Day 3: Delhi, India. Today was another extremely tough but enjoyable day in Delhi. We experienced pick pockets, scammers, heritage, and some amazing people.
Morning.
Another terrible night of sleep, but a serious lie-in was had. Nicola tried to wake me up at 9 a.m., and I politely told her to do one, and before we knew it, it was hitting midday. I quickly got up and washed. While I was getting ready, learning from yesterdays mistakes, Nicola ordered Megan some toast from the hotel so she had a full belly.
Once Megan was fed we went downstairs and jumped in a passing Rickshaw who wanted 450 rupees to take us to the Red Fort. We knocked him down to 300, probably paying a bit over the odds, but it was a great thrill ride as we weaved our way across Delhi to the Red Fort.
Afternoon
Arrival at Red Fort.
OMFG is how I would sum up arriving at the Red Fort. On one side of the road was what looked like a clothes market. I would probably describe it as just chaos with thousands upon thousands of people milling around.
On the other side of the road, there were hundreds upon hundreds of people heading for the Red Fort. Honestly, it was just mayhem; I have no idea how this city functions.
We got out of our rickshaw and headed for the ticket booth. I won’t be lying in saying that in the space of a 5-minute walk, I was asked if I wanted a rickshaw tour of old Delhi at least 30 times; it was that constant. If you are ever visiting the area, be aware there are pickpockets everywhere. I felt wandering hands in my pockets a few times, especially at bottle necks. The only thing they were getting was a snotty hanky or two, as I don’t carry anything!
The queue for the ticket office was massive; thankfully, the tourist queue was shorter, so we had our tickets in a matter of minutes. I do agree on there being a difference in local vs. tourist ticket prices, but 600 rupees per adult (under 15s free) vs. 35 rupees for locals is a bit of a difference, but it is what it is and we wanted to see inside.
Red Fort
In hindsight, we should have gotten a guide; we did learn loads about the place, but a bit more information than what was on the signs dotted around the place would have given us more. A guide was 300 rupees per person, but to be honest, after paying 1,200 rupees, I wasn’t in the mood to spend anymore.
The Red Fort served as the main residence of the Mughal emperors. Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned construction of the Red Fort on 12 May 1639, when he decided to shift his capital from Agra to Delhi. The fort represents the peak in the Mughal architecture under Shah Jahan and combines Persian palace architecture with Indian traditions. The place is stunningly beautiful inside and out.
We spent around 2 hours walking around the fort; this is about average, according to the signs on the gate. We learned about the history of the fort and the many buildings within it.
As we were leaving, we saw three faces. Megan went and got a photo with one of them. One of the artists asked if we wanted a group photo; we declined, but we did ask her what the faces meant, and she was able to explain them in great detail. Great bit of information.
Leaving Red Fort
Time was ticking on, so we headed for the gates and the chaos of trying to get a rickshaw. We saw a family of English tourists just in front of us, and we used them as a blocker as we headed to the rickshaws. Again, we came to a bottleneck, and I felt hands going into my pockets. I did tell one group of kids to do one, but it didn’t deter them; they just laughed.
We jumped into the first rickshaw we came to; he wanted 200 rupees. We probably could have bartered him down a bit, but in all honesty, we just wanted to get out of the way and agreed, and off we went.
Weirdly, we got our driver to drop us off at the train station. This was absolutely mayhem on arrival, and we wanted to experience it again with no bags. If you have ever been to the train station, you will think I am mad, but I just wanted to experience it without a bag. As expected, it was chaos; we had to squeeze through bottle neck after bottle neck and similar scams as what we had experienced a few days before.
Evening
Arriving back at our hotel
Megan had been asking if she could play with the kids out on the street. There were a couple kids playing badminton outside our hotel, so she asked if she could play with them. They lined up to play against her, but they soon got bored as she was hammering them one by one, and they took their bats and left.
We had seen a sign for the roof-top bar in our hotel; it wasn’t a bar as such, but it was somewhere to come see Delhi from above. The views were absolutely amazing, and for once we felt calm and could take in the city with no one bothering us.
A young lad appeared from the building beside us. He was a pleasant young lad who just wanted to practice his English and show us his art work. One of the few people who we spoke to just wanted a chat and not our money. His mom and dad came to usher him on, but there was no rush as he had so much to tell us.
Dinner
Dinner the previous night was so good we returned to the street food seller around the corner for more. He had a big smile on his face as we joined the queue knowing we must have enjoyed our dinner from the night before we returned. It was the right move as the food was just as delicious!
Night
Monkey Family
After a monkey bit a child in Gibraltar, Megan has been petrified of them ever since. She didn’t hang around on the balcony when a family crossed over our heads and the roofs around us.
Drama booking a train
Drama struck about 7 p.m. We knew we needed to book a train from Delhi to Jaipur a few days later, but what we didn’t know was that Indian trains have to be booked 7 days in advance, and we had just passed that time.
We tried 12GoAsia, which wouldn’t let us book. Help was requested from the travel desk in the hotel, but he had gone home, so I had to become an Indian citizen and book tickets via the Indian Railways website. It was the only way we could get our tickets, and after a couple of hours of trying to work it out, we got our tickets and were good to go.
Needless to say, Jaipur to Agra and Agra to Delhi were booked shortly after on 12GoAsia, well ahead of time.
Packing
Tomorrow we are heading for Amritsar, near the Indian/Pakistan border. We have flights booked with IndiGo and hand luggage only! We spent until bedtime trying to organise our bags so everyone was within the required limit. A beer was required after that!
Bed
It was getting late and we had an early start, so we decided to get into bed and try to get some sleep. At this point, there was loads of shouting coming from the street below. Megan’s nosey nature, and she was straight onto the balcony to see what was going on. Transpired, there was a fight going on between locals. I had no idea what the issue was, but most of the street was getting involved with the less interested, but still nosey like us watching from their balcony. After about 10 minutes, I told Megan to come in and get into bed. The noise did go on for a bit, but we settled down, and we finally fell asleep.
Thank you for taking the time to read about our ‘Day 3: Delhi, India’. If you have enjoyed the read, please come back tomorrow for Day 4: Delhi, India. Check our the rest of our India Travel Diary.
