find all these things out.

We touched down in Delhi at 2am - not the greatest time to arrive in such a place but I didn't have much choice. But I was finally here, in the country that had intreagued me for many years. After getting my bag, I went to the cash machine and took out 500 rupees, thinking it was £50. In fact it was just £5! One Indian rupee works out as one British penny. It wasn't a problem though - it's so unbelievably cheap here, it lasted me the rest of the day. I then found a few seats in the arrivals lounge, laid across them and had a sleep for two or three hours.

The smog of Dehli that never disappears 

At 6.30am it was time to leave the security of the airport, into the real world of Delhi. I took the very smart and modern airport train into the centre of town, then walked down the steps into the Metro station where I experienced India properly for the first time. People jumping the ticket queue, people pushing my rucksack to get to the turnstiles, airport-style security checks just to get on the subway, and Police armed with machine guns running the show. I boarded the packed train which soon left the tunnel into the open air, and for the first time I saw what I thought was the slums and my jaw dropped. It was so densely packed and poorly built, but in fact I later learnt that this wasn't the slums but just Old Delhi - the original and quite overcrowded original part of the city. What would the slums be like in that case?!

Rather than stay in a grotty hostel, which most cheaper places are in Delhi, thought I'd get an insiders view on India and stay with a local, and so a few days before managed to arrange another stay through the Coushsurfing website. My host was a guy called Nisith Kumar, generally known as Nishu - and on the train journey he sent me a text saying 'I have to leave for my exam, I'll see you in five hours'. This was not good. I'd be stranded In a poor area until then with nowhere to go and nothing to do, but it was my own fault for underestimating how long it would take to get across the city and being late. I got to the Metro stop near his place and then received another text saying as I was near, he'd actually have just enough time to pick me up. Phew.

I left the confines of public transport, and for the first time walked into the total chaos of Old Delhi. In the next half hour, I saw rickshaws being ridden the wrong way up dual carriageway, everyone beeping and dodging round each other, a man with a stick beating the hell out of passing pedal rickshaws and letting down their tyres, two monkeys casually riding on the back of a guys moped and old ladies begging. Nishu then arrived on his motorbike, which I wasn't expecting, and ushered me onto the back, which given his lack of time nor any other options I did. With no helmets (standard here) we set off weaving and dodging around all the other vehicles, and suddenly I felt my cap blow off in the wind. I was too terrified at that point to do anything but hold on tight but told him about it at the end of the street. He turned and went back but someone had obviously I nabbed it straight away. Hope it's gone to a good home! I told him afterwards there was no way I was riding pillion without a helmet again though, so don't worry!

The chaos that awaited me. Note the guy with the stick in bottom right!

We continued on for another mile and got to his flat - my home for a few days in as mentioned earlier; the doctors accommodation of a mental hospital! I knew beforehand that he was a medical professional, but not that he was a psychiatrist and living in such a location, so it was a bit of a surprise but in reality not a problem in any way. Nishu had to get to his exam so shot off, and so I tried, unsuccessfully to get a couple more hours sleep - I'd decided it was to be a day of acclimatisation. Which was certainly to be needed for the next stage of the trip.