Sunday 3 February 2019

In New Delhi, Day Two...

Well let's start with the end of day one: after about three hours' sleep I got up and moseyed around, checked things out. I took a look at the pool. Miles too cold and nobody else looked interested so I contented myself with touching the water, as if to confirm my suspicions that the water was cold, off-puttingly cold.

There are two restaurants here at The Park: Fire, which is the Indian restaurant – and by this I think they mean the place where the Indians like to eat, or possibly the place where you can get proper Indian food – and Mint, which is more mainstream, but still offers Indian food. Mint is where breakfast is served.

The pool at the Park Hotel, New Delhi...
Prior to any of the above taking place, I had an amazing rain shower. Not as invigorating as the one I took in the Act Hotel in Japan in October, but invigorating enough to make it excellent. Later, after everything that has happened in these three paragraphs, I headed outside. One thing I do know about India is that wherever I go, I'm hassled. Taxi drivers, auto rickshaw drivers, people trying to sell me something, it's non-stop. While walking, however, I met a nice guy, whose name I can't pronouce now, but he worked at the hotel at which I was staying, the aforementioned Park, as a cleaner. Seven hour days and he's happy. He lives in Delhi, has a wife and two children of school age. He likes cricket. He walked with me and at first I thought he was after something (money) but he wasn't, he was very friendly and took me to an emporium where I bought a small elephant and a fridge magnet. He gave me directions home, but I was soon lost and had to resort to the iphone's GPS (God knows what I would have done without the iphone).

One thing that amazes me about the Indians is there ability to put themselves in danger on a daily basis – simply by crossing the road. You must remember that here in Delhi (and in other big Indian cities) there is a lot of traffic and no rules of the road. People simply get behind the wheel and put their feet down. It's down to the pedestrians to keep out of the way (as I found out last night when I was nearly run over). I swear the guy accelerated, but there you go. This new pal of mine simply stepped out into advancing traffic and advised me to do the same. "It's alright, it's alright," he said as I bravely followed. And he was right. They have nine lives or charmed lives or both and yesterday it seemed that I did too.

I'm pleased with my elephant and fridge magnet and have put them in the hotel safe as somebody I know claims he stayed in this very hotel and had a pair of sunglasses stolen from his room. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. In fact, the hotel is very nice and so are the people that work in it. Mind you, all Indians are nice, they're all very polite and helpful, especially my friend from yesterday who I hope I'll meet again some time over the next few days.

When I got back to the hotel I had dinner. I'm a little paranoid about eating and drinking here as so much has been said about not drinking the water (I only have bottled water), cleaning your teeth with mineral water (yes, I did that yesterday and will be doing it again very shortly) and washing your hands all the time. Well, yes, I've been doing that too. I've had two rain showers in under 24 hours and washed my hands too and I'll probably wash them again in a second.

The food here is amazing. I opted for the Mint restaurant and it's one of those self-service buffets offering wonderful food: cooked vegetables, curry, rice, such an array of stuff that I can't remember exactly what I had to eat. Suffice it to say that I ate well, washed the lot down with bottled water and then went back to my room. I hit the sack at around 2200hrs (certainly no later than 2230hrs) and while I woke up around 0200hrs I got back to sleep and woke up at gone 0800hrs. Outside the fog was so thick that I could see nothing from my hotel window. It's clearing a little bit now at 0943hrs, but the air quality here is very poor (it even says so on my iphone).

