Delhi--Beauty, Beggars, and Biryani

A cacophony of sights, sounds, and smells, the ancient Indian city of Delhi pushes every button. It is thick ropes of delicate lavender orchids draped across every inch of a wedding canopy, a beggar woman pressing her baby's face to the window of our taxi, and the mouthwatering scent of tandoori wafting from a pocket-size "Old Delhi" restaurant.

After a long flight, we arrived in Delhi’s chaotic airport late at night but were quickly whisked to our hotel by the manager of the travel agency that handled our trip. My first glimpse of India’s dense masses was the wall of humanity at the airport exit. Some here were picking up friends or relatives while others were tour operators or taxi drivers, who persistently solicited us as we ran the gauntlet to our car.

Though we had no tours the next day, that afternoon we decided to visit The Imperial. Built when India was a British colony, this luxury hotel is an art deco masterpiece. Here workers were frantically preparing for an opulent wedding. Vividly colored flowers in jaw-dropping profusion were being arranged throughout the garden including ropes of lush lavender, pink, purple, red and yellow orchids, literally hung from overhanging tree limbs!

The following morning, our driver and Delhi guide picked us up and we soon arrived at Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque, built in 1658. Jama Masjid abuts 17th century "Old Delhi"or Shahjahanabad. Here one can take an auto rickshaw ride through narrow lanes jampacked with Muslim shoppers, sacred cows, tiny storefronts and markets, and the ubiquitous motor scooters.

After lunch, we visited where Mahatma Ghandi, who was martyred in 1948, was cremated. It was here where an Indian child came up to me and began turning flips. I didn't immediately realize she was hoping I would give her a few rupees. We then went to the Red Fort where India’s last Mughal emperor held out against the British during the bloody 1857 mutiny and finished the day by visiting some fascinating outdoor markets.

As we were only going to be in Delhi briefly, the following morning we left early, driving by Qutub Minar, India’s highest stone tower. It was built in 1192 to celebrate Mughal emperor Mohammed Ghori’s victory over the fierce Rajputs. At India Gate, we saw where 90,000 Indian soldiers are memorialized, each of whom died in World War I, fighting for the British.

Like all of India, Delhi is indescribably colorful; it looks like someone has taken charged paint brushes and flung fire engine red, lime green, royal blue, lemon yellow, pumpkin orange, hot pink, and a host of other shades in every direction. Whether it’s the women’s graceful saris or even the trucks, practically everything you see is vividly tinted. Sadly, just as ubiquitous are the beggars who crowd many intersections and trail tourists at historic sites and monuments. Like a Hindu god who presents multiple faces, Delhi is a dizzying city where the highs and lows of India’s past and present are juxtaposed.

Quick Tips:

Delhi is no longer an inexpensive city, particularly for Americans whose weak dollars don't go very far. That said, I would not recommend you try to save money by eating street food. "Delhi Belly" is a consistent problem for visitors so I would limit most of your meals to hotel restaurants and places recommended by a trustworthy guide.

In addition, a knowledgeable guide and skilled Indian driver is an absolute necessity. We made our arrangements through CC India and found their services to be totally top-drawer.

Here is a list of the sights not to be missed if at all possible:

India Gate
"Old Delhi"
Jama Masjid
The Red Fort
Connaught Place (we didn't make it there)
Rajghat
The Gandhi Memorial Museum
Qutub Minar
Lodi Gardens

Unless you really enjoy heat or monsoon rains, the best time of year to visit Delhi is November to March. We were in India from Feb. 15-March 3 and the night we left Delhi for home, I was already feeling heat and humidity in the air.

Best Way To Get Around:

A car with a skilled Indian driver or taxi. Buses are unspeakably crowded and auto rickshaws are quaint but appear to be rickety. Take a bicycle rickshaw ride through Old Delhi but otherwise, I wouldn't recommend them to get around Delhi as they seats are very narrow and the ride bumpy.

Set in the heart of Delhi, The Claridges is a semi-posh hotel featuring 137 rooms on three floors. More importantly, it is peaceful, secure (set within a walled compound), and close to the historic sites, shopping areas, and restaurants of India’s capital city. It lies 35 minutes by car from the Indira Gandhi International Airport.

Built in the 1950s, The Claridges offers rooms in several price ranges. We stayed in a Club Room (40 sq. meters), which cost about $225 a night and featured a large bedroom with a separate seating area where one could lounge on a couch while watching the plasma TV or work at the desk. The Claridges offers some rooms that are very newly renovated but ours did not fall in that category.

