Delhi - 3/29/1999
| TRAVELS WITH MOM - Table of Contents |
Our final email from Delhi, India on March 29, 1999:
We've been in Delhi for a few days, so I'll send this update today and then probably one more when we head for home this Friday. Time sure flies when you're reeling from culture shock each day.
Saturday morning, I checked out Jantar Mantar, the ancient observatory across the street from our room at the Park Hotel, while Mom stayed in the room to wait for a phone call. Jantar Mantar has several large sundials and similar structures built in 1725. You can climb to the top of most of them, and like all the monuments in this part of the world, there are no safety features (say, guardrails) so you have to watch your step.
After that, we transferred to Hotel Kanishka, where we'll stay through Friday. It's about half a mile straight south of Connaught Circle, and from our room on the 13th floor, we have a view of India Gate and - when the smog lifts - Humayun's Tomb off in the distance.
In the afternoon we booked a driver through the hotel to take us to a few places. He's been driving a cab since 1959, so (given our experience with younger drivers!) we're going to keep him through the week.
After a few Moghul marvels (including Humayun's Tomb), we went to the Bahai Temple. The Bahais have seven temples, one on each continent, and the North American temple is just north of Chicago. Each Bahai Temple has a different design, but they're all multi-sided symmetrical one-room buildings with a very high ceiling and rows of pews inside. The Bahai credo is essentially "everyone should believe in a god, but we don't care which one or how you worship him/her as long as you do it quietly."
The temple in Delhi is in the shape of a giant lotus flower, which is very striking, and the pews and floor are made from white marble slabs like those used in the Taj Mahal. And they run it very efficiently and professionally. Hundreds of people were filing in when we arrived, mostly Hindus with some Muslims too. There were no beggars or hawkers, and although you had to check your shoes at the entrance, there were large signs saying NO TIPPING. Even the waiting line to get in was unlike the rest of India: young ushers maintained a single line with none of the everyone-for-himself pushiness we've seen everywhere else. For travelers weary of India, the Bahai Temple is a treat.
After that, the driver took us to a Kashmir carpet place we didn't ask to be taken to (hey, it's India - we've only had one driver who didn't do this, Ajit the Sikh in Amritsar). We smiled through a demonstration of how the carpets are made, which was really quite interesting, then said NO firmly and politely, and moved on. The proprietor and I got into a good-natured argument about whether our Malamutes could destroy one of his carpets - he kept insisting that no dog could damage a well-made silk carpet, but I wasn't willing to spend $900 to prove him wrong.
Then we went to Qutb Minar, a stone complex that includes "the world's tallest free-standing stone tower" at 237 feet. There is a staircase up the inside of the tower, but it's been closed ever since some people were trampled to death a few years ago. There were many workers repairing sections of the tower, and they were probably using the same tools used in its original construction back in 1193; bamboo scaffolding, hemp rope, and stone slowly chiseled into shape by hand. Since Qutb Minar ("victory tower") was built in 1193 to celebrate the defeat of the Hindus and the beginning of Muslim control of the area (which continued until the British arrived in the 1700s), it's a little ironic to see Hindu workers restoring the tower to its former glory.
Saturday night we ate at the Mandarin, a Chinese restaurant on top of our hotel. Ordering drinks was a typical Indian dining experience.
Waiter: "What would you like to drink?"
Me: "What type of beer do you have?"
Waiter: "Lager beer, sir. One or two?"
Me: "What type of lager beer?"
Waiter: "Let me check." (Goes to the kitchen, comes back) "We have only Beck beer tonight, sir, very sorry."
Me: "Great! We'll have two Becks."
Me (to Mom): "That's unusual - every other place we've been has only had Kingfisher or Godfather's. I haven't had a Western beer like Beck's all month."
Ten minutes later, our waiter returned with two ice-cold Kingfishers. We didn't even ask.
