Impressions of Delhi

Monday, July 03, 2006

We flew over to Delhi and Agra over the weekend. On the whole, other than the butt aches we had from the long hours in the car and plane, it was rather enjoyable.

After work on Friday, we left for Delhi. I'm quite surprised that Mumbai's domestic airport is so much nicer than its international airport. Delhi is a two hour flight from Mumbai. There was slight turbulence on the flight because of the heavy rain. I felt my heart lurch and I bounced slightly off the seat. It was quite scary. After a while, the flight went back to normal.

The next morning, we went for a sightseeing tour of New and Old Delhi. We visited a mosque, Gandhi's memorium, the President's residence and lots of other monuments. As can be expected, we were also brought to some tourist shop selling Kashmir carpets and shawls. 1 carpet was about USD$2,000. The smallest was about USD$800+. *faint* We were almost brought to a jewellery shop as well but we weren't really interested since we knew they were going to be so expensive. After lunch, we asked the tour guide to bring us to a shopping mall. He said the shopping malls in Delhi were on the outskirts which was quite a distance. He took us to a marketplace instead. Things there were cheap but the quality was questionable. We were there for less than an hour. On our way back to the guesthouse, guess what?, we saw a huge shopping area. What a ripoff! But by then, we were too tired to see what is on offer there.
Delhi, on the surface, seems much cleaner and organized than Mumbai. There aren't as many slums, the road condition is better and buildings are much cleaner. High-rise buildings are a rarity in Delhi too because they have so much land. It isn't as squeezy and congested as in Mumbai as well. But I believe the traffic conditions are just as bad on weekdays. Delhi's flavour comes in the form of monuments and memorials while Mumbai's uniqueness is in it's colonial buildings and museums.

On the last day of our trip, we left for Agra where Taj Mahal is. The trip was 4 hours by car from Delhi to Agra (on condition that there was no traffic jam). Taj Mahal was really grand. The artwork on the marbles were remarkable. No easy feat for people of that period, I believe. After Taj Mahal, we visited a fort. Huge place.

The weather in Delhi was miles apart from Mumbai. Delhi was sunny with temperatures at 42 to 43 degree celsius. I almost got sun burnt. I have not been so soaked in perspiration for a really long time. Brian even had to change his shirt everytime he got back to the car. The aircon in the car wasn't of much use either.

We thought our adventures ended when we boarded the plane headed for Mumbai. We were wrong. Two things that we did not expect happened which confirmed our views that anything can happen in India and last minute changes are normal everywhere, not just on Indian channels.

Firstly, the plane landed halfway through the flight at Amadabad (or something like that) to drop off and pick up passengers. We thought we had a direct flight to Mumbai so I thought that it was an emergency landing initially but it wasn't so.

Secondly, when we arrived at Mumbai domestic airport, Brian and Tina called their drivers to pick us up. Turned out that the drivers were off on Sunday and they were sleeping when they answered the calls! Brian was furious because he had given the car rental company our itinery and made sure they would pick us up on Sunday. In the end, we took the cool cab back to the hotel. When we reached the hotel, we found out that there was another batch of drivers waiting at the other side of the airport. Couldn't the drivers we called have told us? Hmm...