High speed wireless internet access is available in the rooms and the baths are fully equipped with robes and hairdryers. More importantly (at least to me), our room was quiet and the bed was comfortable. My only problem was that during the night, it seemed the air conditioner thermostat was adjusted up so I often awoke overheated. (We were there in February.)

Service at The Claridges was a bit spacey but all rooms and public areas were immaculately serviced and there were exquisite arrangements of flowers tucked in corners throughout the hotel. We particularly enjoyed having a drink each night in the hotel’s "Space Age" style bar Aura, which specializes in vodka from throughout the world. It was fun to watch Delhi’s elite do deals here.

The Claridges also has a health club, which we had no time to try but we did sample three of its restaurants and enjoyed a buffet breakfast included in the price of our room. Though we loved the breakfast (I’d never before sampled watermelon juice, which was superb), the restaurants were overpriced for what you got.

Our first day in Delhi, we tried lunch at Pickwick’s (continental cuisine) and though we both just sandwiches and salads, our bill came to almost $100 (two people). Later on during our stay, we sampled Dhaba (Northern Indian) and Jade (Chinese). Though the meal at Dhaba was good, it was not worth the cost and at Jade, the prices were even higher and the food merely adequate.

From what I’ve read, Delhi suffers from a lack of hotels so apparently, its hoteliers are in the driver’s seat when it comes to prices. That said, several new hotels are in the pipeline so when they open, hopefully prices will fall some and visitors will have more choices on where to stay and eat in India’s capital city.

Set in the heart of Delhi, The Claridges is a semi-posh hotel featuring 137 rooms on three floors. More importantly, it is peaceful, secure (set within a walled compound), and close to the historic sites, shopping areas, and restaurants of India’s capital city. It lies 35 minutes by car from the Indira Gandhi International Airport.

Built in the 1950s, The Claridges offers rooms in several price ranges. We stayed in a Club Room (40 sq. meters), which cost about $225 a night and featured a large bedroom with a separate seating area where one could lounge on a couch while watching the plasma TV or work at the desk. The Claridges offers some rooms that are very newly renovated but ours did not fall in that category.

High speed wireless internet access is available in the rooms and the baths are fully equipped with robes and hairdryers. More importantly (at least to me), our room was quiet and the bed was comfortable. My only problem was that during the night, it seemed the air conditioner thermostat was adjusted up so I often awoke overheated. (We were there in February.)

Service at The Claridges was a bit spacey but all rooms and public areas were immaculately serviced and there were exquisite arrangements of flowers tucked in corners throughout the hotel. We particularly enjoyed having a drink each night in the hotel’s "Space Age" style bar Aura, which specializes in vodka from throughout the world. It was fun to watch Delhi’s elite do deals here.

The Claridges also has a health club, which we had no time to try but we did sample three of its restaurants and enjoyed a buffet breakfast included in the price of our room. Though we loved the breakfast (I’d never before sampled watermelon juice, which was superb), the restaurants were overpriced for what you got.

Our first day in Delhi, we tried lunch at Pickwick’s (continental cuisine) and though we both just sandwiches and salads, our bill came to almost $100 (two people). Later on during our stay, we sampled Dhaba (Northern Indian) and Jade (Chinese). Though the meal at Dhaba was good, it was not worth the cost and at Jade, the prices were even higher and the food merely adequate.

From what I’ve read, Delhi suffers from a lack of hotels so apparently, its hoteliers are in the driver’s seat when it comes to prices. That said, several new hotels are in the pipeline so when they open, hopefully prices will fall some and visitors will have more choices on where to stay and eat in India’s capital city.

Now known as "Old Delhi", the city once called Shahjahanabad was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and served as the Mughal Empire’s capital from 1649-1857. Today, it still surrounded by crumbling city walls, three surviving gates and quite separate from the rest of Delhi. Its labyrinth of narrow lanes, some scarcely wider than a man’s outstretched arms, is crowded with cycle rickshaws and lined with 17th-century havelis (Indian mansions), their once-ornate faces now covered with rusted signs and sprouting satellite dishes and power lines strung higgledy piggledy. Mostly Muslim, the residents of Old Delhi live lives that revolve around work and the local mosque, much as they did a century ago.

