Around the World: Hangin' in Delhi

February 19, 1992

It's late in the morning and I am quite lost in the maze of Connaught Place searching for the Emirates Air office to pick up my ticket to Cairo.  Along the way, several men greet me with one word. "Change?"

"Change" is an invitation to visit a nearby shop where one can exchange traveler cheques or foreign cash into rupees for a better rate than the bank offers.  I was able to get 36 rupees for each $1USD in a shop that sold bags.  Last night, while gathered on the balcony back at Sunny's, my fellow backpackers held a contest.  The winner had the guidebook to India with the oldest publishing date.  Comparing information on places to stay, we remarked that this must be an easy book to republish, as only the prices differ from edition to edition.  We agree that although there is no shortage of people in Delhi talking about change, nothing in India actually changes.  It just gets more expensive.

Lost in the maze of Connaught Place, I hear a familiar voice.  "Can you spare 5 rupees?"  It's the same drug-dazed Westerner again.  Who is this guy and why is he following me?

Connaught Place is disorienting enough, without being on constant alert for the unwanted groping on my backside.  It quickly gets irritating, chasing and chastising ignorant men who sample what they have no business touching.  I finally find Emirates Air and pick up my ticket.  My flight departs at 6:45 am on the 21st for Cairo!

New Delhi

Delhi is almost pleasant and very modern.  New Delhi is full of skyscrapers and noticeably absent of cows.  There's a sense of order to some degree.  Snake charmers wait for curious tourists approach them, for example, and I've grown somewhat accustomed to the sensory assault of colour, smell, noise and dust.  I am working up the courage to have a cold shower in a dark stall on a chilly day.

Some of my hotel mates have invited me out for pizza.  On the way back to Sunny's, Marcus, from Germany brings us all to a place he discovered that sells ice cream.  Ice cream!  Along the way, several offers are declined to shine my converse and put soles on Marcus' sandals.

Old Delhi, is very much like the India I have come to expect.  Crowded, chaotic, cows.   After our ice cream treat, we head into the old part of Delhi for dinner.  I'm not really sure what I'm eating.  It includes rice, vegetables and some mysterious substance that might be meat.  The meal is served on a large leaf and eaten in traditional Indian form, scooping what I can hold between the digits of my right hand.  It is considered very rude and unclean to touch food with your left hand, as this appendage is used for post digestive activities.  The meal is followed by a cup of chai from a nearby street vendor.

Delhi's old city

Back at Sunny's, the grade on the balcony is gradually increasing.  Jorn, from Denmark and Sabina, from Switzerland have discovered a shop that sells chocolate and share a selection of small blocks of fudge with everyone.  Sabina mentions that she will be leaving for Cairo, arriving the day after I do and we are making plans to meet at a place called the New Moon Hotel.

The conversation turns to this morning's shower experience.  Icy cold water in a small dark closet.  Hopefully, either tomorrow's temperature or the water will be warmer.  Seems an awfully unpleasant experience, only to be covered in grimy dust immediately after.

• ¤ •

"Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind."

~Seneca

Around the World: Making Plans

February 18, 1992

When I finally emerged from my cardboard box this morning, it was after 8am. Most cities in India have their own unique night time sounds and Delhi is no different. Last night's noises included gun shots and general localized unrest. Sounds that aren't particularly comforting knowing that the thickness of about 50 sheets of paper are all that stands between me and the goings-on outside.

Connaught Place looks very organized on a map and appears quite orderly on arrival, but it's a veritable maze of office buildings and businesses. It's very easy to get disoriented, something the locals are well aware of. Tempting as it was to be charged a small fee to be willingly led astray, I declined several offers and managed to find Singapore Air's airline office.

Don't let the straight lines fool you. 

The clerk I spoke to gave me a quote of $1900 to reroute my ticket, all the reason I needed to look for an alternative. Next door is the office for Gulf Air. The clerk bobbled his head and refused to help me without proof of my non-existent husband's approval. Yet another reason why I feel the need to change my ticket.

By accident, I found myself across the street from Cathay Pacific's office. The very nice female clerk explained that she could change my flight, but if I went to Emirates Air, I would get a better price. She was right.

A departure from Delhi International Airport spares me the long and arduous journey by train back to Bombay.  My new travel plans include two brief airport transfers, one in Muscat, Oman and another in Bahrain... 

New travel arrangements.

...until I am greeted by the ancient Pyramids in Cairo, Egypt!

I am a whirled up bundle of bliss and joy.  Just when I think this day can't possibly get any better, across the street, tucked behind another building, is the sign for "Wimpy's".  Hell ya, I'm getting me a  B U R G E R!

In India, the cow is a sacred animal so I'm not completely discouraged when I see the menu is reworked to accommodate the absence of beef.  The order queue is kept orderly by metal rails so the masses cannot crowd the counter.  Employees are dressed in garish orange uniforms.  My burger is made from 100% lamb, on a white, squishy bun with all the trimmings, even wrapped in that plastic feeling paper.  Michael Jackson is blaring through the speaker system.  It's west as best as India can recreate it, in much the same way someone from China would appreciate the ambiance of Manchu-Wok.  With nothing but a window separating me and my lamburger from India, all of this is so very much like home and every bite is a little nibble of something wonderfully familiar.

