Day 2—New Delhi

Since my tour yesterday never really made it to Chandni Chowk, the main market street in old Delhi, I decided to try and go there on my own. I selected one among the dozens of taxi drivers vying for my attention outside the hotel and told him I wanted to go to Chandni Chowk. After 5 minutes of insisting repeatedly to him that I did not want a full day tour of the entire city, I finally managed to convince him to give me the simple one-way taxi ride that I had originally requested. Chandni Chowk looked like something out of a third world country, but I guess that's to be expected, since India *is* a third-world country. And apparently, the professional hasslers sleep late, because at 8:00 in the morning I encountered relatively few people offering their services to me. .

Never in my life have I seen so many people sitting around looking miserable, except possibly the last time Michigan lost to Ohio State. Actually, I can't say that they were looking that miserable--but the majority of them had nothing to do and were just sitting around.

For the afternoon tour, I was driven in an Indian-made Ambassador, which is a new car, but manages to look like a 1954 Plymouth both inside and outside. When I got in the car, the tour manager showed me the tickets for the flights over the next few days. The passenger name on the tickets read "Mike Katz, citizen of Canada". Well, since my (legal) first name is not Mike, my last name is not Katz, and I am not a citizen of Canada, I suggested that this might cause a problem at the airport. He reluctantly agreed, and got on his cell phone to call "his man" at the travel agency. After several minutes of him screaming into the phone in Hindi (I assume it was Hindi; it definitely was not English), he said something to the driver (again in Hindi), and we headed off in a direction opposite where the afternoon's tour was supposed to go. About 20 minutes later we arrived in a rather seedy neighborhood in northwest Delhi where the guide had the driver park, and he went into a second-story office over a rather (even for Delhi) shabby storefront. He emerged about 10 minutes later with new handwritten tickets, and we started the afternoon tour.

First stop was the Laxmi Narayan temple, which is a Hindu Temple built in about 1938. Here, I got my first explanation of Hinduism. I had tried reading up on it before the trip, but I could never understand it. At the temple, I got an extended explanation, and I understand it even less.

After this, we covered the "assassination route"--I got to see the place where Mahatma Gandhi was shot, then I got to see the place where Indira Gandhi (no relation) was shot. Finally, we went by the Bahai Temple, which was very neat.

Although the tour guide didn't take me to a couple of the places on the planned itinerary, he did manage to find time (surprise!) to take me to a carpet and souvenir emporium. Once again I resisted and didn't buy a carpet, although the salesmen were absolutely certain I needed several.

All my meals have been at my hotel, which is just fine, because I haven't seen a restaurant outside the hotel that I really want to eat at. The Indian food I've had is very good, and it's actually pretty much like the Indian food in the U.S., which is more than I can say for most cuisines. However, you may not go for the concept of Indian scrambled eggs, unless you want something with the consistency of weak oatmeal. So far I haven't had any "Delhi belly", and my fingers are crossed...

So, that's two days in Delhi/New Delhi, which is about all I can take. This certainly qualifies as the most intense and possibly intimidating place I have ever been to. I'm glad I came, but I don't think I'll be back soon (except to change planes). Fortunately, tomorrow I am flying to Udaipur, which is a much smaller city. Unfortunately, I have to get up at 3:30 AM to catch the flight.