The Old City of New Deli

John spots the young Indian man holding the Mr. Marty and John Bobroski sign. (No “e” at the end of our name.)  Navneet is wearing a suit, speaks perfect English and leads us towards the street with a jumble of taxis and cars waiting.  He does not offer to help us with our luggage but approvingly comments that  we are traveling lightly. He talks disapprovingly about the two women traveling from L.A. with 6 suitcases that he escorted earlier. Maneesh, our driver pulls up shortly and loads our bags into the back of a mini-van. The 30 minute drive into Deli is jammed packed with traffic with no regard for lanes or traffic rules. Horns honk, motorcycles slide through impossibly narrow spaces between cars and trucks and we pray that the golden temple deity secured to our cars dashboard provides protection.

The air is brown with pollution and our guide points out hospitals and military housing along the route, none of it very interesting to us. As we get closer into Deli, we note that the greenery along side of the road is well manicured and watered but a brown layer of pollution coats all the shrubbery and trees.  We pull into the gated confines of the Royal Plaza hotel and the hotel security guards open the hood and the back hatch of our mini-van checking for explosives? We offload awkwardly, assisted by elegantly outfitted doormen and are motioned to put our luggage through an ex-ray machine. John, in his baggy jeans and hooded sweatshirt,is wanded at the entrance of the hotel but the door attendants put their hands together, fingers pointed upward, and bow slightly in a gesture of respect and motion for me to pass through.

Lobby of the Royal Plaza Hotel

The Royal Plaza Hotel

The hotel lobby is oddly magnificent with gleaming marble floors, gilded alabaster columns and a pseudo baroque ceiling with frescos of clouds and cherubs smiling down.  A beautiful, young and elegantly dressed woman glides over to greet us and to escort me to one of the many check in counters where I hand over our passports and offer up a credit card imprint should we incur any extra expenses during our stay.  Another hotel employee appears silently beside me with a tray of rose petals and anoints both John’s and my forehead with a smudge of red. After all has been duly recorded, Navneet escorts us to an alcove in the lobby where we sink into brocade couches and receive our travel documents; itineraries, train and plane tickets etc. We are on our own for this afternoon but tomorrow, we will be picked up by our driver Maneesh and an English speaking guide for an all day tour of Deli.



John and I shuffle behind as we are escorted to the elevators and up to our room on the 17th floor. She opens the door to a tiny room revealing two single beds, a desk and two chairs. A gilded mirror is along one wall, making the room look slightly larger, and the one window looks down to the street below. She asks me if the room is alright? I nod and comment that it is very small and she reminds me that this is the class of room that I have booked, smiles, and with hands together and fingers pointed upward, bows respectfully and exits. It is 12:00 P.M.

Trike traffic in the old city

Trikes and tut-tuts waiting for fares

John and I quickly shower off two days of travel dirt and plot our afternoon’s adventure.  John wants to go on a walking tour of Old Deli that is recommended in the Lonely Planet guide book. The concierge tells us it is dangerous to go alone as does the taxi driver we hire to drive us to Chandni Chowk. 350 Rupees later we are deposited near the Red Fort. Our driver wants to wait for us and warns us of the dangers of Old Deli but we dismiss him and step out into the chaos of the streets.  Dozens of tuk-tuks and trikes are jumbled together along-side the road all with drivers anxious for business. John and I are fare game and we are swarmed by drivers wanting to negotiate a fare. The green “trikes” seat two passengers above and behind the driver who peddles his passengers. The tut-tuts are three wheeled motorized vehicles, also seating two passengers but inside a canvas semi-enclosed interior. All is overwhelming and we are practically lifted up and onto a tricycle after agreeing on the price of 100 Rupees for a one hour ride. Several other drivers are arguing with our victorious “peddler” as he takes off with his bounty. Horns honk, pedestrians swarm, trikes and tut-tuts weave in and out of traffic and we hold on for dear life, laughing in the unfamiliar chaos. Apparently our young peddler has jumped on top of the feeding chain and our ride is abruptly cut short when two angry trike drivers stop him and we are quickly offloaded onto another trike to continue our journey down Chandni Chowk Street.

Traffic jam in the old city- Deli

Traffic in the old city- Deli

Old city- Deli

All is visually intoxicating and the cacophony of horns and humanity exciting and unfamiliar.  In all my travels, I have never experienced anything like this and John is more excited and happier than on his first trip to Disneyland. (I don’t really remember taking John to Disney Land, but I’m sure we did at some point; but we will always remember this day!)  This is “Mr. Toads Wild Ride”, Deli style. We weave in and out of traffic; cars, trucks, taxis and pedestrians all competing for the right of way. I brace my left foot on a strut behind our peddler and hold on to the spindly steel frame of the vehicle with the other hand and take jiggly photos at the same time. Because of the congestion, the rutted road and all the vehicular and human obstacles, we are not going all that fast but it is a rough ride over the rutted road and there are seemingly no traffic rules.

Sari shop in the old city

Ribbon and brocade shop in the old city

 The shops we are passing are draped with saris and packed with trinkets and we want to stop, look and walk some. I ask our driver to stop but he ignores me. and I ask again for him to stop and wait. Apparently he cannot, the pace of the traffic an incomprehensible torrential flow. He waves his arms indicating onward and to the left and tells us that he will take us around and behind this district, to a government craft store where we can look and shop. Visions of Egypt and China flash in my mind and I tell him firmly that I don’t want to go there. He continues to peddle, my emotions rise, and I call loudly to him, telling him that I will not go into a government store. In retrospect, I am probably rude and he stops abruptly and tells us to get out, that our ride is finished. We disembark, I pay him the 100 rupees, and our day unfolded magically on our own.

