McLeod Ganj.Near Dal Lake. This house had been built at
a hairpin bend, and the occupier is able to drive straight off the bend and park on his roof.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
DALHOUSIE-McLEOD GANJ. October 22nd-23rd
Leaving Dalhousie for Dharamsala. We leave about 9 0'clock, driving east along back roads, and through some spectacular scenery. Along the way a metallic squeak comes in above the hum of the engine, which I thought was in the rear, but Ravinder correctly guesses is nearside front. He takes the wheel off ("for the first time ever"), and it turns out that the noise is caused because one of the holding clips for the brake pads has moved in too close to the brake disk, and is easily prised out again. I don't know how often he has changed a wheel, because he tightens the wheel-holding nuts while the wheel is still jacked up, and then lowers the jack and snaps the hub cap back on. I ask isn't he going to final-tighten them, but he doesn't think it's necessary. Half a kilometre further on we can hear the wheel rattling and he stops again and tightens the nuts fully. It's such a delicious feeling when you're so, so, right.
The four of us had planned to go to Macleod Ganj, to drop off Shifan and me, and so Vicky and Malcolm could have a quick look around, before going to their destination. But Ravinder has other ideas, and eventually stops where the road goes off to Dharamsala, and says to me that Shifan and I can catch a bus from there. V and M diplomatically ask if we couldn't drive to there, but he says the road will be too crowded, they will be very late at their destination, etc. Judging from yesterday, and the day before when they arrived at Dalhousie, I'd say his day starts at 9 am and finishes at 3.30 pm.
Fortunately there is a bus just leaving from the road junction, going to Dharamsala, and we have a rapid 20 rupee ride, the driver yanking the steering from one lock to the other to negotiate a number of downhill hairpin bends. At the Dharamsala bus station, we want to look for a tuk-tuk, which LP says is the only way to get to McLeod Ganj, (which is where the Dalai Lama lives, and where all the accommodation is). Unfortunately Shifan doesn't have any Hindi, (apparently they speak a separate unique language in the Maldives), and while he wanders off in search of a tuk-tuk, I ask at a bus-ticket window, and a man there runs out and stops a bus just leaving, and we get a further (9 rupee) bus ride to Macleod, even more thrilling than the first, because the steep downhill road surface is very loose gravel, and on a couple of the hairpin bends we actually slide down sideways for a while on the far part of the bend.
The previous night in Dalhousie I'd made a list of half a dozen likely-sounding places to stay in McLeod, and was going to walk up to a nearby 'phone shop when Ganesh said why don't you use the 'phone here? This translated into him calling 3 or 4 of them, and allegedly not being able to get through, but, he has a friend..., and so I get booked into the 'Dream Lodge', which, on the card (which he pulls from a wad of identical cards) looks rather (too) impressive. At dinner later, Lev,(who has spent a bit of time at McLeod), is of the opinion that anything with the word 'Lodge' in it is going to be expensive, and says just walk up the hill from the main road, where there are plenty of places to stay. In the end we forget all this good advice, and go off with the first hotel tout at the bus stand who utters the magic words 'only 200 rupees'. The place is on the main road, and Shifan takes a windowless 200 rupee room at the back, while I have a 350 rupee front (windowed) room, which I later discover has one of the windows missing. After bathing, I wander along the main road, and as I am now bookless, I buy a secondhand copy of Hemingway's 'The Sun Also Rises', which I thought I'd read before, but hadn't, and to my surprise find it a good read. The last two books of his that I read were so nauseatingly sentimental in parts that I'd more or less given up on him.
An aside on batteries for digital cameras : in Europe I was paying about 6 euros a pop for top quality batteries, and I would have done this 7 or 8 times. In Delhi, I was only able to buy ordinary el cheapo batteries (50 rupees for two), which worked okay, but I was constantly having to replace them. Since soon after arriving in Dalhousie I haven't had any luck with the el cheapos, which I think may be related to the higher altitudes. Anyway, I thought the camera was bung, and tracked down a camera shop in McLeod, but the guy checked it and said it was just due to no-good batteries. So I ended up buying 4 top grade re-chargable batteries from him (700 rupees), plus a top of the range LED charger, (1300 rupees), so hopefully this is the end of my battery problems, and maybe I'll be able to start taking pictures again.
I bump into Shifan around dinner time, and after we've looked in a couple of rather riotous cafes, find one that seems relatively quiet. Among a number of cuisines that it offers is Chinese, and they do an excellent chicken and sweetcorn soup, although it did have garlic in it. Since then I've been going back for a couple of bowls ("no garlic!") every night, which is good for my tum, as I tend to eat the biggest meal of the day in the mid-afternoon.
I'd assumed that the traffic would stop, and all the roadside peddlers disappear, by 11' ish, but there seems to be a noisy party going on somewhere in the front of the hotel, which I get the full benefit of, due to my missing window, and after it has quietened down about 2 am, I am too overtired to sleep. Consequently I take off early, and follow Lev's advice to try the lanes up the hill a bit, looking for a couple that the LP sketch map indicates are at the ends of alleys, and come upon one of them, the Tibetan Ashoka Guest House. Somebody is moving out of their room into one the few rooms that has a balcony and a montane view, and I can have their old room if I come back at 12 o'clock. It is impressed upon me that that the room doesn't have a view, but all I need is a window (for breathing), and quiet (for sleeping). I check out of the Hotel El Grotto, have a leisurely breakfast at a nearby spacious cafe, (with a good view), and am installed and showered at the Ashoka (first hot shower in India), by 12.30 pm. I have to stress hot, for Anonymous' sake. And it does have a view, of a few score Tibetan dwellings on a far hillside, bedecked with flags.
The four of us had planned to go to Macleod Ganj, to drop off Shifan and me, and so Vicky and Malcolm could have a quick look around, before going to their destination. But Ravinder has other ideas, and eventually stops where the road goes off to Dharamsala, and says to me that Shifan and I can catch a bus from there. V and M diplomatically ask if we couldn't drive to there, but he says the road will be too crowded, they will be very late at their destination, etc. Judging from yesterday, and the day before when they arrived at Dalhousie, I'd say his day starts at 9 am and finishes at 3.30 pm.
Fortunately there is a bus just leaving from the road junction, going to Dharamsala, and we have a rapid 20 rupee ride, the driver yanking the steering from one lock to the other to negotiate a number of downhill hairpin bends. At the Dharamsala bus station, we want to look for a tuk-tuk, which LP says is the only way to get to McLeod Ganj, (which is where the Dalai Lama lives, and where all the accommodation is). Unfortunately Shifan doesn't have any Hindi, (apparently they speak a separate unique language in the Maldives), and while he wanders off in search of a tuk-tuk, I ask at a bus-ticket window, and a man there runs out and stops a bus just leaving, and we get a further (9 rupee) bus ride to Macleod, even more thrilling than the first, because the steep downhill road surface is very loose gravel, and on a couple of the hairpin bends we actually slide down sideways for a while on the far part of the bend.
