2017, March 7th - March 15th, Delhi, India 👍

Dateline: March 15th 2017, Delhi, India

India - A strange and somewhat frightening concept

The general idea of traveling (repeat)

I don't think there's any way to prepare yourself for India. Or rather Delhi which is all we've done so far. Lets hope its not all like this

Arvind has picked us up at the airport in Delhi
We feel right at home her. Thanks Arvind & Rita

Kayla arrived here a week or so
ago. Arvind also picked her up
She's living with some guy she
met in Toronto

Probably the most obvious aspect when coming to India, as a tourist especially, is that it is a society under siege. Certainly under pressure

The most obvious visuals of this is security both personal and societal, grinding poverty and poor educational infrastructure: the results of a small tax base I'd guess

I should have realised the security issues when I started the visas application. Currently, for a 10 year visa, you even need a birth certificate showing that your parents are not potential terrorists and give information about your grandparents.
To be fair, India has suffered some dreadful terrorist outrages, but has certainly dealt with them in a far less paranoid way than say, Oh, some other countries we know of.
Luckily, the security aspect is far less paranoid than say the US version. It's also far more honest. 

The guards at the metro x-raying your bags and patting you down before you enter the subway, the machine gun nests at various tourist attractions blend in rather than intrude.

However, just about anything you want to do here as a foreigner, is controlled. Before you can open a bank account, get a SIM card or even make an online train booking, all ID documents need to be inspected and approved

So, there is a built-in delay (assuming that you are "approved") before you can do pretty much anything yourself

It's very frustrating. More on the personal security et al later

Arvind, Rita and etc. 
Note booze in the background as
we compare notes on malts

Now that's what I
call recycling

However, we are staying with a lovely couple, way out of the centre of town. A long time friend and associate insisted we stay with his parents when we arrived here. We are treated like family ("treat our house as your home"). It's wonderful

Rita and Arvind also looked after Kayla when she arrived

Part of the local beauty spot in Gargaon, 
plus all the requisite pigs, dogs, cows etc

I know that our time here would be far less relaxed and fraught with a thousand cultural miss steps without them.
Totally vegetarian house here, as are many Indian homes.There's seemingly endless variations on Dahl, beans, paneer, and a thousand other vegetarian delights. There's no doubt about it. Here we are totally pampered

I head out on a voyage of discovery

This is our civilisation outpost from which we venture forth to research our latest adventures for you, gentle readers

The Delhi Subway
Packed, but very effective, modern and very cheap

First day here, I venture out to seek a SIM card. The streets are totally full. I mean full, like you can't really walk on them. Theres no space left. Lots of pigs, dogs, vendors and wallah's of every imaginable service and product. Auto Rikshaw's, motor bikes, cars, trucks, all blaring horns constantly
I don't feel out of place, but it's hard going through the maelstrom of humanity and traffic. I don't recognise this kind of chaos. Even Colombo and Maputo though equally poor, are more organised. Vientiane has such traffic but nothing​ as driven or such a sheer mass of unstructured humanity

No luck (see below), at this phone shop. Make it back for lunch with my trusty Google map

Just a hole in the wall place

Next day, we're into town.

Certainly "Differently Abled"

From our respite here in "Sector 4", it's a mad cap hike in an auto to the new metro station. It really is another world out there. About 35 minutes of honking and death defying manoeuvres. 100 rupees, about $C2, the metro about an hour, 20 rupees, 40 cents, to old Delhi. Everyone on the metro has a phone, usually smart. Plus there's signal in the tunnels. Come on Toronto!

I don't think I have experienced anything quite like Delhi. 

The sheer press of people, trying to survive in a pretty dysfunctional and competitive environment

Look! White people.
Everyone wants a pix with you in it

Old Delhi is probably the best example. It's metro connection is right next to the Red Fort, a big tourist trap. It's not even chaos here. Every step from the station to the fort is filled with beggars, vendors, auto rikshaws, (tuks to us), pigs, dogs, slime, more beggars, wannabe tour guides and chancers, pick pockets. About a 10 to 15 minutes walk/ run if you can keep up with Kayla who is now, after a month being a local, very fast at avoiding above diversions

Ancient Mughal period (the building that is)

