Delhi, New and Old
Trip Start
Nov 17, 2009
1
10
13
Trip End
Ongoing
Delhi, India
Saturday, November 28, 2009
The next morning, we slept in before going over to the guest house for a late breakfast (they started serving lunch not long after we finished our breakfast...oops!). We then went back to the Bhatts’ and chilled out before getting gussied up again.
In the evening we went to the wedding reception. It was held on the outskirts of Delhi at a large outdoor space specifically built as a wedding/party venue. The whole street was lined with similar set-ups: grassy expanses dotted with buffet tables, tents, a dance floor, and hundreds of well-heeled guests. As it was wedding season, each venue was fully occupied.
Sankalp and Amandra’s reception featured a huge buffet with both north and south Indian food, plus servers wandering around offering all sorts of tasty snacks. It was difficult to avoid filling up on the snacks, especially since we didn’t have to leave the warmth of the scattered braziers, but we eventually headed over to fill our plates and be offered some scotch by some of the guests we’d met up in Dehra Dun. As at the previous festivities, none of the women seemed to be drinking, so Heather held her glass wrapped in a napkin.
Sankalp and Amandra arrived and went onto a stage, where they posed for photos and greeted everyone...for hours! There were hundreds more people at the reception than had been at the wedding, though a number of people attended both.
We spent the evening visiting with folks we met at the wedding, meeting new people, and enjoying the delicious food. There was also a birthday cake for Sankalp’s cousin – a small group of us gathered around first to sing and then to smear cake on each other’s faces...apparently the thing to do!
Towards the end of the evening a group of eunuchs arrived. Eunuchs are transgendered people who make their living by turning up at weddings and singing. If you do not give them money they will start to strip, a situation many are eager to avoid. They sang and hammed it up for a bit, but were given some tips and headed off to the next venue. (We found out later that some also showed up at the Bhatts’ home in the centre of Delhi several days after the wedding. They apparently have a strong network....)
The last bit of comedy for the night was when we were offered pan. Pan is a mouth freshener that you have at the end of the evening. When we were offered it, we were told not to swallow. We took this to mean there was something you couldn’t ingest, like fluoride at the dentist, so we were careful to obey. However what it actually meant was don’t swallow right away to let the flavours come out - sort of like Aero’s 'just let it melt’. Kevin had a comical build-up of juice in his mouth, trying to figure out where he should spit while everyone started to laugh. Heather was on the same path, but further behind Kevin and thus spared the teasing.
After the reception we went home to rest. We had another sleep-in and late breakfast before setting off for a walk around New Delhi. We went to Safdarjang’s Tomb, a massive fort-like mausoleum built at the end of the Mughal reign of Delhi (around 1750). It was rather deserted but provided us a glimpse of some of the things that are quite common in Indian tourism. First is the difference in ticket prices between Indians and foreigners. Foreigners tend to pay 10 to 15 times more, plus often an extra fee to bring in a camera. The other is unsolicited tour guides and photographers. Obviously as a couple it is difficult to take our own photo (though Heather does excel at this skill), so we had a security guard offer to take one for us. He then started behaving like it was a photo shoot, telling us where to stand and taking a few shots of the tomb from various angles...and then, of course, he asked us for money. We gave him all the small change we had and he asked for more. It was an awkward situation since he was a security guard and we weren’t done seeing the tomb yet, but we explained that we were tapped out and walked away.
After exploring the rest of the tomb, we walked down to the massive Lodi Garden and had a nice wander through the park. We stopped at various historical sites within the park (more tombs), enjoyed the muted traffic noise, and saw lots of animals wandering around, including a bright blue kingfisher and some adorable puppies. The park was obviously a popular urban oasis, with families playing cricket and couples spending time "alone".
Heading back out into the din of rickshaws and taxis, we walked over to India Gate, which is India’s war memorial. We weaved through the crowds and vendors to take a few pictures, then grabbed an ice cream as per Kevin’s tradition when he lived in Delhi. We walked down the wide Rajpath towards the government offices, Parliament, and the President’s house. The sun was setting just as we reached the offices, so we snapped a couple more pictures before walking back to the house, making only one wrong turn along the way.
We had some dinner in our room and planned out where we would head after Delhi. Just as we were getting ready to go to bed, everyone (including Heather, who had gone out for some water) came into the room singing Happy Birthday and carrying a birthday cake. Seeing how it was 12:01 on December 1, it made perfect sense: it was officially Kevin’s birthday. We followed Indian tradition and fed each other the cake, usually with less than desirable accuracy. After some laughter, cake, and much-needed washing up, we went to bed.
The next morning, we went to the Red Fort by auto rickshaw. Built in the 1600s as part of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan’s new capital, the Red Fort is huge, but parts of it are closed to the public as they are used by the military. We were wandering around the large interior courtyard when we met an Englishman named Mark. He asked us to take his picture and we started chatting. He had just arrived in Delhi and was planning to spend a few days in India before heading to Nepal to hike up to the Everest base camp. Unfortunately he had hurt his leg on the first day he arrived, so he was going to spend some more time in India before going to Nepal. We all had a cup of tea at the posh yet fairly inexpensive cafe in the fort, then wandered around together. After having spent most our time in India with locals, it was nice to meet a fellow traveller and exchange stories and plans. We chatted as we explored the many buildings within the fort. Among these was an on-site museum that seemed to grow as we walked through it – just as we felt we were at the last exhibit, we’d turn a corner and discover more. They had old newspapers from the 1800s and centuries’ worth of artwork and artefacts showcasing the long history of the fort. Upon reaching the main road, we said goodbye to Mark and went on to explore Old Delhi.
We took a walk down Chandni Chowk which is an old market street. It was packed with shopkeepers trying to lure us into their stores, street vendors hawking snacks, shoppers on a mission, rickshaw drivers waiting for their fares to come back, and a few overwhelmed tourists. We passed a Jain temple and a mosque before stopping in a little restaurant for some samosas and Thums Up (no, that’s not a typo). Bellies pleasantly full, we soldiered on to dodge through shopfronts full of goods: shoes, saris, and souvenirs all lined the sidewalk. A few locals were eager to have their photo taken, so we happily obliged. When we were finished exploring, we began the surprisingly difficult task of finding a rickshaw to take us home. Usually they’re hassling you to hire them, but this time we were doing the hassling. While we saw plenty of them, they were all hired, and we ended up walking back out to the Red Fort and found an available one there.
That night, for Kevin’s birthday dinner, we went out with Sankalp, Amandra, Abhas, and one of his friends to a Japanese restaurant near the house. The food was good and it was a fun evening. At the end of the night we teased Abhas about how he would be the next in his family to get married, likely in time for the next of Kevin’s every-five-years visits. He replied that we must know some nice Canadian women. So we put it to you, nice Canadian women: are you the woman for Abhas? If you are, let us know and we will put you in touch with him!
We spent most of the next day getting ready for our trip to Agra and Rajasthan, catching up on emails, and having the delicious food and hot chai that kept coming from the Bhatts’ kitchen. Sankalp and Amandra were also getting ready to leave; they were off for their honeymoon in Kerala. We arranged for a taxi to come pick us up early the next morning (although with some trepidation, as we had initially tried to go to the Red Fort by pre-booked taxi only to have it not show up). But sure enough, before dawn, the taxi was waiting and took us to the train station where we started the next phase of our journey.
