Delhi: The Hard Way [Day one in Delhi]

I wrote this after my first day in Delhi. Much more to come on India...

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So I'm definitely in Delhi - and I think I like it. That said I'm starting to feel as if the only way I'm going to get around this country is the hard way. See what you think....

As a white European tourist, I'm starting to get the feeling there are three ways of doing things in a country like India [or any place in the world where travellers can encounter a genuine spectrum in the way people live]. There's the 'deluxe' [a word that is liked very much here] way...that is to say 'well bugger me sideways if I've not got more money than sense of adventure - let's see if I can go this whole trip without leaving an Air-conditioned area and hopefully I'll avoid having to actually interact with anyone from India who doesn't have three PhDs and maybe there'll be a slight chance I won't be splurting out orangey bum juice for the next week or hosting an intestinal buddy with a head of hooks.

Second there's the 'medium' type which is basically saying "I'm going to pretend not to be doing the 'deluxe' by going on a tour with other young gapper-slappers and feeling like we did it ourselves because we had to use public transport to get to our non-airconditioned mini-bus which will drive us around and let us take photos of endangered tigers and Tibetans". The third type can either be described as 'budget', 'endurance', 'hippie', 'the hard way' or 'no money'. It can either be out of an inverted snobbery, a kind of Orwellian "I'm going to live in poverty to find myself when quite frankly I'm really rather comparatively minted and can 'deluxe it up' at any time I like" [Read 'Down and Out in Paris and London' by George Orwell to see the kind of self-serving poverty seeking path of misery borne from a guilt at an upper-lower middle class upbringing which is wonderfully and I think quite unintentionally laid bare by him]. In this bracket you also meet the family travellers, who are couples usually dragging their poor kids around with them and putting them through all kinds of hell for 10 months. I met a woman who was doing this - she described being in a train carriage for 10 people with 18 in it [and her family] as being a 'really special moment'. What bloody nonsense. If 'semi-traumatic testing moments' can be described as special I can think of plenty of 'special moments' I've had travelling. And all those family holidays peppered with arguments were actually our very own 'special moments'. I must have a whole catalog of 'special' memories of me and my sister driving my poor parents insane with an unending stream of nonsensical petty arguments. Maybe I can convince my family they were so special we should have another go at creating some more some time?

Anyway, back to my simplified 3-tier way of travelling. In India, I admit I originally considered the 'medium' route, with a hint of budget and a dash of gapper-slapper for good measure. I'm already very glad I didn't [I met some objectionable gapper slappers today on an organised trip which confirmed this]. As I'm relatively near the end of my trip I'm naturally near the end of my savings. Owing to a few extensions and a bit of denial, I'm actually about two hundred pounds away from the end of my savings - so like it or not - I'm budget.

Saying that, I seem to be choosing 'the hard way' even when I don't have to - it's just more preferable after a while as it's often much more interesting. Maybe I should let Orwell off a bit. [He really does start to fuck you off if you read 'Homage to Catalonia' though. It's like 'George, don't go in the trenches, you're really tall and will probably be shot. Oh, you've been shot, well done - idiot'].

When I say I am choosing the hard way, it's often by accident - it's little things like I didn't realise my hostel did free airport pickups and so managed to walk right past my name on a board at the aiport. To be fair it was amongst literally hundreds of others...it's not like I was arriving at the Arctic research base and walked past a trained Polar bear pissing my name into the snow - it's Delhi - 16 million people live here. So right from the start I seemed to be taking the hard route. My taxi driver gave me a crash course introduction to Indian driving [thankfully not literally]. Watching Sanjay, my driver, swerve between lanes was quite an education in human reflexes. It was like no one was able to chose a lane, or I was like the 6th sense kid, except 'I see road lines' and no one else would believe me. There also seemed to be a strange and secret code of honking and flashing that eluded me and seemed to be equally mysterious to other drivers too.

People in India drive like each one of them has read a different Highway code, each written by a different child with an overactive imagination, not yet curbed by Ritalin. For good measure these codes are then printed in Braille and handed to the drivers to make sense of for the first time whilst being given their first driving lesson/ test and being asked to solve long division problems in some crazy moon language, like Welsh.

It seems the only common code of communication that all drivers share is honking and one other thing. Honking seems to mean 'look out' or 'look at me' or 'I'm bored of this red light, why isn't it green' or 'look, there's a cloud' or 'just testing if my horn works in case I see a cloud'. The other thing is called 'BANG'. Let me say that I felt quite brave sat on the back of a motorbike in Bangkok. Seeing Delhi I feel like I've left 'Primary school for shit driving' and graduated up to big school where all the real fuckwits come to drive before being set free across the world and let loose in places such as Birmingham and Coventry. If you think I'm exaggerating read on.

