Having grown up in Pune and then getting married in Mumbai, was in itself a big adjustment for me. From the quiet town of Pune, Mumbai is a comparatively noisy city. And recently I travelled to Delhi and realized that it is quite a different experience from all that I've experienced upto now in my life.
The first difference is the weather - it is hooooot and tiring to walk anywhere. Taxis are few, and the manpowered cycle rickshaw is prominent. The next mode of transport is the green and yellow auto, which have a negotiable fare.......the meters are not used or are invisible. Then there are the public buses - the white line, the orange line, the green line and the red line buses. The red buses are AC. Delhi bus stops are comfortable to sit at and shady, but very difficult to climb down from as they are at a height of approximately 2 feet. A passenger has to walk around the side slopes or take a chance at high dive, when a bus arrives at the stop. The orange and red buses arrive with a whoosh. The conductor sits near the centre door and issues tickets as people board the bus. Buses are used only by lower middle class people as I observed,, rich Delhites own cars or use the metro.
The tarred roads are smooth and clean, and road signs are painted in green paint on white arrows, in Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu and English. Posh bungalows line the roads and these are preceded by green bushes and grass.....very scenic but not populated and too lonely to walk along after 6 pm. The only poor people we saw. were at Chandni Chowk and cycle rickshaw ownere sleeping in their vehicles.
Another peculiar sight in Delhi was that at every signal, hawkers were selling slices of fresh coconut. And orange vendors would cut the fruit in half, dip it in salt and chilly powder and then give it to you. In the dirty and congested Chandni Chowk, road vendors were selling papdi chaat, which my daughter enjoyed tasting, but I refrained since I do prefer more hygienic cooks.
THE METRO is wonderful, one can travel through the yellow line, then onto the red line, then go on to the blue line, only problem is that your bag has to go through the x ray machine each time. The most populated places are the metro stations and the tourist spots, otherwise Delhi seems lonely. Chandni Chowk is a dirty, gutter strewn road, which was the only congested area that I noticed.
If you visit the monuments then be prepared to give up your bags, stand in long ques for tickets and brush shoulders with Hamid, Hardik amd Hema. We travelled through 4 different metro lines that were interconnected and even visited Haryana. There we went to the Cyber Hub, a very populated and hi end mall, to visit a certain restaurant called Sodabottleopenerwala, which my chef son was very very eager to experience but he shied away from meeting the chef who he follows on instagram. The highlight of his visit was that he use his Go pro to his heart's delight.
The saving grace of Delhi is that people are not addicted to spitting. Roadside stalls sell fresh fruit juices and not paan, unlike Mumbai. Cannaught place has high end designer stores but restaurants are difficult to find and if you do spot one, it is over crowded. We wanted some medical stuff and could not find a chemist far and wide, from delhi gate to chandni chowk to all the tourist spots that we visited. Humayun's tomb, Qutub Minar, Agresar ki Bavli, Delhi Haat at INA, the Doll museum, India Gate, Red Fort, Jantar mantar, are great historical monuments but be prepared to remain hungry, because we could not find food spots near any of these, except the mobile Mother Dairy ice cream vans.
The Delhi Zoo was not quite what it is hyped up to be. You have to stand in endless ques for the entrance tickets and then your bags are frisked rather roughly, and all plastic bags are confiscated. Once inside the zoo, you are welcomed with a lovely fountain and then another long line for the 'battery operated trolley', an open van that takes the yellow banded tourists around the zoo in short drives. The zoo is too vast to walk through. And the enclosures are too tiring to go through, as the van only drives through the main path. We missed the giraffes and had to walk endlessly to find their enclosure. Everytime we spotted the van and had to board it, it was like a game of musical chairs, because only when someone alights along the route, is when the previous folk can re board it. The zoo was the only tourist spot where food stalls were being operated outside the gates.
So, if anyone wants to lose weight, then visit Delhi for quick results.
.
The first difference is the weather - it is hooooot and tiring to walk anywhere. Taxis are few, and the manpowered cycle rickshaw is prominent. The next mode of transport is the green and yellow auto, which have a negotiable fare.......the meters are not used or are invisible. Then there are the public buses - the white line, the orange line, the green line and the red line buses. The red buses are AC. Delhi bus stops are comfortable to sit at and shady, but very difficult to climb down from as they are at a height of approximately 2 feet. A passenger has to walk around the side slopes or take a chance at high dive, when a bus arrives at the stop. The orange and red buses arrive with a whoosh. The conductor sits near the centre door and issues tickets as people board the bus. Buses are used only by lower middle class people as I observed,, rich Delhites own cars or use the metro.
The tarred roads are smooth and clean, and road signs are painted in green paint on white arrows, in Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu and English. Posh bungalows line the roads and these are preceded by green bushes and grass.....very scenic but not populated and too lonely to walk along after 6 pm. The only poor people we saw. were at Chandni Chowk and cycle rickshaw ownere sleeping in their vehicles.
Another peculiar sight in Delhi was that at every signal, hawkers were selling slices of fresh coconut. And orange vendors would cut the fruit in half, dip it in salt and chilly powder and then give it to you. In the dirty and congested Chandni Chowk, road vendors were selling papdi chaat, which my daughter enjoyed tasting, but I refrained since I do prefer more hygienic cooks.
THE METRO is wonderful, one can travel through the yellow line, then onto the red line, then go on to the blue line, only problem is that your bag has to go through the x ray machine each time. The most populated places are the metro stations and the tourist spots, otherwise Delhi seems lonely. Chandni Chowk is a dirty, gutter strewn road, which was the only congested area that I noticed.
If you visit the monuments then be prepared to give up your bags, stand in long ques for tickets and brush shoulders with Hamid, Hardik amd Hema. We travelled through 4 different metro lines that were interconnected and even visited Haryana. There we went to the Cyber Hub, a very populated and hi end mall, to visit a certain restaurant called Sodabottleopenerwala, which my chef son was very very eager to experience but he shied away from meeting the chef who he follows on instagram. The highlight of his visit was that he use his Go pro to his heart's delight.
The saving grace of Delhi is that people are not addicted to spitting. Roadside stalls sell fresh fruit juices and not paan, unlike Mumbai. Cannaught place has high end designer stores but restaurants are difficult to find and if you do spot one, it is over crowded. We wanted some medical stuff and could not find a chemist far and wide, from delhi gate to chandni chowk to all the tourist spots that we visited. Humayun's tomb, Qutub Minar, Agresar ki Bavli, Delhi Haat at INA, the Doll museum, India Gate, Red Fort, Jantar mantar, are great historical monuments but be prepared to remain hungry, because we could not find food spots near any of these, except the mobile Mother Dairy ice cream vans.
The Delhi Zoo was not quite what it is hyped up to be. You have to stand in endless ques for the entrance tickets and then your bags are frisked rather roughly, and all plastic bags are confiscated. Once inside the zoo, you are welcomed with a lovely fountain and then another long line for the 'battery operated trolley', an open van that takes the yellow banded tourists around the zoo in short drives. The zoo is too vast to walk through. And the enclosures are too tiring to go through, as the van only drives through the main path. We missed the giraffes and had to walk endlessly to find their enclosure. Everytime we spotted the van and had to board it, it was like a game of musical chairs, because only when someone alights along the route, is when the previous folk can re board it. The zoo was the only tourist spot where food stalls were being operated outside the gates.
So, if anyone wants to lose weight, then visit Delhi for quick results.
.
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