Up at 07:00 hrs. and down to a hostel breakfast of omelette and tea (3.5 Indian Rupees). We checked out and walked the familiar route (for George and I) to Connaught Place, stopping at Gaylords Ice Cream Parlour for a coffee.
Martin was a keen photographer and was snapping away wildly with his SLR camera despite our advice: “save your film, you ain’t seen nothing yet”! Ringo’s Guest House was full so after a hot lemon drink we moved along to the Sunny Guest House, just along the road.
Twelve Indian Rupees secured us a crude bed in the rooftop fabricated dormitory, in refugee camp style. It was choc a bloc with the wooden framed, hemp rope grid beds and the baggage of other guests. We left our heavy gear and set off to give Martin an “Introductory Tour of India”. This comprised as a march through the madness and squalor of Old Delhi.
We struggled passed an overloaded bicycle rickshaw which had tipped backwards under the weight leaving the driver hanging from the handlebars and pitching his puny weight in a vain attempt to regain control of his load and get the front wheel back on the road.
Another roadblock took the form of a pickup truck, with a wreck in tow, which had pulled across the road and was stuck, unable to turn. We passed the tarpaulin pavement camps of the real poverty-stricken Delhiites (The people of Delhi are commonly referred to as ‘Dilliwalas’ or ‘Delhiites’) and went into the Old Delhi Railway Station Restaurant for a cheap meal.
On the way back Martin bought a ticket to Agra for tomorrow. We headed into the Delhicacy for a tea break at 16:00 hrs. Following this we returned to the Sunny Guest House to play around with our kit, use the bog (toilet) and have showers.
Our kit rationalised, we set out again to try and sell our surplus gear and get an evening meal. George got 40 Indian Rupees for his holdall bag and an insulated water bottle. After a lot of silly offers and blank refusals we off-loaded our books on a seedy bookseller for 25 Indian Rupees. This wretch with about five teeth feigned disinterest but quickly upped the price to 25 Rs. when we went to walk away.
We dined in the Delhicacy as usual, writing and reading long after we’d finished our meals. Chortling merrily, we composed a poem to George’s brother in response to one that he had sent us from his West Middlesex Hospital bed where he was recovering from a hernia operation.
We returned to our short creaky beds at 21:00 hrs. to rib Pie (our nickname for Martin) before nodding off. We were smug in our slow overland acclimatisation to Asian life, whereas Martin had pitched in at the deep end by flying directly from the U.K.
No comments:
Post a Comment