India has always been an important country to my family. My grandparents loved India and went on a backpacking trip through the country with my aunt who was a young child. I grew up hearing my mom talk about India. When she was a teenager, she had gone on a trip with her high school and it made a big impact on her life. There was this big, old photo album in the house filled with her photos of when she was 16 and on her trip. I often looked at this album and thought about when I would get to visit India. For a 7th-grade school project, I had to create a “travel brochure” on the country of my choice. Naturally, I chose India and used my mom’s photos. I am so excited to finally be visiting India.
My mom (in the red shirt) on her class trip to India 39 years ago.
I arrived at the Delhi Internation Airport at about 9:30 AM. I was originally going to take a bus from Kathmandu but the flight was only $40.00 more, 36 hours quicker and it had a bathroom. My hotel was supposed to be sending a driver to pick me up but the driver was nowhere to be seen. After multiple attempts at calling the hotel on the public phone, I was finally able to get the phone number of the driver and locate him. He was standing, away from all the other hotel taxi drivers and was not holding any sign. He then got lost in the parking lot and we walked around for about 10 minutes until he finally found the car.
I am here!
Since I will only be staying in Delhi for two nights, I booked a room super close to the airport. Driving to the hotel, I was amazed at the lack of cars and people. Considering I was in the 2nd most populated city in the world, I thought it would be mayhem. Even the airport was not as crowded as I thought it would be. I thought taxi drivers would be swarming me, but this was not the case. One of the drivers from a different hotel (waiting for a guest) even tried to call my hotel for me because he was concerned where my driver was! I finally got settled in my hotel room and decided to walk around and get to know my surroundings. As I was walking around I was very surprised at the lack of poverty I saw. During my 2 hour walk around my neighborhood, I only saw one homeless person. After dinner, I decided to find the one homeless person and give her my leftovers. I was unable to locate her and instead spent 10 minutes looking for someone else to give my dinner to. When I finally found someone, she was happy until she saw what kind of food it was. She gave it back and said, “No like”.
Typhoid will not stop me from eating delicious street food!
The next day I decided to go off and really explore. I only had one full day in Delhi until my mom arrived and then we would be flying to the south. I decided to take the metro to the “New Delhi” section of the city. I wanted to visit the World Heritage Sight, The Red Fort Complex. .
This is not what I was expecting the Delhi metro to be like!
Women have separate train cars (if they want to use them) and separate lines to enter the metro to get patted down. The lines for women are much shorter!
The metro amazed me. It was so clean, uncrowded and super easy to navigate. There was even air conditioner on it. The stations were extremely clean and I even found bathrooms at some of them.However, the most surprising thing was there were “women only” trains. The metro in Delhi was a much nicer and cleaner experience than the metro Philadelphia! I was beginning to wonder where all the people, vehicles, cows, dirt, and poverty was that I was expecting to see in India. However, when I got off the metro in New Delhi I finally saw the India that I had been mentally preparing myself for.
This is the India that I was expecting to see!
As soon as I got off the metro I felt a bit overwhelmed yet excited. I had been watching videos and reading about India for the past year and this was the India that I was expecting. Many rickshaw and tuk-tuk drivers approached me wanting to take me anywhere. There was street food ranging from full meals to simple snacks, power lines hanging in street, vendors trying everything in their power to get me to buy something and I saw homeless people all over the place. I found some police and asked them to point me in the direction of the Red Fort and I started on my way. As I walked I continued to ask people if I was going in the right direction and one woman suggested that I stay a rickshaw. I have always felt too uncomfortable to ride in a rickshaw. I do not like the idea of another human pulling me while I sit back. However, this was the main means of transportation in the area and I decided to go for it. I still felt uncomfortable but I also knew that this was how the man supported himself and his family. I also gave him double the asking price, which ended up only being 100 rupees (about $1.50). The man drove me for about 20 minutes.
The Red Fort
Inside the Red Fort Complex
“The Red Fort was the residence of the Mughal emperor of India for nearly 200 years, until 1857. It is located in the centre of Delhi and houses a number of museums. In addition to accommodating the emperors and their households, it was the ceremonial and political centre of Mughal government and the setting for events critically impacting the region” (Wikipedia).
Multiple young people wanted to pose with me!
Super sweet mother and son
I enjoyed visiting the museums and seeing all the amazing buildings, however, my favorite part was lounging in the grass (along with many Indian families) and just relaxing and watching everyone and everything. I kept thinking about how peaceful it was inside the gates and the vastly different New Delhi streets outside!
I have noticed that Indians love to have their photo taken!
I had fun walking back to the metro station. I got a little lost and went to a different station but that is part of the fun. I enjoyed meeting people, eating street food and watching some kids play cricket. It was later in the afternoon at this point so the streets were much more crowded. I was excited to get back to my hotel room because my mother was arriving later that night and I was excited to see her!
gosh, the airport was more like you were expecting, not as it is now, when we went
ten years after your mom. I’d be interested to know if there are any laundramats in New Dehli or any part of India now. There were not then. Even in major hotels, we were aware that the laundry was picked up and cleaned in the river by hand. We saw this happening. We did not stay in the four or five star hotels, but sometimes ate in one of them.
I am planning on getting my laundry washed today, so I will let you know how it goes!