Stupefied in the Old City

We are a in a bit of culture shock but John and I stick together and within a few minutes we feel more acclimated.  We stride in pseudo-confidence along the narrow and obstacle ridden sidewalk teaming with humanity. My left hand grasps the strap of my back pack purse and my right hand holds my camera securely and John’s back pack is padlocked. To our right, between the sidewalk and the road is a 10-15 foot border; a jumble of long handled wooden push carts piled high with loads of strange good, construction debris and trash.  Lethargic men of all ages and ethnicities, lounge atop carts or squat in groups in the dust; talking, smoking, eating or chewing beetle nut.

Workmen Waiting

Electrical Wiring

A narrow lane veers off to our left and we follow it.  The street is 10-12 feet across and there is no motorized traffic but trikes weave around pedestrians and muscled men push the long wooden carts with towering loads of goods. The shadowed street meanders between ancient and crumbling, three story buildings blocking out most of the sunlight. Tiny shops are on street level, some just a few feet across. A darkened cement cave reveals a middle aged man sitting amid wood shaving and operating a wood lathe with his feet. Wood shaving fly and wooden bracelets are displayed in chains outside the doorway.

Wood turning shop

Cart traffic in the old city

There are tiny shadowed food stalls cooking unidentifiable fried foods and curries in huge black sizzling vats over wood stoked fires. We have not eaten for hours and with the time change, I am getting a coffee headache and my blood sugar is low. I watch a line of men drinking a hot milky liquid from one of the shops. We bravely step forward, order two cups, and a man, several steps down ladles boiling milk, half full into a paper cup and then pours a brown mixture of strong tea from a battered aluimnun tea pot.  Other men are drinking this strong tea out of earthenware cups and I am relieved that ours have been served in these seemingly hygienic  paper cups.  I pay the man 20 rupees, the equivalent of 40 cents for both of our drinks, and we take leave. John takes a big slurp and burns his mouth with the boiling sweet liquid.  I sip more carefully, enjoying the sweetness of the milky tea and hoping that the caffeine will take effect soon.  We pass a series of “bakeries” where  the cement floor is raised several feet above street level and young men squat over a recessed fire pit, pressing patties of nahn dough against the inside wall of a pit and removing the baked ones with tongs.  We decide this seems like a safe food option and for 5 cents walk off with a steaming nahn wrapped in a piece of news paper.  John and I tear pieces off as we jostle our way along the lane.

Chai Shop

Baking Naan

We spend many hours exploring these twisting alley ways chocked full of colorful sari’s jewelry, pashima scarves, religious plaques and statues of Hindu Gods and Goddesses as well as every day house hold goods. We find ourselves in a wholesale market for Indian bangles and ignore many an invitation to come in and “just take a look, not necessary to buy.”  When pressured we run, but both John and I want to look at these colorful bangles and venture to step up and into one narrow show where we are not pressured or invited to come in. We spend 30 minutes looking bangles and exit $20 poorer but with two boxes filled with an assortment of several dozen.

John examining the goods

Colorful bracelets

Bracelet Bling!

It is late afternoon when with our fuel level on empty, we know it is time to navigate back to our hotel. We paid 350 rupees for our taxi ride into Deli’s old town and expect the return trip to be the same. Several of the drivers demand 500 and we walk on until one driver chases after us and agrees to our 350 rupee price. His mini-van is parked off to the side of the road but is completely blocked by stationary busses and other seemingly immovable obstacles. Just as we climb onboard we hear drums and horns and realize that this central intersection, in front of the Red Fort, is the staging site for a political campaign rally. Music blares, floats roll past and people with rally signs parade across the intersection. 20 minutes later our driver manages to break clear of the congestion and we navigate slowly out of the old town and towards Cognaught Circle.

Traffic Jam in the Old City

The Red Fort in Deli

Cognaught Circle is in the new town and according to the map, not very far from our hotel, but the district consists of three major, concentric circular roads, with streets radiating through theses circles like the spokes of a wheel. In the center is a raised park with rabbit hole entrances leading to a subway system tunneling below. Above, street vendors sell piles of jeans and cheap clothing and we push through the chaos to the center of the park where I find a realatively clean wall to sit upon and can open my Lonely Planet guide book to get situated. John is sitting beside me and out of my peripheral vision, I am aware that a man is talking to him. Intentionally, I have put my “blinders” on, refusing to pay any attention to this persistent man while I focus on the guide book in hopes of finding a convenient recommendation for dinner in the area. When I look up several minutes later I am startled to see the man cleaning the wax out of John’s ears. He holds a flexible, 5 inch metal prod and triumphantly shows John a glob of wax that he has excavated. I question my son’s intelligence and street smarts allowing this man to insert a sharp and non-sterile instrument into his ears. The procedure finished, John pulls out $5 U.S. to pay the man for his services. Apparently, the ear cleaner has told John that he may pay whatever he wishes, but the man is not pleased with what John offers and opens a tattered “medical book” with charts and diagrams to show John the validity of his services. We make a hasty departure and later learn that the ear cleaning service costs usually $3-$4.

We set out in search of one recommended restaurant, but the circular streets confound us and we eventually settle for an upstairs Thai and Chinese restaurant with mediocre food and minimal atmosphere.  We hire a tut-tut to take us back to our hotel, sign onto the internet to send e-mail home and fall into bed exhausted at 8:30 P.M.