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I sat down to read the paper this morning over my breakfast of tea and toast with jam and felt like an old English gent. One of the many fascinating headlines was 'traffic kills more in Delhi than cancer'. Especially buses called 'blueliners' apparently. I made a mental note to avoid big blue busses, and cancer. As I sat eating my breakfast I was watched impatiently by a member of hotel staff. 'You ready yet? we go to free information centre - we take you there for free'. I enjoyed the last warm dregs of my tea and unenthusiastically walked into what was most certainly something that was too good to be true. You don't get a free transfer to an office when there's not a big commission about to be earned. Once in their office I was, in fairness, given a lot of good information by the guys. I learned of fly-fishing in the Himalayas near a place called Shrinagar. I got that fluttery feeling I write about in 'Why I fish' [which no one has read as I've not uploaded it yet]. It's a dangerous fluttery feeling which is usually followed by the spending of much cash on fish-related fun. Whether I can afford to let this become an idee fixe remains to be seen.

After being given this information I was almost bundled into a car which would take me around 5 sites in Delhi I'd never heard of. This was, might I add, entirely against my will. It was such a rehearsed rip off that so many tourists had fallen for that I just went with the flow until I was in the car. The first stop was a temple. 'where are we?' I asked. This question failed to stumble over the language barrier, 'you look for ten minutes' he replied. We finish in 5 hours, you pay XXX rupees". I walked out the car and began to hatch an escape plan, until someone shouted 'hey mister mister, cobra in a box'.

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I got back in the taxi, armed with my firm and fair plan. I said slowly and clearly 'Take me to the nearest tourist information centre please - there I will get out and pay you, as I don't have XXX rupees'. He seemed to pick up the drift of me not having money and said ' ok, I take you to tourist information - but first we go to a special shop'. I was getting serious De Ja vu [see Tuk Off]. As I stood in the shop staring into the middle distance some lost looking English girls walked in saying 'why are we here?' to each other. I almost literally pounced on them - the first English people I'd seen since landing. We got chatting and I explained the reason we were in the shop. We agreed to all meet at the nearest Tourist Information and told our respective drivers of our intention. 'See you soon' I said, 'or maybe I'll never see you again ha ha'. I never saw them again - that's Delhi I guess. [[Interestingly, by some astronomical odds - I did see them again the next day - they walked right past my hostel and we chatted away -so that's Delhi, I guess!]]

Finally I arrived at a Government tourist information where a couple of overworked and disinterested people vaguely agreed my itinerary was do-able but expensive. They could do it cheaper. I suddenly realised this wasn't an official Tourist Information, but just a Government licenced information outlet. I'm still not sure if I've been in the real one yet. I don't think one exists. In this way India is frustrating. It is the rule rather than the exception that most people are trying to make money out of you. I'd had enough guff - my blood sugar was low and I needed food. My friend had given me some advice on travelling India and said 'be flexible'. There's just no point fine planning in India for so many reasons - such as unpredictable delays or meeting new friends. Instead of freaking out about what and where I'd do in India and when, I decided there and then I'd make it up as I went -starting with lunch. 'Know any good places for lunch?' I asked. 'KFC that way - McDonalds that way' he said patronisingly. I scornfully replied 'I mean Indian food' with a smug smile. How dare he assume that because I'm European I'll leap in front of a bluebus to get to some chips. Five minutes later I was ordering a dirty Ronald, where the menu was: Veggie, Veggie, Chicken, Chicken or Fish. It was relatively quite pricey. 20 meals could get you a plane ticket up north to the fly-fishing place...

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Afterwards, I walked to a grassy area [kept on the brink of brown extinction by a sprinkler]. I passed a book shop and bought a copy of 'The Old Man and the Sea' which I'd been seeking for weeks. On the way to finding somewhere to read it I was called to and approached several times by what I assumed were peddlers [they weren't on bikes, but they were definitely peddling something]. I began to learn to ignore these approaches and calls. After ignoring one guy he said 'ear cleaning?'. I turned and smiled at his funny joke - implying I was deaf. Nope. Turns out street peddlers actually clean your ears [I saw them do it to someone]. While reading, I was approached 5 times by these cotton-bud carrying nut cases. They all carry small leather bound books of handwritten multilingual reviews of ear cleanings such as, 'wow, who knew I had such crap in my ears? Thank you so much, now I can hear street peddlers harassing me - John 1987'. The languages he flicked through before reaching English were strange and many. For example, one I'm sure was Sanskrit - one of the most ancient languages on earth, which is apparently still flourishing in the Indian ear-cleaning community. If an archaeologist ever found one of these books it would be like the Rosetta stone.

After an hour of reading in the sun I headed off in a random direction. I was shouted at by a group of school boys and called over. They were wearing matching ties of various length and were about 17 - they seemed to just want to test if the English they learned in school actually worked on a real life subject. We chatted and they took turns trying on my [quite normal] hat. If I was wearing a fruit bowl I'd have understood - oh well. The simple act of them trying on my hat drew a crowd of ten. I was surrounded by semi-curious grinning locals and did what I always do when faced with many strangers - I asked for travel advice. Ask a group of strangers from the same place for advice and they'll argue for hours. It was great fun and I gained valuable advice. One guy called Ricky, who was 21 and had a violent scar under his left eye, said he'd walk me to a temple. 'I don't want money - just to practise English'. We got talking about this and that. 'My 5 brothers are dead' he said right before walking in front of a car. It dodged him, just, and I felt no need to ask how his brothers had died. I've seen so many near misses in India - only ever near misses though.