The previous night in Dalhousie I'd made a list of half a dozen likely-sounding places to stay in McLeod, and was going to walk up to a nearby 'phone shop when Ganesh said why don't you use the 'phone here? This translated into him calling 3 or 4 of them, and allegedly not being able to get through, but, he has a friend..., and so I get booked into the 'Dream Lodge', which, on the card (which he pulls from a wad of identical cards) looks rather (too) impressive. At dinner later, Lev,(who has spent a bit of time at McLeod), is of the opinion that anything with the word 'Lodge' in it is going to be expensive, and says just walk up the hill from the main road, where there are plenty of places to stay. In the end we forget all this good advice, and go off with the first hotel tout at the bus stand who utters the magic words 'only 200 rupees'. The place is on the main road, and Shifan takes a windowless 200 rupee room at the back, while I have a 350 rupee front (windowed) room, which I later discover has one of the windows missing. After bathing, I wander along the main road, and as I am now bookless, I buy a secondhand copy of Hemingway's 'The Sun Also Rises', which I thought I'd read before, but hadn't, and to my surprise find it a good read. The last two books of his that I read were so nauseatingly sentimental in parts that I'd more or less given up on him.
An aside on batteries for digital cameras : in Europe I was paying about 6 euros a pop for top quality batteries, and I would have done this 7 or 8 times. In Delhi, I was only able to buy ordinary el cheapo batteries (50 rupees for two), which worked okay, but I was constantly having to replace them. Since soon after arriving in Dalhousie I haven't had any luck with the el cheapos, which I think may be related to the higher altitudes. Anyway, I thought the camera was bung, and tracked down a camera shop in McLeod, but the guy checked it and said it was just due to no-good batteries. So I ended up buying 4 top grade re-chargable batteries from him (700 rupees), plus a top of the range LED charger, (1300 rupees), so hopefully this is the end of my battery problems, and maybe I'll be able to start taking pictures again.
I bump into Shifan around dinner time, and after we've looked in a couple of rather riotous cafes, find one that seems relatively quiet. Among a number of cuisines that it offers is Chinese, and they do an excellent chicken and sweetcorn soup, although it did have garlic in it. Since then I've been going back for a couple of bowls ("no garlic!") every night, which is good for my tum, as I tend to eat the biggest meal of the day in the mid-afternoon.
I'd assumed that the traffic would stop, and all the roadside peddlers disappear, by 11' ish, but there seems to be a noisy party going on somewhere in the front of the hotel, which I get the full benefit of, due to my missing window, and after it has quietened down about 2 am, I am too overtired to sleep. Consequently I take off early, and follow Lev's advice to try the lanes up the hill a bit, looking for a couple that the LP sketch map indicates are at the ends of alleys, and come upon one of them, the Tibetan Ashoka Guest House. Somebody is moving out of their room into one the few rooms that has a balcony and a montane view, and I can have their old room if I come back at 12 o'clock. It is impressed upon me that that the room doesn't have a view, but all I need is a window (for breathing), and quiet (for sleeping). I check out of the Hotel El Grotto, have a leisurely breakfast at a nearby spacious cafe, (with a good view), and am installed and showered at the Ashoka (first hot shower in India), by 12.30 pm. I have to stress hot, for Anonymous' sake. And it does have a view, of a few score Tibetan dwellings on a far hillside, bedecked with flags.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
AMRITSAR-DALHOUSIE. 19th-21st October
Sunday. (Leaving Amritsar for Dalhousie). Am up about 9.30ish, and enquire of a rickshaw man outside my room about buses to Dalhousie. He says the bus goes at 1 o'clock, and he can take me at 12.30. Have a leisurely breakfast, and end up going early. Instead of getting the 1 o'clock bus, I get railroaded onto another leaving at 12.15, which is going to Pathankot, where I'm supposed to get another bus to Dalhousie. The bus is three quarters full, and more backpackers on it than Indians, and I think that I'll just follow them when we change at Pathankot. However, when we do arrive, it turns out that I'm the only one getting off, and I'm unceremoniously bundled off in a hurry. I expect that the bus was going to Dharamsala. I ask for Dalhousie at an enquiry kiosk, and am directed to bay number eleven, which doesn't look quite right. So I go to another kiosk further up, to ask again. The fierce-looking Sikh man there is busy counting up tickets, and is very terse with a couple of people who barge up and ask him something. He completely ignores me, and after a couple of minutes it becomes a challenge, and I resolve to wait until he acknowledges me. This happens after another 3 or 4 minutes, when he has finished recording everything about the tickets, and when I ask him, he comes out and walks me the whole distance of the bus station to make sure I get to the right spot. The bus arrives soon after, and we are away by 4.30.
From Amritsar to Pathankot has been through totally flat country, but we are now soon up in the hills, a fast ride, with constant bends in the road, usually a sheer drop to one side, and the driver on the horn, non-stop, swerving to avoid oncoming traffic. Not long after dark , we stop for about half an hour, and everybody gets out and buys food. I decide not to eat anything until after the bus ride. The bus conductor is a rather erratic old guy ; for instance, not long after we took off from Pathankot, he went down the other (3-seat) side of the bus taking the fares, but completely omitted to come back down the other (2-seat) side (where I'm sitting). Figuring that I've already given 4o rupees to the rickshaw, and that a guy who grabbed my big pack and put it on the bus put his hand out for 20, I resolve to enjoy what will probably be the only free ride of my travels. The bus stops occasionally to pick up people etc, and at one stop a guy gets on and sits at the back. An altercation soon develops between this guy and the conductor, both of them going at it hammer and tongs. Then it will simmer down for a while, and the conductor goes up front. Then he'll decide to come back down for some more, and so it goes on, becoming more heated and acrimonious each time. A couple of times the conductor blows his whistle twice and the bus stops altogether. There are fluoro tubes all along the aisle of the bus, and these stay on for the entire journey. As if this wouldn't be enough of a distraction for someone driving along the edge of a precipice in complete darkness, the driver spends more time looking in his rear-view mirror at the argument than in watching the road. We survived however, and reach Dalhousie at about 8.30.
I had rung Dalhousie this morning from a shop near the hotel. I first tried the youth hostel, not that I haven't had enough of them, but because LP said it was only 200 metres from the bus stand. Unsurprisingly, the man says that a hostel-full of schoolkids is arriving tonight (don't the little xxxxxxxS ever actually go to school?), and that they only have two single rooms, and the school might need them, but to come and check when I arrive. Classifying this answer as somewhat sub-standard, I had rung my second choice, the Hotel Crags, which is about a kilometre from the bus stand, and sounds as if it's more out of the way than most of the other places. As I alight from the bus, a small dark man approaches me flashing a 'Hotel Crags' card, and asks if I had rung the hotel this morning. We set off, after I'd poo-pooed his suggestion of a taxi, and refused his offer of helping me carry my stuff. He sets a cracking pace, and as it's all uphill my heart is soon thumping against my rib cage, and I feel thankful that I had a heart-stress test just before I left, which alleged that all was 100% a-okay. I deliberately lag behind to slow him down somewhat, but we are soon near the hotel. The 'Crags' is literally built into the side of a cliff, with a hundred or so large and erratically-placed stone steps leading down to it, and I begin to wonder if I've accidently blundered into some sort of commando training ground.
I'm shown a room at the front overlooking a large valley, where you can lie in bed of a morning and take in the view, if you're so inclined. AND, as it's the off-season, the 400 rupees a night is subject to a 50% discount. So it's 6 bucks a night, including cable tv and hot water. It's a hard life, I tell 'ya, but I'm now feeling rather glad that the youth hostel wasn't a goer. The kitchen is still open (just), and I have a saag masala and dhal, with chapati's, in the dining room. My tum gets to pay for it next day though, as the dhal was a bit too spicy (and possibly undercooked), and I should have had rice as well. The only two people I've seen here are Ganesh (who met me at the bus), and Samil, who cooked my meal, and as I make my way to my room, I realise that I'm probably the only person staying at the hotel, which, given its remote location, begins to take on a sort of Norman Bates feel, but I'm soon abed and asleep.
