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, do a little sight seeing before being whisked away to another few days of full meetings and relation building. My dad has had a very good driver in the past when has been in Delhi, so we called him, Mr Singh is his name. He drove us around all day today all across the city. 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, very much comparable to D.C. but… India style. We passed the presidents palace, the avenue of embassies (we didn’t drive through, just near), the ministry of defense, 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. There was one common theme all throughout the complex, these areas where the royalty would reign from were all at one time inlaid, incrusted, or covered in gold, but all has long since been looted. Just imagining this place in all its glory just takes your breath away. Maybe I’m the only one that’s like this, but when I see something that is in ruins or was once grand my mind thinks of what it once was, I see in my minds eye the glory of this place, and then I see that it is in ruin. In the end nothing that humanity builds for its own glory will remain, all will fall. 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 at every corner from the throne room to the latrine, the imprint of greatness is all around.
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 you ever take a ride from, I’ll explain why at the end of the story, anyway we went through narrow alleyways with literally hundereds of power cords hanging everywhere, the type of place you would expect to see in a movie set 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 facinating, the arches, the support collums, every aspect of these buildings felt anchient. But the thing is they plaster over the amazing architecture 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 and in disrepare. 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. This was obviously a hub of trading and activity, there were dozens of karts with 30+ big burlap sacks of peppers, and tea leaves, and any kind of spice you can imagine from saffron to cinnamon. When we passed the ally where they crush and process the peppers I could hardly breathe the smell was so strong and so wonderfull at the same time.
We hopped out at one point along the way and bought some spices, I got some chocolate tea along the way as well, I cant wait to try it :D We then wrapped up our tour of the markets 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. Literally 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, and everywhere I looked I saw disdain in the eyes of the men towards the westerners on their midst. Anyways, it just wasn’t friendly to a small town conservative white American boy.
Now we get to the part where I tell you why you should never take a ride from Taslim the rickshaw driver. 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 long, but it turned into 2 ½ hours, a very good 2 ½ hours but far longer all the same. 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. To contrast this we paid our driver for a entire day of driving 2,000 rupees. $44.
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 from the get go, but he 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. Foreigners all have a big target on our backs to people who wish to have a big payday.
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’. Now this place is where Europeans come to get high and return home with all the dope they want, and it’s also where you can find great leather workers, pharmacies, and all sorts of merchants of any kind you can think of for a fraction of the price in the states. 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 with a backpack 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, old western style, and everything in between.
While we were in this place I was offerd at least 5 times some of the drugs they were selling the other white people there, the one that stuck out to me was when we were heading back to meet our driver and a man came and began walking along with me and said “Can I offer you some
There I saw what a great opportunity there is to importing in things from India, the cheap labor makes craftsmanship not hard to find and in abundant supply. I tell ya if the Indian government did not have the restrictions on foreigners doing business there that they do business men from the west would be running every angle imaginable.
After we had finished we called our driver and had him take us to a hotel near the airport, he highly recommended a place called the ‘OM palace’. Now this is something I have seen many times and it boggles my mind every time I see it, in India, certainly with hotels, the concept of location does not matter when building, this place was in the middle of slums 300 yards off the main road. I was a bit concerned when we stepped out of the car, but the hotel turned our actually being very nice, a clean well kept place with a TV and cheap room service. Of course everything feels inexpencive in India in comparison but it just felt good.
So that is the sum of the day, busy and filled with amazing sights, there is something I saw that shook me to the core but I’ll let you know about it later. For now here is what I did and what I saw, my deepest thoughts I assure you will come shortly.
Rick.
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