The chaos and beauty of Delhi

India has been on my list of destinations ever since I first read about the Taj Mahal as a boy. I was mesmerized by the beauty, the exotic people, the animals, the history… everything. It seemed to me that India might be the furthest possible place from where I grew up (Lake Arrowhead, CA) which made it number one on my list of places to visit one day. 

More than 40 years later… Laura, Alex and I are in Delhi with the Taj Mahal only a few days of touring away.

Delhi might be the most chaotic place I’ve ever visited. Imagine the population of the 22 least populated US states crammed into an area half the size of Rhode Island. I only thought I’d seen congestion before visiting here. The funny thing is we are here during the time between Christmas and New Years, which is to say one of the least crazy times of the entire year. 

As for tourists… we’ve hardly seen any other tourists who are not Indian. Being 6’1” with blond hair… I feel like I can be seen for miles. People approach us to take pictures with their children. Others accost us on the street to find out where we are from. On a tour through the Chandni Chowk food district, I may have seen 3 other non-Indian faces in a sea of ~100,000. On the subway, other riders presented expressions seeming to say, “Are you lost?” But in every instance we’ve felt comfortable and accepted.

Our first site visit was to the largest Sikh Temple in Delhi. We knew nothing of the Sikhs before this trip. The Sikh religion is popular for abolishing the Indian caste system among its members. As you can imagine, we heard that the religion is not popular with those in the upper castes. Sikhs believe in service to fellow humans. At this particular temple, they feed between 35,000 and 50,000 of Delhi’s poorest people for free every day, and on large holidays can feed upwards of 200,000 people in a single day! This is all accomplished through donations and volunteers. Funny how we in the US get excited about charity organizations capable of feeding <1% of what this temple does. 

Along with the free meals, the temple is also home to one of the largest free medical clinics in all of India. Some of the tests have costs, but as you can see from the picture, most are under $1 (1 Indian Rupee is $.0117). And, no. You do not need to be a Sikh follower. You simply must be a person in need.

Later we took a food tour in Chandni Chowk, one of the food districts in Delhi. Our family loves food tours (great way to experience a city…) and has done ~7 in the last 6 months. This was one of the better ones. We first took the subway from the central station to Chandni Chowk where we exited the station to a completely uncurated part of the city. We were told that most western tourists don’t venture here, which is a true shame. The streets are closed to cars from 9am to 9pm. Instead, the street is a tangled flowing river of walkers, bikers, rickshaws and motorcycles. There are street vendors selling food you’ve never heard of, but find yourself wanting to remember when you leave India. In at least one instance, we walked behind a food stand to a non-descript doorway that took us up a flight of stairs to a hidden cafe serving the world’s best Parathas. 

There were street vendors selling spices of every color and smell with chai walas pouring chai tea for those passers by wanting a quick break. Riding a rickshaw to get to our next cafe was like being a part of the world’s most complicated dance where if any one dancer were to misstep, the whole street would come to a loud and violent crash. Our rickshaw would jolt one way to miss a walker to occupy a space with another rickshaw who had to impose on another’s space to not hit us, all while motorcycles jetted around in the most un-straight line possible. From a 10,000 foot level, I’m not sure you would be able to tell if this was complete chaos, or the world’s most choreographed ballet. Either way, all we could do was sit back and trust we would make it to our destination without catastrophe. It was completely awesome, but a little fatiguing. After a few hours, we were ready to jump back on the metro and return to our hotel.

The next day we visited some of Delhi’s more famous tourist destinations that told some of the history of Delhi. India has a long history of conquerors tearing down and rebuilding to their liking with many of the larger ancient sites showing architecture from ancient Hindu, early Muslim, and modern Hindu… all in the same space. Because it’s only a few days after Christmas, and it was raining, we didn’t experience any crowds. We mostly walked by ourselves with our guide. All in all, it was a nice, but tourist-y day.

In all, we feel like we’ve seen Delhi, and are ready to fly to Khajuraho tomorrow morning.