Up late, and after taking in the magnificent view, have a very leisurely breakfast in the dining room. They seem to want you to have your meals in your room (all you have to do is press a buzzer), but I prefer to sit at a table. After, I set out along Garam Sarak (the 'Hot Road') from Subhash Chowk (near the hotel) to Gandhi Chowk a kilometre or so away, where there is a market. There are two roads, the other is Thandi Sarak (the 'Cold Road'), the difference being that the 'Hot Road' gets the sun. From there I follow a road out of town a couple of kilometres to a good lookout. There was a fairly basic sort of food stall there, and I asked for some chai. They brought some up in a beaten metal cup, and it tasted of evaporated milk. The place seemed to cater for workmen, and they were busy cooking up a large wok of something. An old man talked to me for a while, and we smiled a lot, but neither of us could understand the other. When I left, they refused to accept any payment.
I returned to Gandhi Chowk, and feeling the urge to further stretch my legs, I tried to walk up to a Tibetan village a few kms out. A lot of Tibetan refugees have settled around Dalhousie. The road winds up through numerous buildings of the exclusive Dalhousie Public School, and by the time it flattened out at the top I realised there was still a way to go, and I decided to turn back by a different road. It's quite high up here, and walking takes a lot more out of you than it normally would. I stop for a Sprite at a convenient roadside stall, and the small son of the lady who runs it comes out to chat. He knows some English, and we discuss the relative merits of the Indian and Australian cricket teams, most of which I have to ad lib, but he is a really gung-ho fan.
Back at Gandhi Chowk, I return by the 'Cold Road' for the sake of variety. Judging by the addresses at the front of some of the hotels, I imagine that both the 'Hot' and 'Cold' roads were originally one circular 'Mall,' where the sahibs would no doubt take their morning and evening constitutionals in years gone by. My mother sometimes used to talk about times spent at Dalhousie getting away from the summer heat of Delhi or Amritsar, which is the main reason I thought I'd come and have a look.
The hotel appears to have gained some guests in my absence, :Vicky and Malcolm from New Zealand, in the room above mine, and, opposite me, Shifan, a tourist from the Maldives. I eat dinner alone upstairs, as I think everyone else is taking advantage of the room service, and I get stuck into my book. I succumbed to reading while still in Delhi, scoring a couple of books from the hotel's collection : Philip Roth's 'The Human Stain' which was a good read, and my current book 'If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things' by John McGregor, which I am a bit ambivalent about, despite the rave reviews on the dust jacket ' best book of this year' etc., and his innovative way of writing. Also he made two mistakes in his research, one automotive-related, and the other regarding military medals, which was a really glaring error, because a large part of the actions of two of the characters in the book are nullified by it. Later a young hippie-looking guy comes and sits in the dining room to drink some tea. This is Lev, 22 years old, originally from Russia, but has spent most of his life in Israel. He is a very interesting person to talk to, with an attractively direct gaze, and we chat until Ganesh throws us out at 10 o'clock. Lev is going to be travelling for 18 months, starting all around India, and then going through China, Manchuria, Mongolia and Russia. It seems like half the people I talk to are on these epic journeys, expressly designed to make me feel inadequate. He travels with a guitar, and is heavily into Pink Floyd.
The following day I lie abed quite late, and laze about in my room till late in the afternoon, trying to convince myself that I'm suffering from altitude sickness. I'm just stepping out of my room when I bump into Vicky and Malcolm, who are returning from exploring Dalhousie. Vicky and Malcolm are in their late fifties, it is their first time in India, and they succumbed to hiring a car and driver in Delhi. Now Vicky wants to rest, and Malcolm invites me to go and see a waterfall a few kilometres away, which Ravinder, their driver, recommends. The two of us walk up a fair way to the falls, but Ravinder stays behind to wash the car, as they won't let him do it in Dalhousie, because of the water shortage that plagues everybody who lives on hilltops. Malcolm has done quite a bit of mountaineering in New Zealand in his time, and his father was a climbing mate of Edmund Hillary's, so we talk a lot about our common ground - hiking. The next day they are going for a day trip to Chamba, and he invites me along.
The next day we leave at 9 am, and drive to Kajjiar, a popular plateau where people can go for pony rides or go zorbing, whereby they are locked inside large transparent spheres, and are rolled along, hamster-like. We go for a walk along a track, and come to a school, where the kids have just finished an open-air sort of morning assembly. Vicky starts talking to the teachers, as she used to be a teacher herself, and we get invited for a tour of the school, and meet all the teachers. We motor on to Chamba, a town well off the tourist track, where there are a number of former palaces of local Maharajahs. We just have time to spend an hour in the town museum, which houses a unique collection of miniature paintings, plus weapons, carved fountain slabs, and rumals (the local embroidery). Unfortunately the power is off, so we resort to using our torches to see some parts of the collection. After, we mount a fruitless search for an emporium where rumals can be purchased, and then return to Dalhousie by a different and less precipitous route along the Ravi River.
Lev and Shifan are my tea-drinking companions when I have my dinner. As there is no university in the Maldives, Shifan has spent 7 years at uni in Britain, first in Durham and latterly at Bath, where he gained his PhD in some branch of biology which is searching for a cure for diabetes. He has applied for 3 different research jobs in England, and is travelling around before starting work in February.
Vicky and Malcolm are travelling on to some place between Dharamsala and Shimla tomorrow, and have kindly offered to drop Shifan and I off near Dharamsala ; an offer I'm glad to accept, as I think I'm getting too comfortable for my own good in Dalhousie.
From Amritsar to Pathankot has been through totally flat country, but we are now soon up in the hills, a fast ride, with constant bends in the road, usually a sheer drop to one side, and the driver on the horn, non-stop, swerving to avoid oncoming traffic. Not long after dark , we stop for about half an hour, and everybody gets out and buys food. I decide not to eat anything until after the bus ride. The bus conductor is a rather erratic old guy ; for instance, not long after we took off from Pathankot, he went down the other (3-seat) side of the bus taking the fares, but completely omitted to come back down the other (2-seat) side (where I'm sitting). Figuring that I've already given 4o rupees to the rickshaw, and that a guy who grabbed my big pack and put it on the bus put his hand out for 20, I resolve to enjoy what will probably be the only free ride of my travels. The bus stops occasionally to pick up people etc, and at one stop a guy gets on and sits at the back. An altercation soon develops between this guy and the conductor, both of them going at it hammer and tongs. Then it will simmer down for a while, and the conductor goes up front. Then he'll decide to come back down for some more, and so it goes on, becoming more heated and acrimonious each time. A couple of times the conductor blows his whistle twice and the bus stops altogether. There are fluoro tubes all along the aisle of the bus, and these stay on for the entire journey. As if this wouldn't be enough of a distraction for someone driving along the edge of a precipice in complete darkness, the driver spends more time looking in his rear-view mirror at the argument than in watching the road. We survived however, and reach Dalhousie at about 8.30.