I had a shower and shaved and headed down for my first breakfast at The Park. Brilliant. Everything I dream of: curry for breakfast and again I can't remember the names of the dishes, but some kind of potato-based curry, fresh vegetables and vegetable strudels, little ones, like mini sausage rolls but hot. I also had porridge, which tasted like porridge – and by that I mean it tasted like the porridge I remember from when I was younger. Somehow the porridge I have at home is thicker and less 'oaty' in taste, but here in New Delhi, while the porridge is a little more runny that I like it, it had taste. There were some incredible pastries: mini ring doughnuts with icing, croissants, pastries, mini muffins (I don't like muffins, although oddly I dreamed of eating a chocolate muffin either last night or the night before). I had some weird 'root remedy' tea, which was nice, plus a couple of slices of toasted brown bread without butter (I couldn't find any butter). Mint is a buzzing place full of people, mainly Indians because, hey, I'm in India, but a few westerners. In fact there are a lot of westerners here and you know what? I hate it when I see a western person with one of those red dots on their foreheads. It's not a good look! Unless you're Indian. Talk about 'cultural appropriation'!

I've watched a bit of Indian television and it goes without saying I can't understand a word of it, but who cares, it's just for background at night and first thing in the morning. It's the same as British TV except that it's Indian, get over it. So now I'm back from breakfast and a little annoyed that I haven't managed to see the Taj Mahal, which is something like three hours away by car. The problem is money. Yesterday none of the cashpoints wanted to give me any money and I'm going to need some for tomorrow. Without money I was unable to pay for a trip to the Taj Mahal and as a result I've felt rather despondent about things. I went to bed feeling depressed and anxious, but feel better today. I put my inner misery down to being away from home and also being so far away from home, but also the jet lag, although I'll be honest, I feel fine this morning, much better than I felt when I was in Japan. In Tokyo I was tired and sleepy virtually all the time. Here I feel better, much better. In fact, shortly I'll be heading outside to sort out the money situation and then I'll check out other places to visit, like the Red Fort, although time is not on my side, but I've got to do something, see something, go somewhere other than just my planned meetings tomorrow.

At night all I can hear is the sound of train horns. During the day it's car horns. The sun is trying to break through the mist (or the smog) and I'm ready to hit the road, sort out the money and go somewhere 'touristy'. Or perhaps I'll just mooch about. The iphone's fully charged if it's needed, but if I have money I can always get a cab, although I don't really want to do that if I'm honest, I don't like being ripped off and while I'd imagine the taxis are metered, the rickshaws aren't and I remember in Bangalore getting into disputes with the rickshaw drivers.

Incidentally, there is a bike share scheme running here in New Delhi, but if you saw the traffic on the roads you'd steer well clear, I can tell you. Photos to follow...

In New Delhi...mad driving and monkeys

The last time I visited India was Christmas 1987. I had flown Turkish Airlines to what was then Bombay (now Mumbai) and I spent around three to four weeks in Bangalore, Mysore and the surrounding area. It was great. There are two types of person: those who can't deal with the poverty and those who can. I fell into the latter group, which was just as well as the journey by taxi from the airport to the centre of the city crammed in plenty of poverty.

Poor air quality – the view from room 522...
It's 32 years later, I'm back, but this time in New Delhi, in the north of the country, and it all comes flooding back to me – except that I've yet to see any poverty. As I write this it is 1407 here in India, five and a half hours ahead of the UK where it is just 0835hrs in the morning. Yesterday evening (Saturday 2nd February) I flew out of the Heathrow Terminal Five on BA 257. Eight hours and very smooth all the way. I watched John Boorman's Deliverance with Burt Reynolds and John Voight, but that was when there were three hours and 58 minutes of the flight left. The film was roughly 107 minutes long so I'll leave you to do the maths on that one. Did you know that Charlie Boorman was in Deliverance? Prior to watching the movie I had eaten a kind of airline version of a roast chicken dinner and then spent a considerable time reading the free newspapers I had picked up prior to boarding the aircraft. I stretched out in seat 26C and discovered things I never knew: like Amber Rudd being married to AA Gill and having two children with him before he upped and left her for another woman; and how the Iranians are getting around – or planning to get around – US sanctions by using BitCoin. I found the latter story intriguing.

