Tuesday 4/29/2008- Friday 5/2/2008
Well I guess Katie is guilty of booking “too nice” of an overnight flight from Jordan to Delhi, as the Royal Jordanian plane was almost brand new and had built in video on demand in the seat backs…. Oh, and there were only 29 people on a flight that could hold 100, so we each had our own row. Needless to say, after watching two movies and playing plenty of games, we didn’t sleep a wink. We arrived early into Delhi and we were greeted by our free airport pick-up to our hotel.
Our first glimpse of India was at 5:30am, so we were highly entertained to see cows taking over the empty city streets. We were surprised to still see many cars/trucks/buses/tuk-tuks on the road, but the cows definitely outnumbered them. In India, Cows are considered holy, and they are pretty much the ‘Mean Girls’ of the streets, calling all of the shots. We knew that in our next life we wanted to come back as a cow in India.
After arriving at our $20/per night hotel, we slept until about 1:00pm before we decided to brave the streets of Delhi. The smallest tasks become huge feats, such as trying to find the ATM. We had to try several before finding one that gave us rupees. We took out a small amount, since we heard that going to the ATM can make your wallet VERY fat, VERY quick.
Our friend Alexa gave us some great tips on Delhi, so we decided to catch the Metro into Connaught Place. From what we’ve seen, life in India is very backwards. The subway is the CLEANEST part of the city?! We decided this would be our main mode of transport…if possible. We grabbed some of our first Indian cuisine around 3:00pm, our first meal of the day. After walking around Connaught Place, we decided to get our India planning underway, so we hopped on the metro to the New Delhi Train Station.
We have been ‘approached’ by many “touts,” as the ‘scam artists’ of India are called. Dermot and I have had to learn to just pretend we know where we’re going and what we’re doing, when we have absolutely no idea, as the “touts” swarm like flies on fresh…you know what. After a somewhat frustrating experience at the train station, we headed back to the hotel for some R & R. We found a cute little café on our street called “Everest Café and Bakery” owned by a very nice Tibetan man. His prices were dirt cheap, and we had two meals at his lovely establishment.
We started our second full day in Delhi by escaping the insanity of the city and heading to Gurgaon, where Google Delhi is located… in “Cyber City.” We still passed by cows going into the office, but we greatly appreciated their consistent Internet, as we had already experienced three power outages in Delhi. We successfully booked the rest of our trip, and we were very proud to have figured out buying India train tickets online….now we’ll see if they work!
Our Googler friend Alexa introduced us to several fantastic Delhi Expat Googlers who we hung out with at the office and went to a nice, fancy dinner with that night. Surprisingly, it was a steakhouse—so we indulged and both got steak (and we are writing this a few days later…we didn’t get sick! Wahoo!) We got to hear more about expat life in India, as well as the plush benefits of all their meals cooked for them, laundry done for them daily, as well as each having their own drivers, on call to take them wherever they want, 27/7. It was pretty incredible…and we thankfully got a ride from the office to dinner and back to our hotel. Thanks for showing us a great time Delhi Googlers!!!
Our last day in Delhi and we think we were happy that it was our last. New Delhi wears on you, and it doesn’t help that we are staying in the poorest of the poor neighborhoods…. Maybe it changes if you stay longer and get accustomed to all of what New Delhi is, but we were happy to be parting ways for a bit.
We started our day by touring the Red Fort. It was VERY hot today. It was somewhere between 105-115 (in the mid 40s Celsius), depending on different options. We hopped on the trust Metro and made our way north to see Old Delhi. Our first stop was Lal Qila, or The Red Fort on the banks of the Yamuna River. The fort was very pretty but we questioning whether it was worth battling the heat to see it. We braved the streets and the heat and walked over to the Jama Masjid Mosque, which was closed for prayer time. So we decided to head over to the very highly recommended Karim’s, in Gali Kababian, for lunch instead. It’s in the middle of a bazaar street and not very easy to find, until one of the locals in the street guides you in the right direction. The locals assume that any white person walking on this street wants to go to Karim’s and they are more than willing to show you the way (as long as you give them a tip as a thank you).
The food (especially the naan) met the high expectations we had based on all the recommendations we received for the restaurant. After lunch we went to the Jama Masjid Mosque; however, they wanted a large fee for a camera permit and wouldn’t let us both into the mosque unless we paid it. So to check it out, Dermot went in first. Being biased from seeing the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, we decided to keep moving.
We walked from the Mosque to the National Gandhi Museum. The museum did an excellent job at recapping Gandhi’s life, and Dermot and I both learned a lot about his childhood, career as a lawyer, impact in South Africa on apartheid, as well as his later years of non-violence to make India a great place for all.
We spent about an hour in the museum before taking a tuk tuk to Haymun’s Temple (also known as the monkey temple). We walked in to the temple and we were confused about why people come to this temple…and why our guidebook professed that professional wrestlers would love it here? We’re still looking into this…. We then went to the movie theater next door to see if we could find an Indian “bollywood” movie with English subtitles, but had no luck. To beat the insane heat, we stopped in at an ice cream shop for a little treat and then took the metro back to our hotel.
We thoroughly enjoyed the air conditioning of our room and showered to remove the layer of sweat, germs and dust that accumulated on our bodies throughout the day. We then braved Delhi for one more night for dinner. We took a pedicab to Connaught Place for dinner. We think that the pedicabs are supposed to be cheaper than tuk-tuks, but we felt bad for our driver who had to pedal our heavy American bodies, so we gave him a very good tip (he was seriously struggling). We decided to go authentic for food tonight and dined at Rodeo, a tasty Tex-Mex restaurant. The staff all had wooden guns and the manager’s name was Sheriff. Priceless.
We had an early walk to the train station in order to make our 6:00 a.m. train to Jaipur. It was amazing to see how different the neighborhood our hotel as in is in the early morning. It was eerily quiet and did not resemble the insanely chaotic, dirty and smelly version of Times Square that we had become accustomed to on our stay in Delhi. Even the dogs, goats and cows were quiet and asleep.