I had rung Dalhousie this morning from a shop near the hotel. I first tried the youth hostel, not that I haven't had enough of them, but because LP said it was only 200 metres from the bus stand. Unsurprisingly, the man says that a hostel-full of schoolkids is arriving tonight (don't the little xxxxxxxS ever actually go to school?), and that they only have two single rooms, and the school might need them, but to come and check when I arrive. Classifying this answer as somewhat sub-standard, I had rung my second choice, the Hotel Crags, which is about a kilometre from the bus stand, and sounds as if it's more out of the way than most of the other places. As I alight from the bus, a small dark man approaches me flashing a 'Hotel Crags' card, and asks if I had rung the hotel this morning. We set off, after I'd poo-pooed his suggestion of a taxi, and refused his offer of helping me carry my stuff. He sets a cracking pace, and as it's all uphill my heart is soon thumping against my rib cage, and I feel thankful that I had a heart-stress test just before I left, which alleged that all was 100% a-okay. I deliberately lag behind to slow him down somewhat, but we are soon near the hotel. The 'Crags' is literally built into the side of a cliff, with a hundred or so large and erratically-placed stone steps leading down to it, and I begin to wonder if I've accidently blundered into some sort of commando training ground.
I'm shown a room at the front overlooking a large valley, where you can lie in bed of a morning and take in the view, if you're so inclined. AND, as it's the off-season, the 400 rupees a night is subject to a 50% discount. So it's 6 bucks a night, including cable tv and hot water. It's a hard life, I tell 'ya, but I'm now feeling rather glad that the youth hostel wasn't a goer. The kitchen is still open (just), and I have a saag masala and dhal, with chapati's, in the dining room. My tum gets to pay for it next day though, as the dhal was a bit too spicy (and possibly undercooked), and I should have had rice as well. The only two people I've seen here are Ganesh (who met me at the bus), and Samil, who cooked my meal, and as I make my way to my room, I realise that I'm probably the only person staying at the hotel, which, given its remote location, begins to take on a sort of Norman Bates feel, but I'm soon abed and asleep.
Up late, and after taking in the magnificent view, have a very leisurely breakfast in the dining room. They seem to want you to have your meals in your room (all you have to do is press a buzzer), but I prefer to sit at a table. After, I set out along Garam Sarak (the 'Hot Road') from Subhash Chowk (near the hotel) to Gandhi Chowk a kilometre or so away, where there is a market. There are two roads, the other is Thandi Sarak (the 'Cold Road'), the difference being that the 'Hot Road' gets the sun. From there I follow a road out of town a couple of kilometres to a good lookout. There was a fairly basic sort of food stall there, and I asked for some chai. They brought some up in a beaten metal cup, and it tasted of evaporated milk. The place seemed to cater for workmen, and they were busy cooking up a large wok of something. An old man talked to me for a while, and we smiled a lot, but neither of us could understand the other. When I left, they refused to accept any payment.
I returned to Gandhi Chowk, and feeling the urge to further stretch my legs, I tried to walk up to a Tibetan village a few kms out. A lot of Tibetan refugees have settled around Dalhousie. The road winds up through numerous buildings of the exclusive Dalhousie Public School, and by the time it flattened out at the top I realised there was still a way to go, and I decided to turn back by a different road. It's quite high up here, and walking takes a lot more out of you than it normally would. I stop for a Sprite at a convenient roadside stall, and the small son of the lady who runs it comes out to chat. He knows some English, and we discuss the relative merits of the Indian and Australian cricket teams, most of which I have to ad lib, but he is a really gung-ho fan.
Back at Gandhi Chowk, I return by the 'Cold Road' for the sake of variety. Judging by the addresses at the front of some of the hotels, I imagine that both the 'Hot' and 'Cold' roads were originally one circular 'Mall,' where the sahibs would no doubt take their morning and evening constitutionals in years gone by. My mother sometimes used to talk about times spent at Dalhousie getting away from the summer heat of Delhi or Amritsar, which is the main reason I thought I'd come and have a look.
The hotel appears to have gained some guests in my absence, :Vicky and Malcolm from New Zealand, in the room above mine, and, opposite me, Shifan, a tourist from the Maldives. I eat dinner alone upstairs, as I think everyone else is taking advantage of the room service, and I get stuck into my book. I succumbed to reading while still in Delhi, scoring a couple of books from the hotel's collection : Philip Roth's 'The Human Stain' which was a good read, and my current book 'If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things' by John McGregor, which I am a bit ambivalent about, despite the rave reviews on the dust jacket ' best book of this year' etc., and his innovative way of writing. Also he made two mistakes in his research, one automotive-related, and the other regarding military medals, which was a really glaring error, because a large part of the actions of two of the characters in the book are nullified by it. Later a young hippie-looking guy comes and sits in the dining room to drink some tea. This is Lev, 22 years old, originally from Russia, but has spent most of his life in Israel. He is a very interesting person to talk to, with an attractively direct gaze, and we chat until Ganesh throws us out at 10 o'clock. Lev is going to be travelling for 18 months, starting all around India, and then going through China, Manchuria, Mongolia and Russia. It seems like half the people I talk to are on these epic journeys, expressly designed to make me feel inadequate. He travels with a guitar, and is heavily into Pink Floyd.
The following day I lie abed quite late, and laze about in my room till late in the afternoon, trying to convince myself that I'm suffering from altitude sickness. I'm just stepping out of my room when I bump into Vicky and Malcolm, who are returning from exploring Dalhousie. Vicky and Malcolm are in their late fifties, it is their first time in India, and they succumbed to hiring a car and driver in Delhi. Now Vicky wants to rest, and Malcolm invites me to go and see a waterfall a few kilometres away, which Ravinder, their driver, recommends. The two of us walk up a fair way to the falls, but Ravinder stays behind to wash the car, as they won't let him do it in Dalhousie, because of the water shortage that plagues everybody who lives on hilltops. Malcolm has done quite a bit of mountaineering in New Zealand in his time, and his father was a climbing mate of Edmund Hillary's, so we talk a lot about our common ground - hiking. The next day they are going for a day trip to Chamba, and he invites me along.
The next day we leave at 9 am, and drive to Kajjiar, a popular plateau where people can go for pony rides or go zorbing, whereby they are locked inside large transparent spheres, and are rolled along, hamster-like. We go for a walk along a track, and come to a school, where the kids have just finished an open-air sort of morning assembly. Vicky starts talking to the teachers, as she used to be a teacher herself, and we get invited for a tour of the school, and meet all the teachers. We motor on to Chamba, a town well off the tourist track, where there are a number of former palaces of local Maharajahs. We just have time to spend an hour in the town museum, which houses a unique collection of miniature paintings, plus weapons, carved fountain slabs, and rumals (the local embroidery). Unfortunately the power is off, so we resort to using our torches to see some parts of the collection. After, we mount a fruitless search for an emporium where rumals can be purchased, and then return to Dalhousie by a different and less precipitous route along the Ravi River.
Lev and Shifan are my tea-drinking companions when I have my dinner. As there is no university in the Maldives, Shifan has spent 7 years at uni in Britain, first in Durham and latterly at Bath, where he gained his PhD in some branch of biology which is searching for a cure for diabetes. He has applied for 3 different research jobs in England, and is travelling around before starting work in February.
