A Guide to New Delhi - A World Beyond Worlds

As I sit on the train from Agra Fort to Jaipur on day three of our journey, we have already encountered what makes this giant country unique. And finally, a moment to be able to reflect and put proverbial pen to paper. Our flight from London Heathrow to New Delhi set the tone for what we were to expect for the first part of our trip.

Up at the crack of dawn, we proceeded to catch the transfer bus to Heathrow Terminal 2. Like always, you really don’t need to be at the airport so early anymore but because everyone’s Dad insisted on getting to the airport four hours before a flight when you were a child, the tradition still seems to ring true no matter how old and autonomous you are. In fact, you know the times are changing when your mum offers you a plastic bag for your liquids three times before saying farewell but when you arrive at the airport they are no longer a thing (due to a new machine that can do something probably strange but ever so efficient when scanning your bags). Anyway, enough of the boring stuff.

A selfie outside of the Red Fort, New Delhi

Expect more of the same

The flight was great and unsurprisingly the large majority of passengers were Indian. I assume probably those that would affiliate with the upper class of the Indian social demographic – the chaps were cool with smart haircuts, trimmed beards and clothes the kids in London wear. I noticed it was common for the men to wear silver or gold bracelets and later found out it is a Punjabi tradition – hopefully I can find out more about Indian style and traditions as we go. And some of the women had the most glamourous jewellery, arm bangles and henna tattoos.

Interestingly I noticed five different colours of turbans from fellow passengers – orange, sky blue, navy blue, pink, maroon and black. Again, I’m unsure of what this represents, if it does anything at all. Class, a faction of Sikhism, age, family, etc? Boarding the flight was pretty hectic, a lot of barging, confusion over overhead luggage and the stealing of complimentary pillows and blankets – a precursor for what we were to expect from the mainland.

We landed at 3am and duly managed to get through customs by 4. Our jolly hotel driver warmly greeted us to his country before unceremoniously lobbing our luggage in what can only be described as a minivan that looked like it had served for ten years as a bumper car on Brighton Pier. The beeping of the horn is not a myth either but that is all part of the experience and I will talk more about that in another blog.

Nothing is ever for free

I don’t think it matters how much you read, watch or hear about India but more specifically New Delhi, nothing will ever really prepare you for doing it, but I am so glad that we did. Up and off to the Red Fort, a magnificent 17th-century Mughal fort crafted from large red bricks. Sandstone, perhaps.

A fake tourist information shop chanced their arm with Kea and I but we were too canny for the crafty old scammer who tried to tell us our train tickets were fake. “WS means waitlist sir, you have not got a proper ticket. I can refund them for you and book you a minivan to drive you instead”. WS of course means window seat, not waitlist (thanks to a quick Google search).

The Red Fort, New Delhi

We had also heard of locals asking for photos with Caucasian tourists and I had experienced similar in Vietnam nearly eight years ago. However, this was a different kind of interest and on a completely different scale. Often young adolescent males would ask and despite at first thinking they were asking to take photos with both of us, it was actually just with Kea. We soon realised that in saying yes to one person or group would mean others would quickly gather and ask for pictures too. A kind man at our hotel, Mir, told us that we will learn two things during our time in India, patience and how to say no – ironic, I know, as they juxtapose one another but that sort of sums up India.

Thankfully a nice chap could see us becoming slightly overwhelmed by the attention and helped us to make a swift getaway. You’ll quickly learn that no one does anything not for business here and it was soon apparent that he offered tours around parts of the city. We took him up on his offer as we thought it might be a good way to see the real side of India, as he expertly sold it to us, and boy was he right. We made our way through Chandni Chowk, or ‘Old Delhi’ as it is known to locals, and through the sliver, tea, spice and silk markets. It only cost us 500 rupees which is around a fiver and it was thoroughly worth it – we would’ve massively struggled without the area knowledge and nouse of our guide.

Spice Market, Chandni Chowk

Perfect chaos

A new smell every 2 minutes, so many different noises that you don’t know where to look and the things you see that make absolutely no sense to our Western world (cows loosely roaming the packed streets, for example). As the definition would have it, a complete sensory overload. It’s different, it’s alien to our everyday culture and it takes some getting used to but weirdly it really does work for the people that live and work here. Perfect chaos some would say. Sitting on the back of our tour guide's rickshaw, slaloming through the narrow side streets whilst miraculously avoiding anyone or anything in our path reminded me somewhat of Starlings and the formations they create during murmuration. It’s sort of unexplainable but it does just work.

The occasional comment of encouragement to a pedestrian in the way to move, never in anger or frustration, would see them calmly move sideways and out of harms way without even a mere glance over their shoulder. The skill of the guide’s cycling ability to quickly stop, start, shift left or right and ultimately manoeuvre a far from a streamlined vehicle was remarkable in itself. I thought to myself, the experience and know-how from these people who live, work and walk these streets every day has taught them how to successfully co-exist with one another in possibly the most congested human system on the planet. An achievement that sees their community and way of life work for them. If I, or most British tourists for that matter, tried to join in and drive one of these vehicles, with the innate hesitation and over-politeness we possess (sorry, excuse me, sorry, oops, sorry etc), I could imagine the whole system collapsing and quickly.

The travelling begins

At the time of writing we are now on our second train and we have found it all pretty easy to navigate our way around. An average ten/fifteen-minute tuk-tuk journey costs roughly 100 Rupees, £1. Whilst a twenty/thirty minute Uber costs around £2.50. Our train yesterday was on the more expensive side for India – New Delhi to Agra (one hour, forty-five minutes) – and cost us roughly £15 each, but bear in mind that was business class and complimentary snacks were provided. Masala nuts, dried fruit, a sweet peanut bar, some sort of blitzed and pastry-coated clove ball, a vanilla cream stuffed croissant and a chai tea to wash it down. Lovely. We traveled to Agra for the sole purpose of visiting the Taj Mahal the following morning...

If you enjoyed my first write-up and enjoyed our insights into our adventure so far then feel free to check out my next feature where I look forward to telling you all what we thought of one of the world’s most beautiful sights and much more.

Old Haveli ruins, Chandni Chowk