We Dally in Delhi

Headliner of our guides car.
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Fast facts:

• India contains a population of 1.1 billion. Each year it increases its by an amount of people equal to the entire population in Australia. (around 20 million)
• More than 85% of Indians are Hindu. 12% are Muslim.
• Became independent from Britain (and Pakistan partitioned off) in 1947.
• Mutton, in fact, is on the menu. Where’s the beef? Walking around the streets.

After a six and a half hour flight from Hong Kong, we arrive at Delhi airport at 2:00 AM. Pretty exhausted (4:30AM body time) but antennae up for an entirely new country. As we’ve become accustomed, we’re met by a local. What we’re not accustomed to is the third world condition of the airport. As we’re hustled through we arrive to find our driver sound asleep, so much so that it takes some time to rouse him enough to unlock the door. The vehicle is small, old and in poor repair. After the modern efficiency of Hong Kong we’re a bit taken aback.

DelhiCatessen
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Expecting a quiet middle of the night trip to the hotel, we’re surprised by the extraordinary congestion and massive numbers of trucks (lorries) on the road in. We’re told that the trucks aren’t allowed in the city in the day time and must conduct their trade between the hours of 9:00PM and 6:00AM. Finally we leave the congested road and driven for 20 minutes or so through otherwise dark streets and apparent shortcuts. We’re beginning to think that we’re witnessing an abduction (ours) when we’re though a front gate to the Hotel Oberoi, a chain of fairly high end hotels in India and other eastern countries. (We feel that we’re in the middle of nowhere but in the morning we’ll learn that we’re right in the middle of New Delhi.)

Dinner lurking in the background.
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(Two points of explanation. 1) Old Delhi is the original city but was expanded over the years by adding the environs of New Delhi. Now the terms Delhi and New Delhi can be used interchangeably. 2) In spite of its size and road network there are few streetlights or lit signage and no night life. As a consequence, late at night, there’s no reference point to know whether you’re in or out of the city.)

After some feverish incomprehensible negotiation between our guide and hotel reception we’re ushered to our room for what’s left of a night’s sleep.

View from our Oberoi Hotel
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Next morning, tired from travel, time change and residual Yak fever, we fuzzily go down for breakfast. We find a confusing (to us) atmosphere when we find the hotel is full of suits. This apparent conference hotel and base of operations for business visitors is at odds with the impression at Delhi airport and our abduction to nowhere of last night. Find that breakfast is served in the most casual of its 5 restaurants and dig in. Excellent breakfast. We’ll find that this is an outstanding restaurant.. After breakfast we wander around the hotel trying to figure out what to do. We’re here to take a train trip the following day (more later) and this is more of a transition day than anything else.

View of golf course and sky line.
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Past a handful of very high-end shops to a carpet store at the end of the lobby. We’re looking for a new carpet for our dining room and we’ve been led to understand that there are some excellent bargains to be had in India. After a half hour of congenial chit chat we finally get them to give us a price on the one that Claire has picked out. Almost lose my excellent breakfast when told that it is only 300,000 rupees or about $8,000. Panic stricken, I glance at Claire to determine if this is to be taken seriously and am relieved to see that her buying-mode expression has been replaced by her window-shopping mode expression.

Typical store
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(Diversion: Family in India is extremely important. It’s part of their religious and cultural heritage to help each other and to remain in close association. Many families devote themselves to particular crafts or business enterprises. The carpet people in the store were all related in one way or the other to each other and worked with weavers and their families back home in Kashmir. As you know Kashmir is a hot item these days, control over which is hotly contested by Pakistan and India. ((Deeper diversion: When India was struggling for full independence from Britain in the 1940s, there was a sub-movement looking for a home land for the Muslim population, largely in northern India. This resulted in partition and the formation of Pakistan. The adjacent region of Kashmir chose to become part of India instead in spite of the fact that the majority of its citizens were Muslims. Pakistan and many of Kashmir’s citizens were bitter about this and have been fighting India for control ever since)). We talk about our respective countries and determine that Kashmir and Canada have a lot in common. Climate is very similar with cold season, rainy season and hot season. Sparsely populated but with some major centers. Even their main tree, the bouin tree looks almost identical to our maple tree. We conclude that we’re so similar that we feel a kindred spirit, with similar family values. I ask for family discount on the carpet. Learn that our families aren’t that close.)

