sadara.be

I missed my train out of Delhi yesterday evening. The traffic was awful and the rickshaw wallah very old (looked it, anyway). Should have used the metro, but I couldn’t find it. For the record: New Delhi metro station is on the far side of the main line station’s tracks – over the footbridge. No signs, of course, until you’re nearly there. So today I have some more time in Delhi. So …

Today a trip out to Majnu Kha Tilla, a suburb of Delhi, where there’s a Tibetan enclave. A haven of peace!

The temple is fairly small, with the usual beautiful collection of thankas and rupas. I was particularly drawn to a White Tara rupa.

Get the metro to Vidhan Sabha. It’s a 10/- rps ride on a cycle rickshaw from there.

And I’ve just dicovered that my ‘waitlisted’ reservation – I was no. 18 on the list – has been converted to a confirmed reservation. I’m off to Jaisalmer. This time I’m going to Delhi Junction Station by metro. The announcements on the metro really do say: Please Mind the Gap, though there’s no gap to be seen.

It’s not often you come across a genuine spitoon these days. Indeed, I’m not sure I’d ever come across one before visiting Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport yesterday. I’m afraid that in my ignorance I used it as a litter bin.

The snow clouds over Moscow came almost down to the ground – as the plane was landing, I saw the ground for the first time only a few seconds before we touched down.

The whole journey from Amsterdam to Delhi went absurdly well and to schedule. When I’d cleared immigration and picked up my luggage, it was still a bit early to be looking around for a hotel, so I hung out at the airport until about 5.30, then got a taxi into town. I had the name and address of a hotel which had been recommended, but it took the taxi driver a while to find it. On the way, he tried to drop me in two places which were clearly not where I’d asked to go – and one of them was a dark alley where I definitely did not want to get out and explore.

Today has been the familiar culture shock: the heat, the noise, the crowds, the riches and poverty, the shoe-shine boys, the touts, the strange crumbling remnants of the British Raj. Of course, there are many, many changes since I was last here, in 1988, but my main impression is actually that it’s just the same. Or maybe it’s just the effect on me that’s the same! One difference: where’s that smell of bidis gone?

And not a spitoon in sight, just lots of spitting.