Vicky and Malcolm are travelling on to some place between Dharamsala and Shimla tomorrow, and have kindly offered to drop Shifan and I off near Dharamsala ; an offer I'm glad to accept, as I think I'm getting too comfortable for my own good in Dalhousie.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
AMRITSAR. October 18th
Saturday. (returned from the border-closing ceremony). My tum feeling a lot better this evening, and I order a meal that I've been thinking about all the way home, half a butter chicken, rice, chapatis and two 4-cup pots of tea, (and thoroughly enjoy it, with no after-effects). I may not have made it to the obelisk at the site of the Durbars in Delhi, but the dining room at the hotel has two colourful pictures on the walls, one of the Durbar of 1902, and another from that of 1911, so in a sense I get to see something more realistic in relation to the Durbars, instead of just an obelisk. In the office of the hotel there are four miniature pen sketches from WW1, three from the trenches, and an incredible one of the Menin 'Gate', at a time when it was just a gap in the city walls of Ypres, with some horse-drawn gun carriages going one way, and a despatch-rider hurtling along in the other direction. You can imagine that all these pictures were hung on the walls in the 1920's, a generation before the demise of the Raj, and that no-one has ever bothered to take them down since.
When I came out of my bedroom this morning there were two German guys outside with two 'Royal Enfield' motor cycles in pieces. They left Germany 23 days ago, coming via Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Rumania, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The bikes ran perfectly until they got to India, and apparently sand from the deserts had got into a shaft at the bottom of the engines of both bikes, wrecking some bearings. They stopped making these bikes in England 40 years ago, but the same model is still made under licence in India, and they recently imported two new ones to Germany, and modified them for this trip. They have been able to get parts and some machining done the same day in Amritsar, and are now ready to put the bikes back together again. As I make my way to my room tonight one of them is out in the yard having a smoke, and we have a chat. He is actually a motor-cycle mechanic in Heidelburg, but likes to travel the world all through the northern winter, 'because people don't ride bikes in winter'. His friend has an English girl-friend who lives permanently in Goa, and he spends the northern winters in Goa and the summers in Germany 'working in construction or teaching kite-surfing' so as to save up for the rest of the year. They were very impressed by a bus load of older English people that they met along the way, travelling from London to Sydney. These people chartered one bus as far as Rumania, and another one from there to India. After India they will charter one in Thailand to travel through Malaysia and Indonesia.
When I came out of my bedroom this morning there were two German guys outside with two 'Royal Enfield' motor cycles in pieces. They left Germany 23 days ago, coming via Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Rumania, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The bikes ran perfectly until they got to India, and apparently sand from the deserts had got into a shaft at the bottom of the engines of both bikes, wrecking some bearings. They stopped making these bikes in England 40 years ago, but the same model is still made under licence in India, and they recently imported two new ones to Germany, and modified them for this trip. They have been able to get parts and some machining done the same day in Amritsar, and are now ready to put the bikes back together again. As I make my way to my room tonight one of them is out in the yard having a smoke, and we have a chat. He is actually a motor-cycle mechanic in Heidelburg, but likes to travel the world all through the northern winter, 'because people don't ride bikes in winter'. His friend has an English girl-friend who lives permanently in Goa, and he spends the northern winters in Goa and the summers in Germany 'working in construction or teaching kite-surfing' so as to save up for the rest of the year. They were very impressed by a bus load of older English people that they met along the way, travelling from London to Sydney. These people chartered one bus as far as Rumania, and another one from there to India. After India they will charter one in Thailand to travel through Malaysia and Indonesia.
AMRITSAR. October 18th
Amritsar (going to border-closing ceremony at Attari / Wagah). The driver of the jeep turns up, and I get in, but not before noticing that the tread of the near-side front tyre is non-existent (the rubber is marble smooth), and I silently wonder what our chances are of completing the journey without a blow-out. The jeep soon fills up - actually they call them jeeps, but they are usually more of a Toyota station wagon. I am sitting right at the back by the tail-gate, next to an Indian family - Mum, Dad and grown up daughter. He is quite fluent in English and is a technician in the Air Force, stationed in Mumbai, but is spending time with his family, who live at their home in Jammu (Kashmir way). On the way to the border we stop in a town about midway, so that his wife and daughter can pray for a few minutes at a Hindu temple there, and I'm beginning to wonder if they've also noticed the smooth tyre. He and I wait outside, and he tells me that he won't go in, because although he used to be a Hindu, he is now an atheist. Later, and before we reach the border, there is a loud thumping coming from under the vehicle, and the young Sikh driver gets out and checks the wheels, but all is well with them. We continue driving with the thumping noise, but finally it ceases, so I suppose whatever was causing it must have fallen off.
The vehicle is parked in a paddock at the back of a 'tourist centre', and we have to walk the last half mile or so to the grandstands at the border. I had imagined that there might be a few hundred people there, but there were several thousand. I get separated from the others, and find myself a spot near the exit of a packed grandstand. It soon gets even more packed though, and I can see the potential for easily being crushed, plus I now can't see anything anyway, so I decide to go outside. On my way down the steps I notice some western tourists walking down the back of the grandstands, and have resolved to follow them, when an Indian guy also says to me that I should go that way. There are some soldiers blocking the path further on, and as I can't see the tourists anymore, I stand about. Then some Indian tourists come up, led by this enormous tall and powerful-looking bloke who is also very assertive, and the soldiers finally let them in, and I tag along behind. The result is I get a seat with (up to a point) excellent views of what is going on.
They close the border and take down their respective flags each night at sunset, with much marching up and down with arms swinging and knees high and stamping of boots, each side doing their best to out-glare the other fellows. It's quite amusing to watch, and the crowd on the Pakistan side is just as partisan as the Indians, who are led by a sort of master of ceremonies in a chant of 'Hindustan, Hindustan, Hindustan....' etc, etc, and then the other side starts up 'Pakistan, Pakistan ... etc. In fact it was a bit like a Collingwood-Richmond semi-final, and all good fun.
I hurry back to the vehicle, as I really don't want to get left out in the bush an hour and a half's drive from my hotel, and get there a good ten minutes before anyone else. We drive back in darkness, and I supposedly get dropped near the railway station, but soon realise I haven't a clue where I am, and get a ride back with the first bicycle-rickshaw man who has heard of 'Tourist Hotel'.
The vehicle is parked in a paddock at the back of a 'tourist centre', and we have to walk the last half mile or so to the grandstands at the border. I had imagined that there might be a few hundred people there, but there were several thousand. I get separated from the others, and find myself a spot near the exit of a packed grandstand. It soon gets even more packed though, and I can see the potential for easily being crushed, plus I now can't see anything anyway, so I decide to go outside. On my way down the steps I notice some western tourists walking down the back of the grandstands, and have resolved to follow them, when an Indian guy also says to me that I should go that way. There are some soldiers blocking the path further on, and as I can't see the tourists anymore, I stand about. Then some Indian tourists come up, led by this enormous tall and powerful-looking bloke who is also very assertive, and the soldiers finally let them in, and I tag along behind. The result is I get a seat with (up to a point) excellent views of what is going on.
They close the border and take down their respective flags each night at sunset, with much marching up and down with arms swinging and knees high and stamping of boots, each side doing their best to out-glare the other fellows. It's quite amusing to watch, and the crowd on the Pakistan side is just as partisan as the Indians, who are led by a sort of master of ceremonies in a chant of 'Hindustan, Hindustan, Hindustan....' etc, etc, and then the other side starts up 'Pakistan, Pakistan ... etc. In fact it was a bit like a Collingwood-Richmond semi-final, and all good fun.