This area of Delhi is very congested so the best way to explore it is to catch a taxi or auto-rickshaw (I'd recommend the former as it's more comfortable) to the Red Fort and then take a cycle rickshaw or even walk to Old Delhi if the roads are really hopelessly crowded. Chandni Chowk, which is Old Delhi’s main street, leads down from the main entrance to the Red Fort. Along this busy commercial street you will find mosques, a church, and a number of temples. Opposite the fort itself is Digambar Temple, Delhi oldest Jain temple and surprisingly simple compared with other Jain temples, most of which are intricately carved. Attached is a bird hospital, which looks but doesn’t smell charming.

We only had time to see the Hindu Gauri Shankar Temple (look for the mounds of marigolds, sold to worshippers as they enter) from the outside but many visitors come here to see its 800-year-old lingam (a Hindu worship symbol). Or stop at Sisganj Gurudwara, an atmospheric and welcoming Sikh temple, which marks where Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh guru, was beheaded by Shah Jahan's Muslim fundamentalist son Aurangzeb. You’ll need to hand over your shoes and wash your hands and feet at the entrance.

Then you might want to detour to the right into Church Mission Marg and then left into Khari Baoli, said to be Asia's biggest spice market. Incredible colors, textures, and aromas literally spill out into the street, but watch your pockets in these jampacked lanes. Go south down Dariba Kalan to reach Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque.

The principal mosque of Old Delhi in India, Jama Masjid was commissioneed by Shah Jahan (he also built the Taj Mahal) and completed in the year 1656. It remains one of the largest and best-known mosques in India. A huge building, the mosque features a courtyard that can hold up to 25,000 worshipers. The day we were there, we saw Muslims praying quietly in various corners of this mosque but if you’re fortunate enough to be here on Friday (the Muslim Sabbath), there is a weekly service held that day.

Having explored Jama Masjid, you may want to head south to Churiwali Galli, the "lane of bangle-sellers," and stop at Karim's to sample the authentic Mughlai cooking that has kept patrons coming back for over a century.

Here in Old Delhi you can also see the Kashmiri Gate, which was where the British ruthlessly crushed the famous 1857 Indian Mutiny. Sadly, Old Delhi was also the scene of unspeakable violence and displacement during the 1947 partition of India. Here huge numbers of its Muslims residents whose families had lived in this community for literally hundreds of years were attacked by Hindu mobs. Many of those who survived this strife were forced to flee to the new country of Pakistan.

If you want to get a flavor of what Delhi was like during Mughal times and before India gained its independence, be sure to pile into one of those narrow cycle rickshaws and take a ride through Old Delhi. And when you get ready to pay your driver, consider how exhausting his job must be and leave him a few extra rupees.

If you've never before flown through a third-world airport and the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi is the first, it could well be your baptism of fire. Though there are signs plastered all over the facility stating that airport officials are working hard to prepare the facility for the 2010 Commonwealth Games (Delhi), heaven help the athletes and attendees if the local bureaucrats don't make good on this pledge.

Truthfully, the number of passengers passing through this airport have skyrocketed over the past past few years and numerous improvements are obviously being made to it. However, if our experiences flying in and out of there in early 2008 are any measure, things still have a long way to go in terms of both facilities and organization.

As we were coming in from the UK, our flight terminated at Terminal II where international airlines discharge passengers. (The airport’s web site says 35 different airlines fly into Gandhi Airport from major cities across the world.) Passport control was slow for non-Indian nationals like us but not ungodly. Within about 30 minutes, we were through the lines and on the way to pick up our luggage.

Here’s where we got our first taste of the problems I’m told one often tends to encounter at the Delhi airport these days. Though we’d flown first class on British Air (BA), after more than an hour, our bags still had not arrived. Unfortunately, we were unable to find any airport personnel who give us information on where to go and what to do in the situation.

Finally, after almost two hours had past (by then it was about 1:30 a.m.), we gave up and began walking out of the terminal without our checked luggage. Since landing, our Indian travel agent, who was waiting outside to take us to our hotel, had been anxiously texting me about our bags situation but because of airport security rules, he was unable to enter the terminal to try to assist us. Lo and behold, as we prepared to exit through the turnstile, we practically tripped over our suitcases, which had been unceremoniously dumped here!

Before leaving London, a BA agent had told us that first class passengers’ bags would be the first ones taken off our flight. This may indeed have happened but all I know is that only by sheer luck did we find both suitcases in an unmarked corner of the baggage area. (I did notice Cathay Pacific had an area for first class bags defined by stanchions and a large sign). We then exited the terminal and our wonderful travel agent from CC India quickly whisked us to our hotel where we promptly collapsed into bed.

