New Delhi

First Day

The New Delhi airport is quite well organized. We weren't inundated by people the minute we stepped out of customs, rather, there was a path demarcated by fences to the transportion area. The fence was lined with people many of whom were taxi drivers with signs with their customer's names. We had arranaged such a ride with our hotel - it is the way to go. It makes the first step after 33 hours of travel easy.

There were the "porters" who tried to convince us that because they had touched our luggage that we should pay them something. In retrospect, we probably should have let them take our luggage to provide a job. An idea that takes some time to get used to from our independent, do-it-yourself Western view. It's part of the relaxing more that takes time.

The ride in introduced us to Horn Do!

Hotel Polonia was welcoming (I didn't meet any grumpy staff as is alluded to in the Lonely Planet Guide.). Even though it was 00:30 when we arrived, there were an incredible number of staff awake. There is staff 24/7 on every floor as we discovered when we accidentally hit the call button instead of the light switch.

Restaurant on roof of Hotel Polonia Small Medium Large Ref: 2006_2731

Hotel Polonia has a nice rooftop restaurant, which gets the early morning sun, fog permitting. It is really pleasant sitting in the sun, drinking chai, listening to the birds and street noise.

First daylight view of street Small Medium Large Ref: 2006_2736 Vegetable and Meat Market Small Medium Large Ref: 2006_2757

Hotel Polonia is located in a market area, which means that the streets are not busy with too much motorized traffic. Just around the corner from it is a vegetable market with a few stalls selling chicken meat. Our first day, we just wandered out of the hotel and wandered through the market. Faith, our travelling companion and Lisa's colleague from University of Toronto, had arrived the day before us. She had walked to the Red Fort and through the market the day she arrived. We made her walk through the market again. She didn't argue much.

Franky Small Medium Large Ref: 2006_2767

Shortly after I pulled out my camera and took some pictures of the market, some of the vendors came up to me and asked that I take their picture. Being able to show them the result, albeit a small image, immediately afterwards was an added bonus. Franky was getting me to take pictures of not only him, but of other people too. He teased one of the women vendors by trying to get me to take her picture. Women generally did not like to have their picture taken. Everywhere we travelled, we found that people, usually men, sometimes women, always kids, wanted to have their picture taken.

Wiring? Small Medium Large Ref: 2006_2791

I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of the wiring. Quite often, there were brown-outs or short black-outs. Perhaps, some of the problem is the wiring?

New Delhi Redux