Arrived in Delhi finally after the flight from Dubai was delayed for over two hours. UAE, supposedly the airline to fly with, has thus far not gained the highest esteem in the Book of Jane's Judgements as yet. I still have a couple of flights left with them, so will reserve my final ruling for later (i.e - if they upgrade my on the Singapore-Auckland leg I will throw away all other my Frequent Flyer cards and stick with them forever). They are no-where near United or Virgin Express on the list, but neither are they up there with JAL or Air NZ. The delay caused me bad jet-lag which I fought with for about two days. I had booked a pick-up from London to take me to the hotel but didn't get there until 4am, with a check-out for 10am. Didn't seem much point really. Grumpy and tired, I negotiated (demanded) a late checkout and then, in true Sod's Law style, remained wide awake until around 6am when I eventually dropped off. Several strange phone calls insisting that I go on a day trip that I had supposedly booked periodically woke me up, as well as housekeeping, laundry and various other knocks at the door I tried to ignore. After about the fifth call and me screaming at whoever it was to stop calling he eventually got the message I think. Finally I gave up sleep and marched downstairs with my bags. Of course no-one knew anything about the phone calls and then I clicked...the taxi driver who had picked me up had hung around long enough at the reception to hear my room number.... I reckon it was him calling all along to try to get me to go on some sort of day trip. Dodgy or what! I must write to the agency who booked them in London and tell them to ditch these guys.
Anyway, I found a hostel in Connought Square - actually not a square at all but an octagonal roundabout in the center of Delhi, surrounded by a cloud of carbon monoxide, noxious fumes and obnoxious horns bellowing from every motorised vehicle within a hundred mile radious. Rickshaw drivers on three-wheeled bicycles and autorickshaws illustrating perfectly the Chaos Theory in action. White ford-style taxis and thousands of people wandering all over the roads at their own pace. Beggers, children with threadbare clothes and many without shoes. It was into this maelstrom of activity that the good old Lonely Planet assured me I would find a couple of gloomy hostels. The first one I checked out I wouldn't exactly have described as gloomy. No. The words I would have chosen would come closer to fetid, windowless, doorless, mice-infested and unsavoury-looking beds looking like they were possibly crawling with lice. Hmmm. I think I can do better. Next place along, 'Gringo's Hostel' or some such name wasn't much better but at least the dorm looked like it was habited by someone. I wanted a dorm as I was kind of hoping to meet people and hook up with someone. This was not to be unfortunately. Gloomy it was, and so were the two guys in the dorm who said hardly a word to me since I'd arrived, despite my cheery 'hello' and 'is there a lightswitch?'. The first night there proved to be too much. I had a sheet with me and no blanket. The hostel didn't provide one (and I was scared to ask anyway for fear of what it might smell like). I lay awake all night, completely wide awake doing my best not to touch the walls (crumbling with mould) or the bed (when I patted it down a huge cloud of dust rose up from it). Inspecting my fingernails which I had cleaned spotless before retiring, they were dissapointingly caked again caked with dirt. The last place I slept in this bad was 10 years ago in Indonesia, in a hostel high up in the mountains of Java. I'll never forget that terrifying and freezing night and count my blessings there was actually no electricity to make out the room beyond the shape of a tiny frame and square mattress passing itself off as a bed. So I lay awake and hatched a plan to leave that morning and find something better. As I had checked in the previous day, I had spotted an offer for a day trip around Delhi which I booked. 110 rupees (about US $3). It sounded just what I needed.... to do nothing for myself and still get to see the sights so I booked it straight away. So I had a couple of hours in the morning to attend to business. Firstly I handed my laundry to the dhobi-wallahs (laundry men who hand-wash everything, dry it in the sun and then iron even your knickers). Everything comes back cleaner than some of the drycleaners we got ripped off in around Europe, with one in Seville, Spain being a particularly memorable one in that all my white underwear came back grey! I nearly cried.
After dispensing the entire contents of my packpack to the dhobi-wallah, I attempted to make what should have been a fairly straight-forward call to another hostel to book a room for that evening. Silly me. Nothing in India (apart from maybe having your clothes cleaned), is simple. All the half-decent sounding hostels in the LP had since changed their numbers, which left me with a dwindling list of hopefuls. Finally I managed to talk to one hostel that was quite a way out of Delhi, but at least I hoped it would be quiet. I just had time for a cup of tea (served in a small cracked and dirty cup) before the tour guide came to pick me up (45 minutes late) and motioned to me to follow him. He had rotted blackened teeth, tinged with a severe-looking reddish colour caused by the betel nut leaves (a mild narcotic) that the men chew. They frequently stop to spit out a large gobs of red goo, and you have to be really careful to pick your way through the dusty streets as, apart from all the cow dung and discarded rubbish piled high, are also cloaked with bright-red splattery splodges of spit.
I board the rickety old bus and land the best seat at the front by the window. Score! They had an on-board photographer, a driver, a guide and about three other guys sitting up front of uncertain employment who basically looked like they just came along from the ride. Occassionaly one or two of them would beat the side of the bus with the flat of his hand, jumping on and off as it slowed down to stop or sped up to go. (I observed after a few more bus rides that these guys are basically acting as rear-view mirrors. Now, that's a good idea isn't it? We could demolish unemployment in the West with one foul swoop if all the buses removed their side mirrors and had a couple of these guys along.)
So they took us to all the sights. Mosques and temples. Parliament Houses, Indira Ghandi's museum and even a sari-shop...and all this before lunch and on one cup of tea so that by the time we did eventually stop for lunch I was starved. The Lotus-Flowers shaped temple was by far my favourite - there was a no-talking policy and it was the most peaceful place I've yet to encounter in this ear-drum splitting of a city. I had met a great guy on the bus who I chatted with at each stop - Kutub was born in North-Eastern India but his family had moved to Switzerland when he was twelve so to all extents he was basically a foreigner who happened to speak fluent Hindi - not a bad combination when you're me, with no Hindi, and about as green as they come having just arrived in India! After the tour, we went out for a pretty expensive (at least by Indian standards) dinner - 500 rupees each. I even had a beer but it wasn't that good and turned down the offer of a free second one. We had pretty good mexican nachos and other mexican stuff. The restaurant suddenly turned into a bar and Kutub noted on the way in a sign with a strange rule - no singles after 8pm - only couples. Can't imagine that going down well any else I've visited. They had the cricket on live and I watched as India thrashed NZ and kicked us out of the World Cup. That sucks. I've been getting ribbed about it from the locals ever since.
