Delhi – first impressions

12.30 PM Manju-Ka-tilla, Delhi

Hooray! Im finally here! Arrived in India last night. It was a pretty surreal experience. The first thing that hit me was the air. Even, at the airport a thick haze hung over the air, smelling like dried embers of a burnt fire. Initially, was concerned about myasthma, but it doesn’t seem to be much of an problem. After retrieving my luggage, I was then stopped for my passport by armed officers (policemen maybe?) carrying submachine guns and was greeted by my driver, Ramu as I came out. He was carrying a sign with my name but it wasn’t a smiling face, maybe he was as nervous as I was. As we walked out, an armed guard with an AK-47 stopped my driver and demanded something in Hindi, Ramu said the hotel I was staying at and scrambled for some documents. Eventually they let us pass… I guess he was on my side then in case Ramu had decided to kidnap me =). We walked through the car park, and stopped in front of a concrete block, which seemed to work as a Hindu Shrine. The first thing I noticed about his car was that the windscreen was cracked, there sat a Hindu god on his dashboard illuminated by LEDs changing color slowly, and a fire extinguisher sat on the window pane. When he started the engine, hindi music blasted through his sound system.

As much as Ive heard about Indian driving, its nothing until you experience it. Think of it like dodgem cars all going in relatively the same direction… except not hitting each other. The concept of staying in the same lane doesnt seem to exist here, I wonder why they even have lanes here (I did smirk as we passed a sign saying “Stay in your lane, Violations will be penalised”). As I held on for dear life, weaving in between rickshaws, trucks, bicycles and rickshaws Ramu seemed to ease up, maybe cos he left the airport. He smiled and we chatted but we didnt get very deep due to the language. There is alot of dirt well… everywhere. Along the roads, there are mounds of dirt just piled up, like everywhere is just a big unfinished construction site.

View from car on night of arrival

I was pretty tired by the time we reached the Guest house, it would be 5am Australian time. Ramu took a leak by the road, before he took me into the Tibetan Refugee community, Manju-Ka-Tilla. Before I knew it, a boy came and grabbed my luggage up to the room. He turned on the TV for me, and eagerly awaited a tip. I paniced as I had no change, so I gave him 100 rupies . The room was quite …well basic. Nothing was really clean, there were dark stains on the pillow, sheets, walls and even the towels. The bathroom was also underwhelming, no hot water (although the hot water tap was there), a toilet that didnt flush, and no toilet paper. Taking a shower wasnt really the something I was keen on, especially with tempretures of 7 degrees here. Nor could I brush my teeth as I didnt get a chance to pick up any bottled water. But really I guess I was glad to have somewhere to stay for the night.

Morning came, and I ate at the Restaurant downstairs, and chatted with the people there and alot of safron robes. Everyone seemed to think I came from Japan… so I had to explain I was from Australia, but Chinese, etc. They were all very friendly and I picked up some Tibetan words for the day. I went downstairs to confirm my hotel for tomorrow and as my agent typed stuff into the computer, I thought she mustve been entering stuff into some booking system, but it turned out she was on msn to her counterpart in Dharamshala. It seemed that Wizard Mastercard had just blocked my card, I will have to goto the embassy to get that sorted. Time now to go exploring! What am I doing here in an internet cafe anyway…