Delhi

We arrived in India!

As with all the other countries we arrived in, the first priority was to get a SIM card. In most countries, there have been several choices at the airport and the staff working there have been more than happy to set it up for you and take your money. Not so in India…

There was only 1 place that sold SIM cards in the whole airport. There were about 10 people working there and some were serving other people, but they were all ignoring us for some reason. When I asked someone for help, they told me we had to wait for 30 minutes because they were doing a shift change.

So, we stood there waiting… After about 15 minutes, I asked the man if I could have a menu of the different available plan options. He told me there was only 1 option and asked me if we could wait elsewhere away from the stand. He then told me that they would not be selling us a SIM card because we didn’t have an Indian phone number. (It seems that he was perfectly happy to have us wait 30 minutes before he was going to tell us this! 😒) When I asked how he was selling SIM cards to other foreigners, he ignored me and wouldn’t answer. So, we walked away and tried to decide what to do because we really needed a SIM card to contact the Airbnb host and book an Uber into town. The airport doesn’t have free wifi (like all the other airports we’ve been too). But, R asked a security guard who gave us a login to access wifi for 2 hours. (This isn’t advertised anywhere!) An Indian lady and man who were sitting near where we were discussing this asked us what the problem was. When we explained, they went to the staff at the SIM stand and found out that the Indian number is only needed to get an activation code. So, the man told us that we could use his mobile number. This was amazing and we thank him so very, very much! He saved us!! Having said that, we talked to another Australian girl who told us that she just gave the hotel’s phone number and they gave her a card. 🤷‍♀️

Accommodation

Our accommodation was a 2 bedroom apartment in the old town that we found on Airbnb. It was big, but very dirty. I don’t think the floor had been mopped in months… Also, there was a lot of ventilation in all the windows which meant the air pollution was all throughout the house and the cough that I still hadn’t gotten rid of since I was sick in January in Hoi An, got worse. 😢

Our apartment was located a few blocks from the Red Fort and Chandni Chowk market place and near the old wall and Delhi Gate. This area of town was where the book publishers are located.

Old Delhi Wall and Gate

‘Old Delhi’ was established in the 1600s and was originally surrounded by a wall and several gates (I’ve read various accounts that tally this at either 8 gates or 15). However, there are only a few gates still standing.

The best preserved section of the old wall was near our apartment:

Delhi Gate was close to the end of this section of wall and was our closest metro station. There was also a small market near the metro entrance.

Lodhi Gardens

On our first morning, we were feeling exhausted (we arrived after midnight) and a bit of culture shock. I think the 3 hours it took to organise a sim card, the EXTREMELY hard and uncomfortable bed and the dirty apartment shocked us after spending a tranquil month on a Thai island…. So, in the afternoon we decided to ease in Delhi and go for a walk in the Lodhi gardens. We were actually sort of surprised to see that Delhi has so many large and peaceful gardens and green spaces in the city.

The garden dates back to the 15th century and has several interesting buildings in it which are the tombs of various members of the ruling Lodhi dynasty.

Prices

After the Lodhi gardens, we walked north-east to find some food. We wandered into the Khan market where the prices we found to be surprisingly high. (We later found out that Khan market is one of the most expensive markets in India!)

In fact, prices in India are much more expensive than we were expecting. Before we came, we kept reading that prices were similar or cheaper than Vietnam, but we found this to not be the case. For example, in Vietnam and Cambodia, we could buy a meal for $1-2 USD. In Thailand it was more like $3-4, but in India, it’s closer to $5-6 USD and that is at the cheap places. All through S.E. Asia, we paid $1 USD per kilo for laundry services (wash, dry and fold). So, this normally cost us about $5 USD all up for the 4 of us. In India, most places charge per item and they charge $1 USD per t-shirt! With the amount of clothes we have, we soon discovered that it would cost us over $100 USD to do our washing! So, we decided that every once in a while, we’ll try to find apartments to stay at that include a washing machine…and we’ll do some hand washing along the way.

Chandni Chowk

I was excited and a bit nervous to visit the famous Chandni Chowk market (souk/bazaar). I have heard so much about this area, and the chaos there. I was a bit disappointed when I got there because it wasn’t nearly as chaotic as I was expecting! For those of you who have been to Cairo, Delhi traffic is about the same, and the number of people feels about the same. But the souk in Cairo is better in so far as a marketplace. Having said that, I always love a market and Chandni Chowk is massive! If you look at the map above, the marketplace goes from the mosque, Jama Masjid, in the south, to the Red Fort in the East to the main road at the top of the map. We explored the bottom half of it, over a couple of hours. Unfortunately, we missed the spice souk part which I was hoping for, but Google Maps sent us to the wrong place. We had a poor beggar girl follow us for over 20 minutes! She was very determined. We tried to pass her off a couple of times to other tourists, and we tried to lose her a couple of times, but she wasn’t going for it. I think the kids were a bit shocked by it. Here are some images around Chandni Chowk:

After exploring the market, we were originally planning on going to the Red Fort, but we still hadn’t gotten C a new backpack (his had ripped apart) so we decided to prioritize this and we jumped on the metro and headed to Connaught Place which we read had more upscale stores and a camping / hiking store. (Unfortunately, we didn’t take many photos of this area – only the one below. But, it’s a nice circle with a garden in the middle and stores and restaurants all around). We were lucky and found not only a new backpack but also new hiking boots for C.

Lotus Temple

The next day, we ventured out to the Lotus Temple, which C really wanted to see. We decided not to bother going into the temple because it’s really just a new building. But, the outside was cool.

Overall, we really liked Delhi and since we never did make it to the Red Fort, we’ll have to go back. Next stop, Agra.