The Dehli Local

Greetings from Delhi

We took off from our hotel with Subhash, our driver for the next 5 days. We are so thankful to have a driver -- they are crazy here. Six lanes of TukTuks, rickshaws, bicycles, motorcycles, taxis, cars, and trucks all crowded into four lanes. They go through red lights willy nilly. They go the wrong direction if it suits them. It's best to sit in the back seat and not look out the window, but we didn't want to miss seeing anything!

We picked up our guide on the way to KFC. I wondered what exotic location was at KFC and I soon found out. Kentucky Fried Chicken! Really? Yes.

We had booked the "Local Tour" with a highly rated tour company, Delhi Magic. So far they were a fantastic as all the Trip Advisor's review said. We were off to see Old Delhi.

Our first tour vehicle was the Metro. Every 2 minutes a train arrives. Our trip cost $.015 -- that's right, less than 2 cents. Needless to say, the train was crowded. I thought, "At these prices, everyone can afford to take the Metro!" However, I was wrong. Many of the people we saw on that tour could not afford 8 rupees. 

I didn't take many pictures. It seemed an invasion of privacy to photograph such poverty. I stood out in my crisp white shirt. All people were dress in clothes that had been washed in muddy water weeks ago and wrapped in thin clothes that gave a different meaning to fifty shades of grey. I had brought a scarf to cover my head because we were going into temples and soon I hid my white shirt under its colorful pattern.

We walked through streets and alleys while Pradeep, our guide described what we were seeing. Pradeep is a university student who studied in Bellingham WA and is now getting his master's in Tourism in Delhi. At times his accent made it hard to understand but he cheerfully explained again when we asked.

"Next we take rickshaw, OK?" All three of us climb into our rickshaw with Pradeep somehow perched in the rumble seat. The poor driver. He must have had a heart attack when we saw these well-fed Americans we had to pull. At least the rickshaws are dragged by bicycles, but imagine what an effort it is to pull the likes of us many blocks, slightly uphill.

Oh the sites we saw on that part of the trip. Heavy ladened wagons, pulled by one man, pushed by another! They hauled bricks and rice and spices. And hundreds of others who had no work and were huddled around tiny trash fires hoping to ward off the morning fog. 

Street vendors sold tea and all manner of curries and bread. This is one of the more appetising ones. I have wondered through all of this trip why there are so many street vendors. 5-10 in every block, on almost every road in the poor areas of town. Pradeep explained it to me. These people have no kitchen. Actually they have no home or only a "tent" made of shopping bags to sleep in. They buy their tea and paratha bread on the street -- if they have the money!

Our richshaw destination was the first of the three temples we visited. At each temple we left our shoes and socks with the "shoe vendor." I didn't see how much Pradeep paid the shoe-check woman, but I am sure every job is deeply valued in this part of town. We had visited mostly Buddhist temples in Cambodia and Thailand, here we encountered the great melting pot. India has hundreds of religions. We went to three places of worship: Hindu, Jain, Sikh. Since we weren't familiar with their practices, and we were dressed in the very clean clothes, I felt conspicuous walking around, observing. Pradeep told us when we had to cover our heads, etc. so we didn't insult the worshippers. He seemed quite at ease in every temple and he too was a visitor. What I remember most about each temple:

The Jains rang bells -- loud ones -- to annouce to God that they had arrived to worship. Rice offerings were sold outside and there was lots of rice on the floor. Many people went around kissing the edges of alters, the faces of statues, the very steps we were walking on! Ugh. One man kissed and cough and hacked and kissed and people followed right behind him, kissing the very places he had just left!

The Hindus have many gods and they were amply represented in their temple. I suspected Pradeep was (or had been) Hindu because he took us to the first priest to get a blessing. Not a bindi but a mark (I forgot to ask what the substance was). We received a flower and of course, Jim left an offering of cash. Pradeep said that many students came to pray for good grades. When asked if he did that, he said "No, I believe in work." 

It was the Sikh temple that fascinated me most. There was actually a shallow foot bath to walk through to enter the temple. Imagine just how clean the feet enter there are. On the street, people huddle around the occasional spigot and "wash" with dirty rags. And now they were purifying themselves with communal water. 

The Sikhs provide food for anyone who wants to eat. The fare is simple and as seen in the two pictures here, a community process.

The scene here is from the hall when servers dip ladles of lentil soup and distribute chapatis to a never ending stream of people who would otherwise sleep with an empty belly.