Ricky took me to his temple and explained all the baffling figures. Turns out I actually knew a few of them! We sat down in the temple and some prayer started. A man sat on the floor with a book on a cushion and a microphone by his mouth and he began to sing the prayer. It was only old woman in the temple congregation of about ten and they tunelessly joined in at random it seemed. I was just about to get bored when suddenly an old woman [of about, well, really old]suddenly started playing this massive drum with a hand on each end. She must have played for twenty minutes. I've been present at recording sessions where session drummers have missed more beats. She was ace. Suddenly prayer was a bit more fun, with people randomly hitting bell sticks and clapping. Maybe the Church of England should release a Drum N Base remix of the Lord's Prayer to get people a bit more exited about the concept of an afterlife? Though the next logical step might be spiking the communion wine, which could send out the wrong message...?

Me and Ricky went for some Chi and we sat and unpretentiously exchanged philosophies. 'In India, anything is possible' he said 'live life and love life - that's the Indian way'. Then he offered to get me some hash - turns out this was his preamble. I politely decline. I enjoyed out cup of tea though. I think a cup of tea is something very culturally at the heart of both England and India [and many other cultures] - if only the whole world spoke English and drank tea. Maybe India is bringing out the colonialist in me...

We talked a little more and just before parting he asked me for some money for his school books. I'm pretty sure the money wouldn't have ended up on school books but I'd love to be wrong. I gave him none, of course, giving various patronising reasons about not being able to help everyone even if I wanted to. I couldn't help but feel the entire afternoon had led up to this question. I had half expected it though. I guess he was just a very eloquent beggar. Begging is something that most people like to ignore quite enthusiastically in Europe - not needing to pay much attention to it. In India, it pays attention to you. When ordering an icecream from a stand, three or four children might come up to you and ask for money and make a hand gesture which means food. You can't help but feel like an utter bastard not giving them money. Having worked for a charity though, I know you can't help everyone. And it's never the most needy actually begging - the most needy wouldn't have enough energy to hassle you. None the less, with all my semi-Daily Mail intellectual arguments against giving to beggars and in favor of supporting charities this doesn't help when you're tucking into a delicious icecream Feast with begging children at your feet. You can hardly say 'boo hoo to you' or 'sucks to be you'. I know there's so much suffering in the world - when it's in your face though it's hard to stay strong. When someone fakes a friendship in order to ask money, you start to find it hard to trust anyone you meet in Delhi. And that's a sad state of affairs, but let me explain.

Trust is a problem in India it seems. On the Delhi metro today was an announcement: 'Do no befriend any unknown person'. That was it, word for word. Rather takes the wind out of the idea of making new friends - but false and loaded behavior with a view to extracting money is a big issue in this culture it seems. Similarly, Ricky had earlier told me very earnestly that you couldn't trust a Muslim, 'they are the most dishonest people in India and that they never smile back when you smile at them' at which I expressed some doubt but mostly just listened. This was what he believed though and the ingrained ideas and divisions in all Indian society which manifest in poverty and religious segregation seem to have persisted for Milena so far and show little sign of ending in this one. The girls I re-bumped into today said they felt they couldn't trust anyone in India, which was why they were going on the tour. I can't say I entirely agree with the girls'opinions and I think they may have over-reacted by going on an all-pre-booked tour. Saying that I can certainly see the appeal after all my false leads and misinformation. I always think if you can trust your own judgement you can trust anyone - you can trust them to act how you expect them to - however that may be. And Ricky I guess is just another example of where that line blurs. He was very nice and interesting, but a whole afternoon of conversation was engineered to extract money. It's a very strange state to explore a city in - always expecting the sting in the tail of kindness. And the most strange thing of all is that mistrustful con artists and tauts will try to put you off other mistrustful people, dismissing them as dishonest for trying to con you. In the next breath they will try to con you. From a detached view it's funny, but face to face every day it's quite exhausting.

This is emblematic of an aspect of Indian culture. Each man for himself. Whether it's fellow tauts besmirching the others, tuk tuk drivers fighting fellow drivers to get your bags out your hand for your fare [in the absence of a taxi rank], the endless honking in stationary traffic or the rugby scrum of the Delhi metro - everyone seems to assume that they are in a hurry and you're not. That their personal mission is priority. For example - it isn't rare to find 5 jeeps offering the same trip to the same place, with all of them semi-full and refusing to leave until they are full - while still trying to fill them, rather than just put everyone into two jeeps and leave.

These are just my impressions of India and Delhi, and mostly I'm describing people in business. It almost goes without saying this country is also brimful of amazing, kind and lovely people - just like everywhere in the world. It just seems that India's ratio of people who are out only for themselves is a little higher in the cities than anywhere else I've been. Saying that, I've not been to China.


Right I better stop writing guff and actually decide what on earth I'm going to do here...thanks for reading if you made it this far! I'm in Mcleodganj at the moment and heading out for some food. Bye!