I hurry back to the vehicle, as I really don't want to get left out in the bush an hour and a half's drive from my hotel, and get there a good ten minutes before anyone else. We drive back in darkness, and I supposedly get dropped near the railway station, but soon realise I haven't a clue where I am, and get a ride back with the first bicycle-rickshaw man who has heard of 'Tourist Hotel'.
AMRITSAR. October 18th
Amritsar (Golden Temple). On my way to the Temple I buy a head covering (compulsory) for 10 rupees. These are only available in white or orange, and I go for the more colourful one. Arrive at the Temple precincts, where first you have to hand in your shoes in a large hall with many shoe handing-in windows. Then you have to hand in your day-pack at a separate building. Before entering the Temple grounds proper I go to where LP advises that you can get share-jeep tickets to the late afternoon border closing ceremony at Attari. These cost 75 rupees, 25 down, and 50 later. I'm given a receipt with the rego number of the jeep on it, and shown where the jeep is parked, and told to come back at 3.15. Get zapped etc by police on the way in to the Temple grounds. The Temple itself, glowing in the early afternoon sun, is truly breathtaking. I walked around the perimeter of the lake surrounding it, but didn't get out along the causeway to see inside the Temple, as there was a queue right along it about six-deep that didn't appear to be moving at all, and I estimated it would take close to 3 hours to get to the top of the queue. Retrieve my belongings, and wander down to the jeep real early, and sit in the shade and eat some chocolate, as my tum is playing up a bit, and it's the only thing I fancy.
Amritsar. The Golden Temple. During the early 1980's the Temple was occupied by separtists intent on creating an independent Sikh homeland. In 1984 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered their eviction in a military action that damaged the Temple and fuelled Hindu-Sikh clashes that left thousands dead. Indira Gandhi was later assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards.
Friday, October 24, 2008
AMRITSAR. 17th-18th October
Friday (arriving at Amritsar). I've worked out from the sketch map in Lonely Planet that the 'Tourist Hotel' that I rang this morning is a short walk from the railway station. Unfortunately, the sketch maps in Lonely Planet are just that, and leave out a lot of (sometimes indispensible)detail. What looks like a straight road turns out to go through a couple of horrendously busy roundabouts, and a couple of policemen that I ask swear that they have never heard of the hotel.
A young middle-class sort of a guy with a motor-bike has, and offers to give me a lift there, but I don't quite see me and my 2 packs fitting onto the bike in safety. Finally arrive on foot, and make a mental note to get a rickshaw next time.
At the hotel I have a small but pleasant room on one side of a courtyard, well off the road, with the potential for quiet, as I've deliberately chosen the'Tourist' because it's away from the main part of town. After bathing, I front up at the dining room attached to the hotel. There are four people already in the dining-room, a fifties-something English couple, and two buxom English girls. The couple both seem very familiar. To look at, the guy is a carbon-copy of Bill Blakely (?), (the one who teaches remedial English in Dandenong Library), albeit with a strong Cockney accent. The woman bears an extremely strong resemblance to Catherine Cookson, a stage actress of the 'fifties whose path I'd crossed a couple of times in the thespian days of my youth. The two girls, Donna and Pooja, come from Deal (Kent) and Greenwich respectively, and are on some long trip through Asia and are going to work in Oz for a year at the end of it. Anyway, all four of them are good value, and we have a riotous five-way conversation for a couple of hours. Pooja has an English accent like the Indian girl in 'Bend It Like Beckham', but also has fluent Hindi, and does a sterling job of trying to cajoule the waiter into bringing me some substantial food, but it is a bit late for that, and I have to make do with a big bowl of veggie soup and bread, with three 4-cup pots of tea, as I'd only taken (quickly-perspirable) sips of water all day, so that I wouldn't have to use the 'loo on the train.
My mattress is of a somewhat lumpy composition, probably kapok, and for the first time since leaving Oz, I score a couple of bed-bug bites on my neck. I invariably spray my bed before getting in, as hotel rooms, even in Europe, often seem to be inhabited by what I think of as carpet mites, which can give you little pin-prick sort of bites, but are easily vanquished with a light spray. Now I go berserk with the spray-can, and I sleep in my summer-weight sleeping-bag, rather than under the opened-up bag - a strategy I worked out in Indo years ago - and no more bugs. The only minus is that the hotel is not that far from the railway line, and throughout the first part of the night there are occasional long mournful blasts from railway engines, which reminds me of every movie about the American deep-south I've ever seen, which nearly always, sooner or later, will feature that same sound in the middle of the night. I'm still hyper anyway from two hours of crossfire conversation, and lie there in between trains, trying to recall the words of numbers like 'John Henry', 'The Wreck of the Old '97', and '100 Miles' 'If you know the train I'm on, then you'll know that I am gone, you can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles....' etc, etc.
I've only allowed myself one day for Amritsar, so I get up at 9.30. At breakfast, Donna makes copious notes from my 'Lonely Planet India', to cover their activities for the next few days, as today they are getting a bus to Dharamsala. She and Pooja are horrified at the details of my train trip from Delhi (which I'd assumed was quite normal), and insist that next time I go air-con class (with windows!). After brekkie I walk to Jallianwala Bagh. Historical note : The Rowlett Act (1919) gave the British authorities emergency powers to imprison without trial Indians suspected of sedition. Hartals (one-day strikes) were organised in protest, and escalated into rioting and looting. In Amritsar, some Indian protesters were killed, and in reprisal three British bank managers were murdered. General Dyer was called upon to return order to the city. On 19th April 1919, some 20,000 Indians were holding a peaceful demonstration in Jallianwala Bagh, a large open space surrounded by high walls. Dyer arrived with 150 troops and and without warning they opened fire. Six minutes later, 400 people were dead, and 1500 wounded.
This action galvanised Indian nationalism. Gandhi responded with his programme of civil disobedience, announcing that 'co-operation in any shape or form with this satanic government is sinful'. I remember that we went into this incident in some detail when I was doing a semester on 'Gandhi's India', and I spent an hour or so looking around, at a martyr's memorial, an eternal flame, a spot where machine guns were set up, the large well into which many jumped to escape the bullets, and the walls at the far end of the area, pock-marked with bullet indentations.
A young middle-class sort of a guy with a motor-bike has, and offers to give me a lift there, but I don't quite see me and my 2 packs fitting onto the bike in safety. Finally arrive on foot, and make a mental note to get a rickshaw next time.
At the hotel I have a small but pleasant room on one side of a courtyard, well off the road, with the potential for quiet, as I've deliberately chosen the'Tourist' because it's away from the main part of town. After bathing, I front up at the dining room attached to the hotel. There are four people already in the dining-room, a fifties-something English couple, and two buxom English girls. The couple both seem very familiar. To look at, the guy is a carbon-copy of Bill Blakely (?), (the one who teaches remedial English in Dandenong Library), albeit with a strong Cockney accent. The woman bears an extremely strong resemblance to Catherine Cookson, a stage actress of the 'fifties whose path I'd crossed a couple of times in the thespian days of my youth. The two girls, Donna and Pooja, come from Deal (Kent) and Greenwich respectively, and are on some long trip through Asia and are going to work in Oz for a year at the end of it. Anyway, all four of them are good value, and we have a riotous five-way conversation for a couple of hours. Pooja has an English accent like the Indian girl in 'Bend It Like Beckham', but also has fluent Hindi, and does a sterling job of trying to cajoule the waiter into bringing me some substantial food, but it is a bit late for that, and I have to make do with a big bowl of veggie soup and bread, with three 4-cup pots of tea, as I'd only taken (quickly-perspirable) sips of water all day, so that I wouldn't have to use the 'loo on the train.
