Saturday 8 November 2008
Delhi
So after waking up from a fairly brief snooze on the plane, we started descending into Delhi. From my window seat I couldn't see that much as I was on the wing, but I was a little worried. I couldn't see anything. I was pretty sure that we weren't over the sea, as Delhi is about as land locked as you can get. But there were no clouds, the sun was out, and I couldn't see anything on the ground. It was completely featureless.
Now India may be many things, but one thing it is not is featureless. As the plane descended into nothingness I stared to catch glimpses of land objects, but nothing I could make out. By the time we actually hit the ground, the situation was clear – thick, pale brown fog. I don't know if it was a kind of sandstorm or something, given the colour, but you couldn't see more than 20 metres.
The airport is pretty run-down 1970s. Not much to say about it there apart from that they check your passport about four times before leaving, which seems unnecessary. I had a taxi booked to my hotel which I take. It was a Tata Indica which is probably the most common car in the country, and of course the product of the massive Tata Corporation that owns about half the country (VJ Mallya, the owner of Kingfisher beer and planes and Force India F1 team owns the other half). There are loads of roadworks near the hotel signposted “Delhi Metro Airport Express” which is self explanatory. The strange thing about that is that they seem to be using a cut and cover technique, but they're mainly building it on scrub land, which makes me wonder why they don't just build it above ground. I guess there's a reason for it somewhere, but I'm not sure it's a good one.
We're back in the third world again (although is it still third world? It can't be second as that's communism, but it's not first. Maybe it's one and a half). Traffic chaos, beeping, dirt, uneven roads, half constructed and decaying buildings. Commerce squeezed into every nook and cranny. Should be fun.
Check in to the hotel. It's pretty rank, but for 7 GBP a night you wouldn't expect much else. At least the weather here is a lot cooler than it is in South East Asia. You can actually wear trousers in the day time. I go for a wander to find my bearings and also some food. This dust / fog atmosphere lends a very mystical edge to the whole place, much like you imagine the cliché of India to be, but it's actually real.
I find I'm actually already in the centre of the main bazaar, and there's very few westerners around. I stick out like a sore thumb and it's not long before random Indians start striking up conversations with me. One seems friendly enough and I ask him for directions to a restaurant. He takes me to one and actually calls ahead to place my order before I get there.
It's thali, basically a selection of vegetarian sauces, rice and bread, and tastes pretty good. The restaurant is full at 3.30, and I'm the only Westerner there. The meal costs 83 INR including a litre of water, which is a fraction over a pound.
I'm constantly wondering when this guy's gonna scam me, but so far it's all been good. He shows me where the reputable tourist office is (though I'll double check with the guide book) and take a drive in a tuk-tuk around Connaught Place. He even shows me on a map where St. James's Church is (when I ask him).
The tuk-tuk driver is friendly as well. It seems like everyone wants to try out their English, plus they are naturally curious, and friendly. I book a trip around Delhi the next day as it's pretty cheap, and then head back to the hotel to read up on where I want to go and have a quick kip.
After I wake up, I go out looking for some food. There are a bunch of recommendations in the guide book for the road I'm on, but I can't seem to find any of them. I eventually see one and settle for it, I mean, how bad can it be?
It's fine actually, though the one difference with the food over here is that more often than not the chicken in the curries that you order is still on the bone. And the chicken isn't that meaty either. I came to the conclusion that there was nothing for it – fingers it was. After all, that's how the locals do it. When in Rome... (it wouldn't be the last time I'd be saying that tonight).
One thing I noticed now that night had fallen was the amount of hippies wandering about. I didn't know they still existed, yet here they were, with bad hair, bad clothes, in most cases looking more than a little worse for wear (some of them were pretty old and frankly should have known better) and more often than not wearing thousand yard stares. You see, zen fucks you up, big time. The thing is, they look like walking clichés, and you kind of want to point this out to them. Though I'm sure that they would do the exact same thing to us in reverse.
It also seemed that the cows had come out to join the party. I hadn't seen any during the day but there were a fair few bulls and cows roaming the streets, being all sacred and that, and generally getting in the way. I guess they must be nocturnal animals over here.
After leaving the restaurant, I went looking for a bar. The was one obvious one mentioned in the guidebook that was yards from my hotel – seemed like a good place to start seeming as I couldn't really find any others. I popped in and ordered a Kingfisher. This bar was all table seating, and they shoved you in wherever there was a seat available. I was initially sitting across from a random Indian guy, but his English wasn't that good so there wasn't much happening there.
A few minutes later however a guy named John joined our table, and immediately we started hitting it off, chatting about our experiences. Turns out he was a Scot / Manx / Canadian / English / Australian crossover, having had quite an itinerant life as you probably can tell. He had arrived today as well and was travelling on his own, so he was pretty much in the same boat as me. The bar closed at 12 – there are tight licensing laws in Delhi – but I had read of a nightclub that was supposed to be cool, so we retrieved the details and headed out.
Unfortunately the tuk-tuk drivers that we asked didn't know of the place or the address. As we were trying to sort it out, a random passer by overheard us and told us that we probably wouldn't get in. He gave us some details about another late night place we could go, called “Blues” which was much in the centre of town. The driver didn't know the way to that either but we found it eventually.
Inside it was like a crap, fairly empty traditional bar. It was mainly full of Indians, with a few East Asians added in to the mix. But where do all the people hang out on the weekends then? This was Saturday after all. It clearly isn't a proper city.
But then we started to notice a couple of westerners. We had a few rounds and even went for a Mojito, and it was only after it was poured that I realised that I'd ordered a drink with crushed ice in it – not exactly an ideal thing to do in India.
So anyway after a while this place started to close as well, and as we were knocking back the last few drinks John spotted what was definitely a group of westerners, so he asked them if they knew of any other place that was still going to be open at this time.
Turns out they were American students doing a year abroad over here in Delhi, and knew a few things about where to go after hours. All the fully late places in Delhi take place in the large, expensive hotels, and they knew of a place to go. We shared a couple of tuk-tuks and set off into the dark, foggy night.
The ride seemed to last a long time to my mind, but we chatted to our new friends and found out about their story. We arrived at the hotel and went to the club – it was called, would you believe it – Dublin. Yes, it was Irish themed.
Inside it was a bit like a dark Waxy O'Connor's with bits of a gentlemen's club added on, with a dancefloor as well. Come to think of it, if Waxy O'Connor's had a dancefloor, it would make an awesome venue. But that's another story. Anyway we had a few more drinks there until, in turn, that place closed as well at about 3. There was nothing for it – we just had to go back to the American's apartment and continue drinking there.
Another long, dark, foggy tuk-tuk journey later, we arrived at their apartment which was pretty huge and was quite nice from what I could tell. We had a drink and John, who was pretty far gone by this stage, insisted on showing us Elvis Presley's last ever performance, as found on YouTube. It was now hitting about 5 a.m. And I had a tour of Delhi booked at 10, so I knew I had to make a move. One more tuk-tuk journey and I was home singing the Arctic Monkey's The View from the Afternoon along the way, as it had been in my head all day.
One other thing to mention about India is that at night everybody uses full beam. Well, it makes things easier to see in fog, doesn't it? No.
No comments:
Post a Comment