Day 4 - Would you like some ruby? sapphire? emerald?

Oh my goodness, what a day. So much to describe and so little time to describe it in. We decided to spend this day in and around the city of Delhi. My dad has had a very good driver before and we called him and had him drive us around all day today. So we wound up leaving Randy’s house at 9:00am and went off in the direction of the red fort.

Now Delhi is the capitol of India and has deep history reaching all the way back to 300 BC, on our way to the red fort we passed the hub of India government, we passed the presidents palace, the avenue of embassies (we didn’t drive through, just near), the ministry of defense and the ministry of finance, and the gate of India.

We got to the red fort and once again I was blown away by the scale of this place. The red fort is a massive fort build by one of the mughal emperors in 1648 and was made the capitol of the mughal empire. After we bought our tickets and passed 4 stations with armed guards and machine guns in pillboxes, we found a guide to walk us through the fort for 250 rupees ($5), we saw the British barracks from their occupation, we saw the throne from which the emperor would listen to arguments and pass judgment. We saw massive beautiful palaces built for the women, fountains where dancers would perform, places that had at one time been encrusted with gold. Just imagining this place in all its glory just takes your breath away, one of the mughals once said ‘If there is anywhere on earth that is close to heaven, this is it’, though I wonder what he is thinking now.

Long story short in this place was filled with history. Afterwards we decided to take a bicycle rickshaw through the spice markets in Delhi, we found a man named Taslim, who I do Not recommend, I’ll explain why later, anyway we went through narrow alleyways, the type of which you expect to see in a movie of some sort. I’m not even joking, over head there were thousands of wires held onto the buildings by the absolute minimum of rope, nails, or whatever, we actually saw a man pull down a loose wire, strip it, and plug in his phone! Crazy stuff.

The buildings of the area are really cool, but the thing is they plaster all over them billboards and advertisements, and all these posters so that you have to look hard to see the incredible design underneath. These buildings look like they would have belonged in a Aladdin movie set 150 years ago, but now they are very much run down. Anyway we passed through these 10 foot wide alleys in a 5 foot wide rickshaw until we popped out in a larger road in the middle of the spice market. There were karts with 30+ big burlap sacks of peppers, and tea leaves, and any kind of spice you can imagine, when we passed the ally where they crush and process the peppers I could hardly breathe the smell was so strong.

We hopped out at one point along the way and bought some spices, I got some chocolate tea also J we then wound up at the original Karim’s restaurant. Great food, not so great service. This area that we had lunch at, the Karim’s place, is the place where I felt the most disliked so far this trip, and here’s why. On the other side of the street from this place is India largest mosque. Every girl I saw was in complete black dress with everything but their eyes covered, and the men wore those odd skull cap things muslims wear. Anyways, it just wasn’t friendly to a small town conservative white American boy.

Now we get to the part that you should never take a ride from Taslim. When we set out from the red fort we agreed to 100 rupees ($2.22) a piece for the whole trip, which was supposed to be 20 minutes, but it turned into 2 ½ hours, and when we sat down in Karim’s he demanded 1,500 rupees ($30), we wound up paying him 1,100 rupees ($24) to get him to chill on the issue and after lunch we went on our way. When we got to our cab driver he said that the normal pay for a driver like Taslim is 30-50 rupees. One dollar. Now I generally try not to make generalizations when it comes to people, but certainly when dealing with foreigners, never trust a muslim. I just look back and laugh at this, but this man not only set out to cheat us, but screwed us over 5 times again. *sigh* just make sure if you’re in a situation like that, set the price in stone, or you may pay 25 times what you need to.

And that isn’t even the best part of the day, oh no not even close. After we went to a market called ‘Pahar Ganj’ this place is where Europeans come to get high and come home with all the dope they want, it’s also where you can find great leather workers, pharmacies, and all sorts of merchants of any kind you can think of. We got some amazing deals and saw some very high white people. One of the white ladies I saw seemed to be backpacking her way across India, but the thing is her backpack was larger than she was, I could almost see the thought bubble over her head saying “It was such a good idea at the time” J

Some of the deals I shall reveal when I return, but the one I will share is a exciting one, we stopped by a leather dealer and put in a order for a leather jacket for me :D for 3400 rupees (about $75) you can get a custom made leather coat made within 24 hours, all kinds of coats, biker style, fine occasions, western style, and everything in between.

There were many many more things which happened here but I am too tired to remember the details right now, maybe I’ll fill in the blanks later, but for now I am signing off. Thanks for reading all the way through. I’ll see you next post.

Rick.