My mattress is of a somewhat lumpy composition, probably kapok, and for the first time since leaving Oz, I score a couple of bed-bug bites on my neck. I invariably spray my bed before getting in, as hotel rooms, even in Europe, often seem to be inhabited by what I think of as carpet mites, which can give you little pin-prick sort of bites, but are easily vanquished with a light spray. Now I go berserk with the spray-can, and I sleep in my summer-weight sleeping-bag, rather than under the opened-up bag - a strategy I worked out in Indo years ago - and no more bugs. The only minus is that the hotel is not that far from the railway line, and throughout the first part of the night there are occasional long mournful blasts from railway engines, which reminds me of every movie about the American deep-south I've ever seen, which nearly always, sooner or later, will feature that same sound in the middle of the night. I'm still hyper anyway from two hours of crossfire conversation, and lie there in between trains, trying to recall the words of numbers like 'John Henry', 'The Wreck of the Old '97', and '100 Miles' 'If you know the train I'm on, then you'll know that I am gone, you can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles....' etc, etc.
I've only allowed myself one day for Amritsar, so I get up at 9.30. At breakfast, Donna makes copious notes from my 'Lonely Planet India', to cover their activities for the next few days, as today they are getting a bus to Dharamsala. She and Pooja are horrified at the details of my train trip from Delhi (which I'd assumed was quite normal), and insist that next time I go air-con class (with windows!). After brekkie I walk to Jallianwala Bagh. Historical note : The Rowlett Act (1919) gave the British authorities emergency powers to imprison without trial Indians suspected of sedition. Hartals (one-day strikes) were organised in protest, and escalated into rioting and looting. In Amritsar, some Indian protesters were killed, and in reprisal three British bank managers were murdered. General Dyer was called upon to return order to the city. On 19th April 1919, some 20,000 Indians were holding a peaceful demonstration in Jallianwala Bagh, a large open space surrounded by high walls. Dyer arrived with 150 troops and and without warning they opened fire. Six minutes later, 400 people were dead, and 1500 wounded.
This action galvanised Indian nationalism. Gandhi responded with his programme of civil disobedience, announcing that 'co-operation in any shape or form with this satanic government is sinful'. I remember that we went into this incident in some detail when I was doing a semester on 'Gandhi's India', and I spent an hour or so looking around, at a martyr's memorial, an eternal flame, a spot where machine guns were set up, the large well into which many jumped to escape the bullets, and the walls at the far end of the area, pock-marked with bullet indentations.
DELHI-AMRITSAR. 17th October
Friday (leaving Delhi). Up at 7.30 to my battery-replenished mobile AND a small alarm clock that I bought yesterday for the equivalent of 3 dollars fifty, as then I thought I wouldn't have the mobile alarm. After paying the hotel and an early breakfast at the Everest Cafe, I'm at the station by 10.30. The 11.10 scheduled departure time is nearer 12.00 midday, and several hundreds of people get onto the train, but I am the only westerner, as far as I can see. My expectations of something superior to 1st class are soon dashed, as the 'sleeping berths' hold anything up to 4 people (lower bunks) and 2 people (upper bunks). A woman with a baby, accompanied by her husband) is sitting in my window seat, so I take the aisle side, which suits me as then I can stretch my legs. The 'express' train stops many times, with a constantly-changing set of characters, and is sometimes packed, then somewhat more empty. The ticket inspector only appears once, and as far as I can see only the couple with the baby and I have tickets, so I don't know how that works. During the journey there would have been somewhere between at least a hundred, and maybe two hundred characters coming through the train, selling cups of tea, or hamburgers, or you name it that you could eat. Beggars of all descriptions, from the blind and crippled to the pseudo crippled, to women with babies, and little girl 'tumblers' doing cartwheels along the aisle. My favourites were two bombastic drag queens impeccably dressed to the nines, and a little boy playing a shrill sort of Jew's harp, where people were giving him something just so that he'd stop.
But we are at last travelling through open country, and it is great to feel real fresh air in your lungs. My Vodafone India starts sending me messages, (lots of them), and a fresh lot each time we cross to another state, the same as when you cross into a new country in Europe. I can't ring out to numbers in India on it, but to my delight I find that I can SMS Oz, and lots of frivolous messages are exchanged. It gives me something to do, as nobody in the carriage seems to speak English. After Ludhiana many noisy and spirited youths get on, and the carriage is really crowded almost all the way to Amritsar, where we arrive a bit after 8pm.
But we are at last travelling through open country, and it is great to feel real fresh air in your lungs. My Vodafone India starts sending me messages, (lots of them), and a fresh lot each time we cross to another state, the same as when you cross into a new country in Europe. I can't ring out to numbers in India on it, but to my delight I find that I can SMS Oz, and lots of frivolous messages are exchanged. It gives me something to do, as nobody in the carriage seems to speak English. After Ludhiana many noisy and spirited youths get on, and the carriage is really crowded almost all the way to Amritsar, where we arrive a bit after 8pm.
DELHI. 16th October
Thursday (last day in Delhi). Up real early (11.30 am), and buy a secondhand mobile charger for 300 rupees (about $8-50), as it appears I burnt out my Dresden one the other night. Also buy a local sim-card for 300 rupees, (although I notice later that the small print on the wrapper says the rrp is 99 rupees). Also 500 rupees of credit, which immediately reduces to 380 rupees credit after an automatic government tax is deducted. To buy a sim-card, you have to fill out a lengthy form, provide a passport-sized photo of yourself, and a photocopy of your passport. Local calls are supposed to cost 1 rupee, and international sms 5 rupees (I think).
As it's my last day, I check my list of unticked items, and decide I'll try and go out to the Coronation obelisk north of Delhi. I suppose it's called this because of the ceremony held there in 1911 to (belatedly) celebrate the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary. Earlier 'Delhi Durbars' were held to mark 60 years of the reign of the Queen Empress in 1897, and the coronation of Edward VII in 1902. As a kid I can remember my mother talking about seeing the 'Delhi Durbar', and I guess it was a big event in her youth (she was born in 1892). This was my introduction to the Delhi Metro, which is very clean and organised. There are armed guards at every station zapping and searching intending passengers and their bags, and an armed guard in
every carriage (a carriage being a set of three interlocking carriages, as on the Met). No smoking, or eating or drinking anywhere on the Metro, AND the trains run on time. Unfortunately, although the Metro maps they hand out show the Metro as completed, this is not strictly true. In my case, the train only went about 8 of the 18 stations that I wanted, and then terminated (the rest of the line still under construction). So I never get to see the obelisk (which is out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by paddocks and swamps, apparently). But I must say that the Metro is impressive.
Back at the hotel, I'm reluctant to plug my 'new' mobile charger in the same power point in my room, and decide to ask if I can charge it at the internet shop, but no sooner do I arrive there than the power goes off anyway (with no assistance from me, I swear). Later I borrow an electric cooking ring that the hotel boys use for their meals on the landing, to check my power point, and as all is well, my fully depleted battery takes all night to charge up.
