A Day in Delhi

Being in Sri Lanka I always thought of India as their Big Brother, but now I found that yes it is big, but no it is not a brother - although siblings can turn out to be very different :=) However, Delhi is chaos, crowded and colorful a bit like Sri Lanka just much more. Food is better, it is cheaper (!) and the weather is much colder (I actually had socks on)...

We arrived late Wednesday and got, very easily and organized, a metered taxi from the airport, no hustle, no discussion on fare prices and the taxi was clean and nice, however, one strange thing - as all taxi seems to be running on gas (as well as the busses) there is not much space in the trunk, which is not so smart when you taking costumers from an airport? We had very little, only planning to be in Delhi for two days so it was not an issue for us.

So how was it? Well it was big, smelly, dirty, interesting, surprisingly lots of parks (looked like some houses had been bulldozed to make space and I wonder where the people living in those houses were now?) and roads were good, although crowded with everything you can image on two-four wheels. Here all Tuk-Tuks (three-wheelers) were on meter and all had the same colors, again very organized although their driving was not so organized. Buses were modern type of busses (I guess Sri Lanka inherit the old ones!) and they were not half as scary as the ones we have here. And in between it all there are thousands of motorbikes squeezing in from all over, from all sides, and next to them you get the cycle trishaws which seems to be the main transportation means for most school kids - easily taking 10 small ones on one.....



Well as you might have guessed by now, I did spend a lot of time on the roads trying to see as much as possible in a day. Via the hotel I had rented a taxi for 8 hours for 1100 INR (about 88 DKK) and I managed to see: the Lotus Temple (new religious centre - India seems to need yet another religion (!) and this one is smart, it combines all the religions so everyone is welcome to come and pray in the temple) beautiful place I thought. Apparently there are now several of these scattered around India.

The mosque - and old one (1600 something) where you have to walk through a lot of stalls selling everything and crowded by beggars and strange looking individuals making feel a little uncomfortable being alone with my handbag!






After that I was to take a cycle trishaw to the Red Fort - very scaring experience and totally involuntarily I only did it because I had no clue where I was and did not know we were about to go on the big highway.....however, I survive obviously and saw the fort which I did not think was that interesting. More interesting was the tourist group arriving with me, from India but obviously a very different part of India, none of them were wearing shoes and all had a lot of jewelry on ankles and noses, colorful crowd I must say.


Last stop was at the bazar where I had bought a Saree (must do if in India) they had taken measures for the top part yesterday when I together with my colleagues went on a shopping spree - it is actually possible to get a suit made in 6 hours if you wish, tailored to fit. Well I needed to pick my Saree up and it fitted perfectly. So now I am the proud owner of a greenish, gold ish, orange ish Saree that I have no clue how to wear. Hoping for my Sri Lankan friends to teach me!