Old Delhi

After or visit to Jama Mashid, we head off to the Red Fort where we had a great Indian lunch in a very nice restaurant in the Fort gardens. Food was delicious; we had spicy rice, chicken and paneer served in beautiful bronze plates. We enjoyed the Red Fort very much. It was very pleasant to walk in the gardens along the palaces. A big group of students found us looking at them and they called us to pose with them in their pictures. We had thousands of pictures taken with them.

Then we decided to explore Chandni Chowk in search of the Indian bazaars with spices and silver and all the nice things I had read. A guy in a rickshaw found us lost in the middle of the crowd he asked us if we wanted to go to the spices market. We felt relief that we did not have to find the way ourselves, so said yes and sat quite amused in the rickshaw. He took a picture of Borja driving the rickshaw and Julian and I sitting behind, and then he drove us all the way down the road to tell us at the very end that the spice market was closed because it was Sunday. The driver was so nice and smiley, that I could not feel annoyed with him. I could not help but think of how difficult life must be for a rickshaw driver. I think he was happy with the rupees I gave him, but still he chased us for over one hour while we were walking through the Muslim street shops, asking us if we wanted to visit other places of interest. Julian was tired and felt like going back to the hotel and rest, but Borja and I were fascinated, and although we were also exhausted, and the Muslim street shops were not what we expected to see, we did not want to miss a thing so we kept walking along the street looking everything at every single shop. Julian was very patient, I must say. We passed by some interesting places though, like two men behind a counter in the middle of the street filling plastic colorful cups with water for the people passing by. We also found some marble stairs leading to a temple, and in the entrance many Indians washed their feet in the running water to prepare for prayer.

After our visit to the Old Delhi, we met Jitu and Mrinalika in a fancy shopping center where we had dinner and a great time with them both. I suppose it is still difficult for them to understand why we enjoy the Old Delhi much more that any modern and fancy shopping center, but it was interesting to see the contrast. It was hard to believe that we were still in the same city. Then we went back to the hotel to get ready for our visit to Agra the next day.

Jama Mashid, Old Delhi

I was very surprised to know that our Indian friends living in Delhi for several months now, still had not visited the Old Delhi, but then I realized that I have not visited many of the touristic places in Madrid neither, although I lived there most of my life. It seems you need to be a foreigner to be interested in the history of a place.
The Old Delhi was the most crowded place I have visited. We took a cab to Jama Mashid, and he dropped us on the other side, so we had to practice our crossing Indian roads skills to reach there. The Mosque is built in a high ground, so to enter you need to climb up quite a few steps. It is very impressive to find it then. A few men were handing clothes to men and women to cover themselves in the entrance. Borja was wearing shorts, so he had to tie a piece of cloth around his waist. I was lucky that I was dressing Indian, so the man let me in. I think they appreciate the fact that I dress Indian, however, even if I do not open my mouth, most of the people can tell right away that I am from Spain . How is this possible?

Jama Mashid in Delhi is probably the most beautiful Mosque I have ever seen. We found a few people praying along the corridors, but it seem that at that very moment most of the people were families enjoying their visit just like ourselves. I suppose it was not praying time.

I remember many kids running to get in front of us to have their picture taken by Julian. They did not ask for money or pens or anything, they were just happy posing and seeing themselves in the screen. We walked every single corner of the Mosque, and then climbed up the minaret where we discovered a magnificent view of the old city. The way up to the top was a very narrow corridor of steep steps with hardly enough space for two people, one coming down and another going up. Every time we met someone, we needed to step back and lean against the wall. It was quite an experience! Once at the top, we realized that the air was dusty, and although there was quite a lot of visibility, Julian wished the sky was bluer for his pictures. It is not easy to be a photographer!



Pics of Delhi

Our first day in Delhi

We arrived in Delhi at noon. I had forgotten to confirm our arrival, so nobody came to pick us up. I called the hotel but they advised us to take a cab to Karol Bagh and call them again from there there so that they could send someone to bring us to the hotel. So that is what we did. Julian, me and two big suitcases were dropped around two in the evening in a very busy road, with several street shops behind us selling crash helmets and other sports gear. A tall guy from the hotel came to greet us, took our suitcases and guided us towards the hotel. I remember that there was no footpath and we had to follow him almost in the middle of the traffic. At one point, one auto-rickshaw was coming towards us and our tall guy stopped walking and stood there giving him a challenging look that made the rickshaw stopped suddenly, thank goodness!

When we arrived to the hotel we asked for Borja who came down to meet us with a big smile. We later learned that he just went for a short walk along the hotel street and had not eaten much since the day before. The truth is that the street was not the best. It had no pavement, there were people sleeping in the street and cows passing by. A big shock for Borja who was new to India and arrived to the hotel the night before all by himself.

The hotel was modest but it was clean. We were surprised to find that the people working at the hotel slept on the floor right below ours.

We first went to meet Vikas, our travel agent, that took the occasion to ask us a few questions about how to best structure an AdWords account. His office was in the same roof as his house I believe, I think it was his children playing in the front yard when we were walking into the office. He looked like a nice guy to me, he told us it was his birthday and he just turned 38. We also met Rinku, our driver, that same day. We arranged to meet him in two days to head off to Agra and Rajasthan. Rinku dropped us in the metro station. Vikas adviced us to do so if we wanted to meet Jitu on time, because the traffic was crazy and it would take us very long to go by taxi. Delhi is amazingly huge.

We were very impressed by the security measures at the metro station. If it wasn't that is was way too crowded, we would have thought we were at the airport. We bought a bottle of water but were unsure if we should drink it so we did not. Now I think it was probably perfectly safe, but we had a long trip ahead of us and did not want to take the risk.

We found Jitu in the train station about 45 minutes later. We were starving then, so he drove us to a Pizza hut restaurant nearby. After lunch it was already getting dark, so Jitu took us to Khan Market, one of the expats favorite places he told us. I liked it too. It is a square full of shops, most of them for fabrics, sarees, stoles... and we did some shopping of course. We bought bangles and stoles, and the guys when to a tailor to have a shirt made. Jitu was so friendly and nice to us.

Then we went for dinner to a very fancy restaurant in a very nice part of the city, I do not remember the name. The menu had many dishes from different countries, I remember there were Spanish dishes too. We sat at a table in beautiful garden, very nicely decorated with candlelit and Halloween pumpkins. The temperature dropped a little and when we finished our dinner we had a nice tea inside.

Then we went back to the hotel to get enough sleep and get ready for a full day in the Old Delhi...