After an uneventful trip with Emirates via Dubai I arrived in Delhi. A touch of Delhi Belly by proxy afflicted me while in Dubai but I got to the hotel without embarrassment. The hotel was the West Inn, which I had booked via Trip Advisor before I came out. Whilst several miles west out of the centre it is helped enormously now by the recently completed Metro, with a stop at Shadipur only 5 minutes walk away. The metro is fabulous and you can get into Connaught Place, the circular marble colonial centre of the not so old city, in about five stops.
The city itself appears a mess of buildings on buildings that either havent been finished or have fallen into disrepair - looks like a lego nightmare after some serious stomping and a fire or two. Mind you the buildings are often in better repair than the roads, which are largely more holes than surfacing. To put the place in context Delhi is populated by 50% more people than London, some 11 million people. Thankfully they don’t all try to use the metro, well not all the time at any rate. I suspect that before the metro was in operation I would not be enjoying my location anywhere near as much as I am. The hotel's wi-fi is a boon too.
If I wasn’t able to use the Metro then I would be relying on rickshaw drivers. The options are pedal or auto, but to be honest other than for very local the pedal option isn’t inviting. Seeing the strain and difficulty the cycle rickshaws go through, not to mention the danger, I would rather walk. The driving here is fun if you
Walking along the road it is best not to have eyes in back of your head, or to look back. It is too frightening and may affect your decision making when walking - just keep going as road-users will generally try to miss you, not by much mind and you commonly feel cyclists, motorcyclists, cars and rickshaws brush against you. That reminds me, I should locate the nearest decent hospital just in case. The fumes are quite bad and I have constantly got a bit of a sore throat, but I’ve been to worse places, which is probably down to better quality fuel these days rather than the vehicles.
As per the warnings both in the guidebooks and from the staff at the hotel, around Connaught Place as a WASP you attract dozens of friendly locals wanting to practice their English, or to be more precise to take you to stores or ‘official’ tourist offices where they will get commission for delivering you to them. Just stand firm and don’t worry about ignoring or offending the blighters!
Connaught Place is a concentric circle of bright white colonial properties, filling with expensive shops, definitely for the tourists and richer Indians. It is currently undergoing a lot of work on the paths, which are being relaid with marble and granite flooring. Will look very grand on completion I am sure. It is not exactly coffee shop friendly in the main, but there are a few about, in fact I don’t think I have seen a Starbucks here (which I dare say is a positive thing).
Walking around is not too bad at this time of year, but must be ruled out for much of it due to the excessive heat. If you had any impediment though it would be impossible with the surfacing and pavement problems. Kerbs in some places are a good half a metre tall, so with avoiding bikes, auto-ricks and cars as well it can be a hop skip and a jump to get across in one piece.
Delhi is a sprawling and essentially a pretty ugly metropolis with the odd well hidden island of beauty and interest. For all of it’s faults though it is a busy city and very much alive, seething with it’s energetic citizens. The city has been built, knocked down, allowed to degrade and then start again countless times - it is apparently the ninth incarnation now, so there is Delhi, New Delhi, New New Delhi and, well you get the picture. Right now it could do with some town planners, architects and engineers sitting around a rather large table with a big pot of coffee and a giant blank piece of paper (several billion rupees would come in handy too no doubt) to come up with some long term plan.
As I found in the rest of my traveling here the Indians really don’t have much truck with their past, at least not at the moment. It is to all intents about the here and now and then maybe the future; but for the past, it has gone so who cares? This means that some wonderful buildings and evidence from every Delhi of the past have been allowed to be demolished or fall into disrepair, falling away from plain sight. Even glimpses of its glorious past will become harder to see, which coming from Europe where we treasure our past seems a real shame. Whether they will ever shed a tear about that it is difficult to say - it is not something peculiar to the current time, so maybe it is a psyche thing ingrained through generations.
One of positive things about it now, which I was think driven at least partly by this years Commonwealth Games, is the Metro, which is pretty excellent for the areas it covers. It is cheap and pretty clean. The are still constructing some of it so it is expanding ultimately to cover the airports too, which will vastly improve the arrival experience into the city. Mind you getting a taxi to your hotel is as good as any ride at Alton Towers, and a good deal cheaper.
Metro etiquette has not developed yet, personal space here is an unknown concept, so if you suffer from claustrophobia or don’t like being up close and personal with dozens of people then maybe the auto-rickshaw would be your cup of chai. One thing in India everywhere is that blokes are happy to de-water themselves at the drop of a hat anywhere - any verge, wall, patch of ground is considered available for use. The odour of urine can hit you anytime when walking around. Unfortunately this apparently can include the metro, though I never saw this, but because of this to separate the course vulgar men from the delicate ladies the first carriages of all the metro trains are for women only. Sad, strange but true.
More to follow on the sights that survive etc...