As it's my last day, I check my list of unticked items, and decide I'll try and go out to the Coronation obelisk north of Delhi. I suppose it's called this because of the ceremony held there in 1911 to (belatedly) celebrate the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary. Earlier 'Delhi Durbars' were held to mark 60 years of the reign of the Queen Empress in 1897, and the coronation of Edward VII in 1902. As a kid I can remember my mother talking about seeing the 'Delhi Durbar', and I guess it was a big event in her youth (she was born in 1892). This was my introduction to the Delhi Metro, which is very clean and organised. There are armed guards at every station zapping and searching intending passengers and their bags, and an armed guard in
every carriage (a carriage being a set of three interlocking carriages, as on the Met). No smoking, or eating or drinking anywhere on the Metro, AND the trains run on time. Unfortunately, although the Metro maps they hand out show the Metro as completed, this is not strictly true. In my case, the train only went about 8 of the 18 stations that I wanted, and then terminated (the rest of the line still under construction). So I never get to see the obelisk (which is out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by paddocks and swamps, apparently). But I must say that the Metro is impressive.
Back at the hotel, I'm reluctant to plug my 'new' mobile charger in the same power point in my room, and decide to ask if I can charge it at the internet shop, but no sooner do I arrive there than the power goes off anyway (with no assistance from me, I swear). Later I borrow an electric cooking ring that the hotel boys use for their meals on the landing, to check my power point, and as all is well, my fully depleted battery takes all night to charge up.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
DELHI. 13th-15th October
The last Monday in Delhi. Get up in the middle of the afternoon again. After a late lunch, walk to
the Indian War Memorial at Delhi Gate. This commemorates 5oo,000 Indian soldiers who died in the First World War, in Waziristan in 1919, and in the 3rd Afghan War, 1920.
As I want to go back via a Macca's in Connaught Place, I have to ask three separate policemen on duty, and none of them knew the name of the thoroughfare they were in. The third one had to ask a taxi driver, who says it is Rajpath. I follow this, thinking that it is one of the wide thoroughfares radiating from Connaught Place, but it ends up somewhere else, and I have to backtrack a couple of kilometres. Finally find Janpath, the road I want, but have to negotiate 5 roundabouts and two sets of traffic lights to get to those strawberry milkshakes at Macca's. Traffic lights are okay, up to a point, although traffic turning left at the lights tends to keep going, and you need to be pretty quick anyway. Roundabouts are another story, because there are no lights, and to continue along the road you are in, you usually need to get across two other roads, one of which will be non-stop bumper-to-bumper traffic. The longest I waited for an opening on one of these was ten minutes.
So far, I have been able to charge my mobile using my Euro plug. Indian power points give you a choice of two plug widths, and I have been using the narrower one, in which my Euro plug sits somewhat sloppily. Tonight, I plug it in, and immediately fuse all the lights (and air-conditioners) in the hotel, (and possibly in the surrounding neighbourhood). Feeling again like Mr Bean after he's committed yet another faux pas, I lie doggo, and the power comes on again and then cuts out a few times over the next hour. I make a mental note not to try and use my mobile charger again.
Tuesday is another complete wipeout, although I do storm the New Delhi train station, and leaving numerous touts in my wake, make it up to the first floor Tourist Office, and manage to buy a ticket to Amritsar, leaving at 11.10 Friday morning. The first class is booked out, but the lady offers me 'sleeper' class, which I take, fondly imaging that this is somehow superior to first class. I couldn't fault the price of 250 rupees, which was reduced to 170 rupees with senior's discount - roughly five bucks.
Wednesday, I am up relatively early, (1.30 pm), and after breakfast, overcome my aversion to rickshaws, and get a tuk-tuk (100rp) to Gandhi Smitri, which is a memorial and museum at the spot where the Mahatma was assassinated in Delhi. The museum was something of a mirror image of the other Gandhi Museum at Raj Ghat, but both of them were excellent. I had told the tuk-tuk not to wait, but I imagined that he would stick to the entrance to the place like glue. At chuck-out time I noticed another side exit, and took this, and using my mini-Melways, soon navigated to the Lodhi Gardens, a very pleasant spot in south Delhi, replete with joggers, strollers, dog-walkers and courting couples, but it wasn't at all overcrowded. Flag down a couple of tuk-tuks with the intention of returning to Macca's in style, but on this side of town they are prohibitively expensive, and I end up walking again, but (with the aid of my useless 30 rupee map) find a different Macca's, much closer to where I'm staying. Afterwards, I go berserk, and lash out 1199 rupees (35 bucks) on a beaut pair of Bata runners, as I am seriously considering an early retirement for my venerable Volleys.
the Indian War Memorial at Delhi Gate. This commemorates 5oo,000 Indian soldiers who died in the First World War, in Waziristan in 1919, and in the 3rd Afghan War, 1920.
As I want to go back via a Macca's in Connaught Place, I have to ask three separate policemen on duty, and none of them knew the name of the thoroughfare they were in. The third one had to ask a taxi driver, who says it is Rajpath. I follow this, thinking that it is one of the wide thoroughfares radiating from Connaught Place, but it ends up somewhere else, and I have to backtrack a couple of kilometres. Finally find Janpath, the road I want, but have to negotiate 5 roundabouts and two sets of traffic lights to get to those strawberry milkshakes at Macca's. Traffic lights are okay, up to a point, although traffic turning left at the lights tends to keep going, and you need to be pretty quick anyway. Roundabouts are another story, because there are no lights, and to continue along the road you are in, you usually need to get across two other roads, one of which will be non-stop bumper-to-bumper traffic. The longest I waited for an opening on one of these was ten minutes.
So far, I have been able to charge my mobile using my Euro plug. Indian power points give you a choice of two plug widths, and I have been using the narrower one, in which my Euro plug sits somewhat sloppily. Tonight, I plug it in, and immediately fuse all the lights (and air-conditioners) in the hotel, (and possibly in the surrounding neighbourhood). Feeling again like Mr Bean after he's committed yet another faux pas, I lie doggo, and the power comes on again and then cuts out a few times over the next hour. I make a mental note not to try and use my mobile charger again.
Tuesday is another complete wipeout, although I do storm the New Delhi train station, and leaving numerous touts in my wake, make it up to the first floor Tourist Office, and manage to buy a ticket to Amritsar, leaving at 11.10 Friday morning. The first class is booked out, but the lady offers me 'sleeper' class, which I take, fondly imaging that this is somehow superior to first class. I couldn't fault the price of 250 rupees, which was reduced to 170 rupees with senior's discount - roughly five bucks.
Wednesday, I am up relatively early, (1.30 pm), and after breakfast, overcome my aversion to rickshaws, and get a tuk-tuk (100rp) to Gandhi Smitri, which is a memorial and museum at the spot where the Mahatma was assassinated in Delhi. The museum was something of a mirror image of the other Gandhi Museum at Raj Ghat, but both of them were excellent. I had told the tuk-tuk not to wait, but I imagined that he would stick to the entrance to the place like glue. At chuck-out time I noticed another side exit, and took this, and using my mini-Melways, soon navigated to the Lodhi Gardens, a very pleasant spot in south Delhi, replete with joggers, strollers, dog-walkers and courting couples, but it wasn't at all overcrowded. Flag down a couple of tuk-tuks with the intention of returning to Macca's in style, but on this side of town they are prohibitively expensive, and I end up walking again, but (with the aid of my useless 30 rupee map) find a different Macca's, much closer to where I'm staying. Afterwards, I go berserk, and lash out 1199 rupees (35 bucks) on a beaut pair of Bata runners, as I am seriously considering an early retirement for my venerable Volleys.
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