Sunday morning, Mom left at 5:00am for a 3-day side trip to Coimbatore (several hundred miles south of here), to visit Manisha (the exchange student who lived with Mom and Dad in the 80s in Seattle). And for the rest of Sunday, I did something I've been wanting to do all month: NOTHING. I never even left the hotel, and by the end of the day, after getting to know the bartender and his stock of India-brewed McDowell's single-malt whiskey (not nearly as bad as I expected, and I told him so), my attitude about India had improved 100%.
Last night I sensed some type of motion in the hotel room while I was sleeping, as if a train had rumbled past. But then I lay awake thinking about how we're up on the 13th floor, and there are no trains within a mile or so, so something didn't make sense. Then, just as I was dozing off, there was another similar motion, less severe, but this time I was awake and was certain it wasn't a dream. I hopped out of bed, turned on all the lights, and looked under both beds, in the closet, and in the shower. No visitors, and the door still bolted from the inside. I felt like a fool, but was so wide awake I couldn't get back to sleep. Then at 6:00 I turned on CNN, and after the update from Yugoslavia, they showed a map of India with a red star near Delhi... "an earthquake registering 6.8 on the Richter scale occurred near Delhi in the province of Uttar Pradesh last night, with aftershocks ... no word yet on damage or casualties." What a relief - I don't have India shell-shock, it was just an earthquake! The final death toll was "at least 100," but authorities don't know an exact total because there are no accurate records of the people living in the rural area where the quake was centered.
Today I had our driver take me to a bunch of places to take photographs: India Gate, Rashtrapati Bhavan (the president's residence, like our White House), the Delhi Zoo, and two ancient ruins that were very cool: Purana Qila and Tughlakabad. Both these places were deserted: I wasn't just the only tourist; I was the only person around, except for some kids playing cricket inside the stone wall around Tughlakabad. Highly recommended.
Well, enough rambling for now. I'm off to meet with Mr. McDowell and a Cuban guy from the Hyatt Regency (thanks for the tip, John). More later in the week.
- ### -
We've been in Delhi for a few days, so I'll send this update today and then probably one more when we head for home this Friday. Time sure flies when you're reeling from culture shock each day.
Saturday morning, I checked out Jantar Mantar, the ancient observatory across the street from our room at the Park Hotel, while Mom stayed in the room to wait for a phone call. Jantar Mantar has several large sundials and similar structures built in 1725. You can climb to the top of most of them, and like all the monuments in this part of the world, there are no safety features (say, guardrails) so you have to watch your step.
After that, we transferred to Hotel Kanishka, where we'll stay through Friday. It's about half a mile straight south of Connaught Circle, and from our room on the 13th floor, we have a view of India Gate and - when the smog lifts - Humayun's Tomb off in the distance.
In the afternoon we booked a driver through the hotel to take us to a few places. He's been driving a cab since 1959, so (given our experience with younger drivers!) we're going to keep him through the week.
After a few Moghul marvels (including Humayun's Tomb), we went to the Bahai Temple. The Bahais have seven temples, one on each continent, and the North American temple is just north of Chicago. Each Bahai Temple has a different design, but they're all multi-sided symmetrical one-room buildings with a very high ceiling and rows of pews inside. The Bahai credo is essentially "everyone should believe in a god, but we don't care which one or how you worship him/her as long as you do it quietly."
The temple in Delhi is in the shape of a giant lotus flower, which is very striking, and the pews and floor are made from white marble slabs like those used in the Taj Mahal. And they run it very efficiently and professionally. Hundreds of people were filing in when we arrived, mostly Hindus with some Muslims too. There were no beggars or hawkers, and although you had to check your shoes at the entrance, there were large signs saying NO TIPPING. Even the waiting line to get in was unlike the rest of India: young ushers maintained a single line with none of the everyone-for-himself pushiness we've seen everywhere else. For travelers weary of India, the Bahai Temple is a treat.
