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Delhi, India
March 10th, Wednesday - Arrival in Delhi
A gentleman was waiting for us at the Delhi
airport. He had been there the entire delay time. Even at 10
PM the traffic in Delhi was heavy. They have banned all truck
traffic during the day from the city roads. So we crept along
with the 1000’s of trucks snaking through the city. The
tut-tuts and bicycle rickshaws were also on the roads.
 Our hotel, the Oberoi Maidens, is just north of the Old City.
It’s not in the most convenient area for tourist activities
but was the only one I could find online with a swimming pool
and a reasonable price. Dehli is constructing a Metro line
down the middle of the road in front of the hotel to add to
the mess in the city. While it is an older building, the
Maidens is in pretty good condition set in beautiful grounds.
There are many trees and gardens surrounding the building. Our
suite is huge with 14 ft ceilings. AD is in an adjoining small
room. We have the most comfortable pillows to lay our heads on
since we left home. They are huge, fluffy pillows and best of
all they give you two!
 Delhi is a shocking place. It is noisy,
crowded and dirty. None of those things surprised us. We
expected the worst and it‘s there in your face if you want to
see it. I think that street traffic is worse than I expected,
but what really surprised us are the wide tree lined streets
and beautiful neighborhoods near the government center. In all
the chaos, you can find tranquil areas. In all the decay and
dirt, there are modern high-rise buildings and the
presidential palace. There are lots of poor, very poor, people
in India, but there are many very rich people too who live in
huge gated compounds with guards.
March 11th, Thursday - Making travel plans for India
Finally a great nights sleep! It’s amazing
what a comfortable bed and pillow will do for a good night
sleep. The hotel provided a nice breakfast buffet. AD ate more
food than he’s eaten in more than a month. A man picked us up
to drive us to Indi Globe Travel. Traffic is so frightening
that you want to close your eyes or better yet lay down in the
back seat. Every vehicle has dents and scratches from close
encounters with the tut-tuts, cycles or push carts. The
vehicles fill all the road space. What should be 2 lanes has 5
widths of vehicles. It is a game of jockeying for position in
the flow of traffic. Every now and then a wondering cow will
be added to the mix. The lack of trucks is a real plus. Delhi
has converted all the buses and tut-tuts to CNG (natural gas)
which has eliminated a lot of air pollution. The air isn’t
without particulates but is still much better than it would be
otherwise.
 At the office, we went over a sample itinerary for the next
three weeks. India has very expensive air flights unless you
purchase an air pass. They aren’t cheap either. After a
lengthy meeting, we agreed on cities, hotel selections and
dates. While they confirmed availability, we walked around the
Karol Bagh business district. The streets were abuzz with
shoppers and merchants. We spotted a McD’s and went to buy AD
lunch. Unfortunately the menu was a surprise. On the wall is a
sign announcing, “beef and beef products are not sold here”.
He ordered a shake and fries.
 Back at the travel agency we found the hotels and flights were
all available. We paid for the package and went back to the
hotel. We changed into our swimsuits and headed for the pool.
It’s a huge pool and over 10 ft deep in one end. The water was
a lovely temperature. A family with 3 children came out and AD
swam with them. We used the hotel computer for the internet
but there isn’t any MSN messenger. That required a walk down
the construction zone to a small internet location. DW wasn’t
able to find anyone online.
The mussies (mosquitoes) had a field day on her. The buildings
doors were open and insects hungry. We ate dinner at an Indian
vegetarian restaurant next door. The food was excellent but AD
didn’t like anything he ordered, especially the curly fries
that came and looked more like great big fried mush sticks.
Definitely not curly fries. Oh well he had a good breakfast,
lunch and snacks.
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AD Journal |
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March 12th - Gandhi
 Today we went to Mahatma Gandhi’s
burial tomb. Mahatma means great soul and Gandhi means
grocer. My dad says ‘he is the George Washington of
India“. This man believed that man sacrifices himself
for his family, the family sacrifices itself for the
village, the village for the country, and the country
for the greater good of mankind. He was one of the most
important people that lived in the 20th century.
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Touring Delhi...» |
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