The traffic simply goes where it can find a 3 millimeter advantage on the tuk next door. If you are in the way, well its not his problem. Its mainly on the road, but that's more because every other space is filled with vendors, dogs, other rikshaws. No, puddles of slime is fair game for any player to utilise

Its not so much poor, as brutally competitive

Kayla has a friend she knows from Toronto, and is staying with him and his business mates at an apartment down town, if that's the correct expression, and has been there for about 3 weeks

So, we arrange to meet her at the Red Fort. We're all late, but it doesn't need much time

Inside the Red Fort, after it pissed down

It's worth the $10 to get away from the, well, as above. Even here, we have the endless request for pix with Europeans. One of Kayla's pet peeves of India

The Fort dates back​ to the Moghal empire, about 1650. Not very well maintained, but stunning to see, and adequately protected.

We while away the afternoon and maybe catch up on the past year in person as we slowly amble around. It's OK

Note tastefully integrated machine gun post to the left

Back outside, there's no such concept of a cafe or tourist hangout here. The cuisine is a "Maharaja" or veggie (much more on this aspect later) Big Mac in a heavily backpacker utilised upmarket hole in the wall just down from the Fort. Lots of street food, but I didn't bring my bog roll with me

With few to zero other options, we all return to our retreats

Everyone stops and asks 
(politely of course) for a pix with us

Rajiv Chowk. The upmarket area in downtown Delhi. This time Kayla is late, so we spend an hour or so being assessed for some kind of scam by various locals, beggars, service fixers who find tourists and convince them to head to their cousins store. Yes, even me.

Holi is an excuse to get
coloured

We finally retreat to a very upmarket "coffee house", but it turns out to be a restaurant. We eat, again

Wherever we go, people want a photo of us, anyone who's white (some guy on the metro was too shy to ask, but he seemed happy with a few shots of my feet - oh yes)

Holi day: bring a bit of colour
into everyone's life

Rita, Arvind, us and a few relatives

I think my response to Delhi so far is very indicative as I have not asked anyone to take a pix of the 3 of us as I think that there's a fair chance I won't see my phone again.

Are we in the mood yet?

Holi is a celebration of colour
Some of it never came out of my clothes, or me

While Kayla applies herself to getting my SIM card, I fight with Indian railways web registration. I loose

Holi is Monday 13th. Kayla's birthday. Everyone get doused in lots of bright coloured powders

We get in touch with our inner spring spirit but stay at the house, avoiding the Holiers in the streets, Kayla likewise in downtown Delhi, being sick

Bhaii Peace Temple
Just another religious hang out really

I wander around the locale, get redosed with Holi colours, and upon return, celebrate with Arvinds fantastic Channa massala. Incredible flavours. I gotta get the recipe for this. We eat lots and lots here..... But it's so good!

Arvind and FRita have some friends over to meet us. They bring their kids and wew (or maybe just me?) have the unexpected cultural experience of having their feet touched as a mark of respect. It's old hat to everyone except us. I find it weird, in a culturally inhibited way 

Just in case you were wondering

Kayla has to do some organising for her friends internet cafe, so we won't see her again today, Tuesday

Funny as it sounds, we booked the trip so we could meet her, wherever she is in the world, on her birthday. Hey! Kids! If they're having fun, you've done a good job

Amazingly forgettable

Another day, we do a quick trip to the "Lotus temple"

As ever, any outing here is an adventure. We go, we get to where we wanted to go, we see it, we get back, no one dead, robbed, ripped off too badly or raped. What's not to like?

This place? hardly worth the effort, but...

We win and get back without incident

Well, sort of.

We have last minute scored our tickets
to Rajasthan. It's just coming from Delhi 
and is already 2 hours late. We wait

As alluded to earlier, its a not exactly a law abiding society. In Delhi, you are constantly checking your pockets, phone, your backpack. It's not like South Africa where you may get murdered, raped, pistol whipped etc at any given moment, but the rule of thumb is petty crime, and you are the potential victim. It's also very aggressive, chauvinistic and patriarchate towards women. This was forcibly clarified on our day of departure when Kayla phoned up saying she had abandoned her tuk ride because the driver was super creepy and wanted sex, like now. Or her sexual harassment on a tourist bus a week before.

Yes, its easy to see, even now that India can be ugly

Off to the station. Jaisalmer awaits us after our overnight on the train to the western deserts  of Rajasthan

From Your Correspondent