After that, the driver took us to a Kashmir carpet place we didn't ask to be taken to (hey, it's India - we've only had one driver who didn't do this, Ajit the Sikh in Amritsar). We smiled through a demonstration of how the carpets are made, which was really quite interesting, then said NO firmly and politely, and moved on. The proprietor and I got into a good-natured argument about whether our Malamutes could destroy one of his carpets - he kept insisting that no dog could damage a well-made silk carpet, but I wasn't willing to spend $900 to prove him wrong.
Then we went to Qutb Minar, a stone complex that includes "the world's tallest free-standing stone tower" at 237 feet. There is a staircase up the inside of the tower, but it's been closed ever since some people were trampled to death a few years ago. There were many workers repairing sections of the tower, and they were probably using the same tools used in its original construction back in 1193; bamboo scaffolding, hemp rope, and stone slowly chiseled into shape by hand. Since Qutb Minar ("victory tower") was built in 1193 to celebrate the defeat of the Hindus and the beginning of Muslim control of the area (which continued until the British arrived in the 1700s), it's a little ironic to see Hindu workers restoring the tower to its former glory.
Saturday night we ate at the Mandarin, a Chinese restaurant on top of our hotel. Ordering drinks was a typical Indian dining experience.
Waiter: "What would you like to drink?"
Me: "What type of beer do you have?"
Waiter: "Lager beer, sir. One or two?"
Me: "What type of lager beer?"
Waiter: "Let me check." (Goes to the kitchen, comes back) "We have only Beck beer tonight, sir, very sorry."
Me: "Great! We'll have two Becks."
Me (to Mom): "That's unusual - every other place we've been has only had Kingfisher or Godfather's. I haven't had a Western beer like Beck's all month."
Ten minutes later, our waiter returned with two ice-cold Kingfishers. We didn't even ask.
Sunday morning, Mom left at 5:00am for a 3-day side trip to Coimbatore (several hundred miles south of here), to visit Manisha (the exchange student who lived with Mom and Dad in the 80s in Seattle). And for the rest of Sunday, I did something I've been wanting to do all month: NOTHING. I never even left the hotel, and by the end of the day, after getting to know the bartender and his stock of India-brewed McDowell's single-malt whiskey (not nearly as bad as I expected, and I told him so), my attitude about India had improved 100%.
Last night I sensed some type of motion in the hotel room while I was sleeping, as if a train had rumbled past. But then I lay awake thinking about how we're up on the 13th floor, and there are no trains within a mile or so, so something didn't make sense. Then, just as I was dozing off, there was another similar motion, less severe, but this time I was awake and was certain it wasn't a dream. I hopped out of bed, turned on all the lights, and looked under both beds, in the closet, and in the shower. No visitors, and the door still bolted from the inside. I felt like a fool, but was so wide awake I couldn't get back to sleep. Then at 6:00 I turned on CNN, and after the update from Yugoslavia, they showed a map of India with a red star near Delhi... "an earthquake registering 6.8 on the Richter scale occurred near Delhi in the province of Uttar Pradesh last night, with aftershocks ... no word yet on damage or casualties." What a relief - I don't have India shell-shock, it was just an earthquake! The final death toll was "at least 100," but authorities don't know an exact total because there are no accurate records of the people living in the rural area where the quake was centered.
Today I had our driver take me to a bunch of places to take photographs: India Gate, Rashtrapati Bhavan (the president's residence, like our White House), the Delhi Zoo, and two ancient ruins that were very cool: Purana Qila and Tughlakabad. Both these places were deserted: I wasn't just the only tourist; I was the only person around, except for some kids playing cricket inside the stone wall around Tughlakabad. Highly recommended.
Well, enough rambling for now. I'm off to meet with Mr. McDowell and a Cuban guy from the Hyatt Regency (thanks for the tip, John). More later in the week.
- ### -
/// thoughts on the above; see callouts in the original web version
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