First Impressions of India

Filthy... Smelly... Chaotic... Noisy... Crowded...

We didn't appreciate the meaning of culture shock until we got to New Delhi!

The airport itself was shabby & dirty & as soon as we left the baggage hall we were confronted by the chaos - swarms of people & vast numbers of took-tooks (auto rickshaws), bicycles, motor scooters & taxis (old Morris Oxfords/Ambassadors). The roads were choc-a-bloc with hair-raising traffic executing death-defying manoeuvres accompanied by constant ear-splitting hooting - the Indian horns are much shriller than British ones!

We'd booked into a hotel in the Main Bazaar in Pahar Ganj which wasn't the best place to ease ourselves into Indian culture. The price of 4 pounds a night for the room had been tempting but foolish! Cows, goats, pigs, rickshaws, scooters, fruit & veg carts, cars & people all milled about the narrow streets & the stench was unbelievable. Our hotel had a rooftop restaurant but we couldn't actually stomach eating anything there because of the smell drifting up from the streets. We retreated with our breakfasts into the relative safety of our room - the bathroom left a lot to be desired with it's floor toilet tray & lack of cleanliness.

We did do some sightseeing during our initial 2 days in the city & some of the buildings were stunningly beautiful, not to mention wonderfully peaceful. Lal Qila, the Red Fort, is a fantastic palace complex, in a large garden, behind a massive stretch of red sandstone wall. The buildings were somewhat dilapidated but it wasn't difficult to imagine how splendid they must have been when inhabited by the Mughal emperors. We saw the Jama Masjid (the biggest mosque in India) & an amazing Jain Temple. We wandered around the Purana Qila, another fort, & the world heritage site of Humayun's Tomb which was built in the 16th C & is thought to be the prototype for the Taj Mahal. It was magnificent & again set in lovely gardens, complete with live Langur monkeys, parrots & deer.

To be truthful, that was what we enjoyed most about visiting all these historical sites - to be able to escape into the tranquillity away from the clamour of all the touts & beggars swarming around us outside & to escape from the glaring poverty & hubbub of the streets. A trip to the neighbourhood of Nizamuddin was not so successful - it was like going back to the Middle Ages. We are very grateful that we have spent our entire lives in the 20th & 21st centuries in Scotland!

The contrasts we came across in these first few days were extreme. We've never been anywhere like it before & we're not sure that we like it! We should say, though, that most of the people (beggars, touts & government officials excluded) that we've met & talked to have been lovely!