Typical street scene
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After extracting ourselves from the cosy encounter with promises to return, I go to the United Bank of India branch in the downstairs lobby to cash some travellers cheques. I anticipate a two or three minute exercise of endorsing the cheques. However, after stating my wishes at the counter, I’m led around a corner to the back of the bank which resembles the back office of a service station with 6 clerks jammed into a small office in front of the (open) safe. I’m finally told to sit on a stool at a tiny desk at which a clerk is working on ledgers and books right out of the fifties. Over the next half hour or so we go through several steps, some painful, some mysterious and some almost productive. Example. I have five $50 cheques I want to cash. After laboriously copying massive amounts of information from my passport to a three part carbon receipt type booklet (we seem to have misplaced the carbon paper at one point which is cause for a 5 minute absence) he separates one of the travellers cheques from the others and writes “$50 US” on the first line. He then fumbles around his cluttered desk to locate a rate sheet which has the conversion rates for various currencies to rupees. Presume it is up to date, like sometime in this millennium. Then we go searching for a calculator and earnestly apply the proper sums to arrive at the converted number for the $50 which is duly recorded on that line. Now we’re getting somewhere. Except the next step is to take the second $50 traveller cheque and write “$50 US” on the next line down before searching around for that rate sheet again. Apparently he’s concerned that it may have changed somehow during the last five minutes. He writes the same conversion rate down and then goes searching for the calculator again. Upon finding it he multiplies the $50 by the same conversion rate and comes up with the same number of rupees as before. This guy is no slouch. I’m no dummy either and I see where this is going. Sure enough we repeat this three more times and you know what? We get the same answer every time. After this is completed, the calculator, in which I’ve learned to have complete confidance, is used to add it up. I’ve now been sitting in the back room about a half hour. I’m asked to sign the register and follow to the front of the bank where time has, in fact, not stood still. I’m motioned to cashier # 4 to whom he gives this miracle of math There I stand while (wait for it) the cashier double checks the calculation. As I silently plead with every fibre in my bing that he doesn’t find an error and we have to start all over again, I’m repeatedly jostled aside by locals who seem to feel that their banking needs are more urgent than mine. (Let me use the word urgent in this environment very advisedly) The clerk is on my side however, apparently feeling we’re getting very close to consummating this transaction and continues to send these interlopers off to jump ahead of someone else in another line. With great relief I see a satisfied look come over his face as he initials the form and heads for his cash drawer. He reaches in and hands me 11,000 rupees. Having forgotten the purpose of my visit here, I’m surprised that this man is giving me money. I then vaguely remember having surrendered some travellers cheques earlier that day and suspect that this is somehow related to that event. I gratefully accept the cash and wander away wondering where I am and what day it is. Claire greets me with relief wondering where I’ve gotten to. (My stock broker has carefully explained to me that India as an emerging economy is the next big thing and we should be investing there. I make a note to change stock brokers as soon as I return.)

Drive by cow shot
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We ponder how to spend what’s left of the day. We’ve already learned that we’re adjacent to the Delhi Golf Club and that hotel guests can play for $40. Decide to walk over to check it out. Might be just the thing to perk us up.