Sniff!  Can I have fries with that?

• ¤ •

One's home is like a delicious piece of pie you order in a restaurant on a country road one cozy evening - the best piece of pie you have ever eaten in your life - and can never find again.

~Lemony Snicket

Around the World: Arriving in New Delhi

February 17, 1992

Arrived at the station in plenty of time for the late night train from Jaipur to Delhi.  Attempts to reserve a seat only produced a wild goose chase to locate someone willing and/or capable to complete such a task.  I did get a thorough tour of Jaipur's railway station, as I was sent upstairs and downstairs and to this window and that one, where I met every single station employee that was not authorized to reserve anything for anyone.

When the train did pull into the station, it was clear that the only way to get a reservation on this train was to just get on. Claire and I ran the length of the train along the platform looking for a car with any available space without luck.  At the last car, the engine's whistle blows, indicating the train is ready to leave the station, but trying to get into the packed car is impossible. There just isn't any space that allows both of us to get into the car wearing backpacks.  Out of time, I quickly suggest a plan.  I'll get on, Claire will pass me both packs and then Claire will board.

As Claire tosses me the second pack, the train begins pulling out of the station.  She runs to keep up the with the train while I extend my arm to help her get on.  Two other passengers take hold of me as Claire grabs onto my arm and leaps for the door.  She lands in the car a bit off balance, but is steadied by three more passengers.  Once she is safely aboard, I survey the car for somewhere to settle for the trip.  Our hasty selection of this particular car comes with both bad and good news.  Respectively, the car we have chosen is beyond capacity full, and entirely by women.

Somehow, the five women who assisted us in boarding rearrange themselves to make a small area for Claire and I to sit.  Many of the passengers are sleeping on and against others who are curled up together under shared shawls, feeding infants or sitting quietly.  I soon find my shoulder is someone's support and my thigh is another woman's pillow.  Claire and I use our stacked packs to share a place to rest our heads for the journey.  There's a respectable sense of sisterhood among this group of women; we are all in this together.

I wake up from an unplanned nap just after sunrise to find the train about half an hour away from arriving in New Delhi.  The parallel rails are covered with people claiming whatever treasures they can find along the tracks.  A line of women are perched along one of the rails, bathing in a murky puddle.  Memory flashes back to the impoverished slums of Bombay and I wonder what other cruel fates of human existence reside in a metropolis the size of Delhi.

Railway slum between Jaipur and Delhi
Photo by Navid Baraty

Outside the train station, Claire and I are surrounded by a small mob of rickshaw drivers and beggars.  The crowd is screaming to us, demanding our money for either an offered service or just because and still coming closer.  Claire leans her head closer to my ear and says, "Wonder Woman!"  I know exactly what she means.  Both of us, wearing backpacks, start spinning on the spot and manage to knock most of the unwelcome crowd away.  Of the few brave enough to remain or wise enough to back up, is a rickshaw wallah offering a good price.

Shortly into the trip, I am convinced that one of us may have bumped him a little too hard.

This rickshaw driver appears to be aiming for road worthy targets. After he crunched over a parked bicycle, he started aiming for random pedestrians.  He even tried to hit a cow!  With his mouth full of betel nut, he tries repeatedly to convince us to go to another hotel.  Since neither of us can understand him, we just keep hollering in response, "Sunny's Guest House!"

Sunny's Guest House is relatively clean, pleasant and convenient, even though it has that self renovated look about it.  I'm pretty sure the walls of my windowless room are some form of cardboard.  The only source of daylight is from a tiny hole cut in a corner to let a small fan circulate air.  It has a bed and a door I can lock.  The common area is the top side of the roof that shelters the ground floor office and patio.  This overhanging part of the second floor has a bit more grade on it that there probably should be.  It's full of travelers that are either just arriving or soon leaving.

Outside Sunny's Guest House
Photo by Trip Advisor

The next flight on my itinerary is from Bombay to Dubai, United Arab Emirates.  I am less than thrilled about taking the train back to Bombay.  The reviews of Dubai vary, depending on the gender of the person I speak to.  Several female travelers report a negative experience, usually involving unwanted attention from the local men for displaying benign body parts (ankle, knee, arm).

From Dubai, I would then have to make my way overland to Bahrain.  This means crossing the border into Saudi Arabia, a place I will have difficulty traveling through without a male escort.  There's a lot about this trip that isn't sitting well with me, a foreboding feeling I have learned is wise to pay attention to.  

The original RTW route.

There is a plentiful selection of alternative destinations between here and London.  I'm just not comfortable moving over land through this part of the world.  I'm learning that I don't tolerate men who disrespect women terribly well, and my limited knowledge of the Middle East suggests that there are parts where women are barely tolerated at all.  I refuse to accept being treated like property, or at the very least inferior, simply because I am female.  I have a feeling this attitude could become a serious problem.

New Delhi's Connaught Place is a cornucopia of airline offices that I hope will be able to get me from here to London, and hopefully, without getting me into serious trouble along the way.

• ¤ •

A woman is like a tea bag.  It's only when she's in hot water that you realize how strong she is.

~Eleanor Roosevelt