Things got a little clearer a few hours later...
Once Deliverance was over I watched Alan Partridge and Fawlty Towers and then found that breakfast was being served and it was soon time to disembark. Rather worryingly, thick fog and smog over New Delhi meant that the plane had to use automatic pilot to land and all electronic gadgetry had to be switched off. The smog was so thick that I never saw the ground until we had physically touched down. The plane made its way to the terminal building of Indira Ghandi Airport and after some minor faffing with immigration I was being met by a pleasant chap who was holding up my name, written in felt pen, on a sheet of A4 paper. He presented me with a garland of flowers and I remembered that Indians were very nice people. I felt mildly annoyed with myself for not having any money to give as a tip. We chatted about India and it's 29 states and he pointed out a few buildings as we travelled by taxi to the hotel. This guy was some kind of chaperone for me, which was nice and much needed. I was tired having lost a night's sleep virtually and probably would have found it difficult to cope with the chaotic driving that I had all but forgotten about. I've always thought that Indians lead some kind of charmed life, overtaking on bends and surviving as well as other misdemeanours, like nearly running over pedestrians who appear to think nothing of being killed by a taxi driver who is seemingly driving in a trance-like state. Although that wasn't the case with my driver, he was fine, it was other road users I had to worry about. In addition to mad drivers there were monkeys. Alright, I saw one, but you wouldn't see any in London. The Indians like the monkeys, they find them amusing and I know what they mean.

Room 522, Park Hotel, New Delhi, India...
When I arrived at the hotel the front desk was busy checking people in. There were lots of people around and fortunately, once all the necessary paperwork had been done, I took the lift to my hotel room and after working out how to use the safe (and depositing my valuables in it) I hit the sack for a three-hour sleep and a dream so strange that I simply can't think of words to describe it. Needless to say it was fretful and I woke up with a racing heart. And now here I am, sitting at the computer writing this my first blogpost from New Delhi.

The hotel is fine, although there are a few rough edges. Well, one so far: the button that flushes the toilet is stiff, but it works. There's a huge flatscreen television and when I first arrived I watched around 30 minutes of The Spy Next Door with Jackie Chan before hitting the sack. I had roughly three hours' sleep and feel a little better than I felt three hours earlier. I've just eaten a bar of Cadbury's Fruit & Nut "Everyone's a fruit and nut case, crazy for those Cadbury nuts and raisins," I remember Frank Muir singing back in the day.

What I find slightly amazing is that I've been paranoid about going down with so-called Delhi Belly, but somehow managed to get 'the shits' while still on the plane and eating English food. How did that happen? Perhaps my arse is preparing me for worst to come, giving me a little taster of what it might be like later in the week when I'm firing on all cylinders. Somebody in the office told me to wash my hands every time somebody shakes my hand. That seems to me to be a little over-paranoid. The last time I was in India I was never ill as I chose to eat a naan bread alone if I felt the food to be a little suspect. Well, so far I haven't eaten anything in India apart from the aforementioned bar of Fruit & Nut, so we'll see what takes place. I will have a shower in a second (it's one of those rain shower affairs so it should be good) but I'll remember to keep my mouth firmly shut. I'll probably clean my teeth using mineral water too, although I didn't do that back in 1987 when I was last here and I seemed to survive. Back in those days I was told that it was best to drink beer and eat a naan bread than risk an upset stomach. That ploy worked, but this time I'm not drinking alcohol, so it looks as it bottled water will be the order of the day.

Phone calls using the mobile cost £2 per minute to receive and to make, it's 50p to send a text and it costs nothing to receive them, so I'm going to be communicating by What'sApp (when I've got WiFi) and by email on other occasions. Right now I'm feeling a little more 'chipper' than earlier and might venture out of the room to check the hotel. There is a pool, but somehow I don't think I'll be using it. The key is to be ultra-hygienic. I bought some Immodium at Heathrow. I hope I don't have to use it.

One thing worth remembering about India is that the power sockets are the same as the UK AND they drive on the left, just like us Brits!

Bearing in mind the cold and snowy conditions I've left behind in the UK, I find it hard to believe that I can walk outside with jeans and a tee-shirt on. I wonder if there's a bike share scheme?