As we enter the parking lot crossing over the cow catcher rails underfoot, we encounter perhaps 30 locals. These ragtags are wannabee caddies. The real caddies are inside (which turn out to simply be wannabee caddies that made it inside). They aren’t allowed past the gate unless already hired by a golfer and we’re offered much assistance and advice about how to proceed and why each of them is the right person to assist. Someone in an off-white uniform invites us past the gate. The Delhi Golf club memory might end up being the most surreal of my memories over our 9 weeks of travel. It is purported to be the best golf club in the city and it does appear to have many of the trappings. What we can see of the golf holes look interesting and the club house buildings look as if they had some glory at one point. However, as we stand looking at the first tee here is what we see all at the same time:

Sign of things to come
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• Another dozen inside wannabee caddies doing pretty much everything except helping a golfer.
• About 20 people, many with golf clubs sitting on benches or standing circling the tee, going through some seemingly random process of actually getting on the tee.
• About 11 people standing on the tee, apparently consisting of the teeing off group and the on-deck group. (One of these golfers has a Titleist sun visor on over his turban. Another lady golfer in full sari dress)
• A dog rolling on his back on the tee.
• A total of 30 bodies on the fairway or tee of this #1 par 5. My best guess is that this represented golfers and caddies for about 5 groups in addition to those on the tee (which by the way are now teeing off, in spite of the group ahead of them being less than 100 yards away)

We wander around a bit after politely declining the starter’s invitation to consider playing a little later. We confirm that this is a semi-private club like most others, with members notices posted, tournament results displayed and all the usual accoutrments of 19^th holes etc.. But the scene is chaotic. We’ll learn, however, that this is just the Indian way. After one more look at the first tee, where the dog is now urinating, (apparently a dog-left left) we wander back to the hotel.

I decide to go for a swim and Claire decides to go relax. Then after shower and being ravenous (time difference) we decide to eat early at 6:30. Wrong. Learn that they eat late in India. Restaurants, even hotel ones, don’t even open until 7:30. While waiting we sample the local beer (Kingfisher 3.6% alcohol. Very refreshing) until 7:30 when we eat an excellent meal of Indian cuisine.

Next day. This is the big one. Our 7 day train journey, which we have been considering the apex of out journey will commence this afternoon. Still a little whacked, we decide to defer any Delhi exploration until after the train. Instead, this morning I opt for the fitness center for cardio and weights. Claire opts for the spa for a facial and a footal(?). The spa session is not exactly cheap but it keeps her away from our Kashmir friends and the $8,000 carpet.

Another excellent lunch at the restaurant and we’re met by the guide and driver to take us to the Cantonment train station. This is our first daylight drive through Delhi and we get a different perspective than the night of our arrival. Parts of the city are relatively modern; green spaces, sidewalks and buildings with doors in them, others are very similar to those we remember from Vietnam. Dirty, unfinished, crowded with traffic, people and shops in chaotic disarray. But the most enduring impression is the site of cows, singly or in small groups wandering around everywhere, including down the middle of streets and highways.

You know, of course, that Hindus are against killing animals and in particular, revere cows. It is a sin to kill one and it is considered a good omen to have them loose, among the people. You’ve heard people telling you of spotting these cows. No surprise. But let me try to give you a sense of scale. I would wildly speculate that over the course of the next nine days that we will see well over a thousand cows on streets and sidewalks of both large cities and small towns. And not just cows, but goats, pigs, and of course, dogs. A cow usually has a home base, literally at someone’s home. However, each morning it heads out to the streets, usually in search of a market area. Anticipating good karma or dharma or something, people along the way people will buy veggies and grains to feed it. When at the end of day, the streets begin to clear out it will find it’s way home where it can rely on a final feeding and some shelter. The cow’s caretaker is provided an allowance by the community for his role in the cow’s care.

The Catonment Railroad station is a semi military station in the center of a large area with a military theme. (Military offices, barracks, forces recreational forces etc..) The closer we get to the station, the further back in time we seem to be going. The train trip we’re heading out on is named the Palace on Wheels and is reputed to be one of the 10 best train trips in the world. We’re having problems reconciling the impression of a Palace on Wheels with what we see around us.

Next up: Palace on Wheels.

(No features this posting. Will do when India wraps up.)