Almost three weeks later, after touring across India, we again had to enter The Heart of Darkness to make our way back home. When our faithful travel agent told us we would need to get to the airport a *minimum* of four hours before departure to catch our Heathrow flight, I knew this was going to be a rough night (1:25 a.m. departure). However, it was only upon arriving back at the airport that I began to understand just how rough.

First off, there was such a massive traffic jam and huge crowds (probably 400 people or so) massed in front of the international departures terminal (don’t ask me why--most of them didn’t appear to be flying out that night) that it took us at least a half hour to merely fight our way to one of only two airport entrances that were open. Once we got to the door, at least three members of the Indian military each had to examine our passports and tickets before we were allowed to pass through.

Though our travel agent could not accompany us into the terminal because he was not holding a ticket (airport security rules again), he had hired a porter (credentialed to enter) to assist us (thank God) with our bags. After the three of us elbowed our way through the incredible mobs found inside too, we got in line to have our luggage inspected and sealed by security. Fortunately, there was a BA First Class passenger rep stationed here and she helped us clear this hurdle within about 20 minutes. After pushing us through the crowds to the preferred passenger ticket counter where we got our boarding passes, she then escorted us to the passport control line.

Now the real fun began. Several hundred very unhappy-looking passengers taking international flights that night were queued up here, snaking around countless ropes and stanchions. The line was so long that it looked like Disney World during the Christmas holidays (shudder). Though we certainly didn’t want to stand here any longer than necessary (the terminal was stifling hot though it was only March and airconditioned), when the BA agent broke line and pushed us into the gap (she said this was a first class flyer privilege), we almost got our lights punched out by angry passengers who had obviously been behind us for some time.

After my husband dissuaded me from getting into it with a particularly incensed elderly American man directly to my rear (I'd worked very hard to accrue us enough frequent flyer miles to travel first between the U.S. and India), we proceeded to wait here. As time went on, it became obvious passport control was so backed up that many passengers were in danger of missing flights. Agents then began moving up and down the line and calling out specific flight numbers so passengers on these flights could be moved ahead. However, because of the terrible din in the terminal and the agents’ soft Indian voices (don’t ask me why they weren’t using mikes), many folks ended up missing their flights anyway.

After (count them) two and a half hours in line, we finally made it up to passport control. Thankfully, our flight was running late so we went to a First Class lounge to wait until our flight was called. The lounge was no great shakes but at least the ladies room there was an improvement over the one in the departure terminal that I’d had to use while in the endless passport line. It didn’t look so bad but smelled like it hadn’t been cleaned since the airport opened back in the '70s.

When we finally got on our flight, both of us collapsed like dead bugs. We were however intensely grateful that at least we were in First Class. Our deepest sympathy goes out to all the poor passengers flying in coach and even business class who not only had to wait in the passport control line much longer than we did but were not able to fly to Heathrow in first class comfort

In terms of experience and a basis for comparison, I might add that my husband's been flying internationally since he was six, traversing Europe, North Africa, and southern Africa. I've been flying domestically since the age of four and over the past decade, we've both flown through Europe and African airports at least 35 times. Even today when flying almost anywhere has become an endurance sport, we feel that the conditions at the Delhi aiport were the most unpleasant either of us has ever before experienced.

If you must connect through this airport for international flights, I would recommend the following (in no particular order) to help make this experience as easy as possible under the circumstances:

(1) Unless you really tend to be cold, dress lightly and wear very comfortable shoes;

(2) Carry a couple of full bottles of mineral water with you;

(3) If you're entering the terminal, try to grab a porter (blue vests) on your way into the maelstrom;

(4) Try to fly business or first class, if at all possible or at least pay to use the Gandhi Airport's first class lounge;

(5) And finally, you might try greasing a few palms if you really hit a brick wall in terms of trying to move through the various lines. We did not do this but I just read a blog in which an Australian passenger flying out of Delhi (April 08) said he saw an Indian man give a soldier a few hundred rupees and next thing you know, this gentleman was moved to the very front of the passport control line.

While my husband and I were *completely* fascinated and charmed with India and her people (this was our first trip to the subcontinent), I must say that the dreadful conditions at the Indira Gandhi Airport, particularly on departure, left a bad taste in both our mouths.