Delhi – port of India, in many ways
Landing in a cloudy, dusty Delhi. Smoothly, we pass immigrations and customer service, get some rupees and easily find our taxi to our first hotel: Tree of Life in Saket, a southern district of Delhi. Near the Qutub Minar.
It’s about a one hour drive to the hotel. And all you expect to see along the road: families, workers, a cow, some crazy roundabouts, traders, baggers, kids and dogs. Dust, walls, colors. At some point, the driver turned into a township, passes some workplaces, street venters, a gate, two other turns and here we are: affront of Tree of Life.
The elevator to the second floor is a close-fit square. The boy takes our luggages (héavy!) with the stairs. Check in is in the sitting room, with chay and useful tips for the day and explanations of the hotel owner. A lovely old guestbook to keep track of all the visitors came at the table. We made our entry. (Would like to stray through it:)!
We allowed us two hours resting. Refreshed, started our first journey into Delhi. We took the metro, the station Saket is just two streets behind the hotel. Of course, we used the special wagons for ladies: just for your own convenience. Went off at Chadny Chowk. For the third time today, a friendly guy started immediately helping us to find the right exit, towards the bazar. Strolled through it and reached the main street. My idea was to walk to the Red Ford. It’s closed on Monday’s as almost every museum. It would be worthwhile to see it anyway. But we had no clue, which way to go. People we asked didn’t understand any English. And my Hindi is still not good enough to ask (and understand the answer). But we had the sun right of us, it’s afternoon and I remembered that Chadny Chowk is south(west) of the Red Ford, thus we choose the lefthand side.
Traffic was crazy. Buildings didn’t have any of the old glory. Could have stand there for hours, just to look at the way people live here. It’s só different from everything we except as normal, it’s só different from everything we are told, it’s só different from everything we can easily deal with! And yet, people get along, mostly things work out about “fine”. And also those terms have different meaning over here.
We reached the Red Ford, stood a few moments affront of it and decided to take a riksha back to the metro station. Soon, it will be dark and we are not familiar with the roads, the way back. And we also had no map! Going back to our southern home (and giving in in our tiredness) was the right thing to do. (We are not often that wise!)
At the hotel, we ordered some food (hadn’t eaten all day). Butter chicken en chicken tikki masali. Love that country! Deeply!
Now, it’s 9 in the evening. Coming to rest. Have some amazing inner peace.
… and think about the thousand thinks we could do tomorrow, before we take our train to Chandigarh.