The next day Maurice told me he had scheduled a guided tour around the city with a driver and said I could come along. $25 for 8hrs! We met the driver outside at 10am as he was wiping down his very-mini-van with a damp rag that he washed out under a spigot in the facade of the building. He was a short fellow dressed in a gray sweater with those shoulder button flaps that you see on military uniforms, gray pants, and black KEDS style shoes. He chewed something that stained dark his lower teeth and gums and colored his hair with heena (henna) so that he had orangish streaks in his otherwise black hair.
We hopped in and were off as our driver, who's name I can't recall (let's call him Arif) sped through traffic like a fucking madman trying to get his laboring wife to the hospital to bare their first son, into oncoming traffic, around slow-moving buses despite oncoming immovable objects. I leaned forward and was all, hey man, you can drive slower. Thanks! And he obliged and I lived to tell. First stop on our whirlwind tour of New Delhi was the Kutb Minar with is a 72m tall tower surrounded by a bunch of ruins. It was mighty impressive. Even more impressive was the aborted stump of a tower across the complex that had been started by an ambitious successor of the guy who had the first one built. the young gun, I think he was a thoughtful 13 or 14 decided to build a Minar twice as tall as his pop's with a base of the same dimensions. Didn't really seem possible to me, but, hey, I am no mathemagician and, at 19, I dropped out of physics 101 because I was too dumb/ill equipped to score better than a 50% on the tests (and, you may find this shocking to believe, but I REALLY tried). I decided to never try again. JK. Anyhow, all there was of this mega-minar was an unfinished stump about 20 ft tall.
Then we hopped back in the van and were whisked off to a "textile center" which, we found out, means a big sari and fabric and knick knack shop where pushy dudes try to sell you crap. We figured out the deal pretty quick and were all, thanks, but no thanks and hopped back in the van. Drivers of all sorts get commissions for bringing their fares to certain places their pals own/run and so hopefully our driver got his even though we bought nothing. We were sorta bummed that Arif stooped to taking us to a place to sell us garbage. We thought we were getting a BS free tour, but alas, I think those are rare.
He then took us to Hanuman's tomb which was, if I understand correctly, a prototype of sorts for the Taj Mahal, which I have zero plans to visit. It was pretty huge and had many hectares of nice lawns n stuff. We walked around for a while and took photos and then returned to the van and asked to be taken to a good place for lunch. We found ourselves in yet another sari shop being led by a fancily attired waiter to a mirrored elevator, which we thought seemed quite unnecessary for such a building. We were let out in yet another fancy restaurant with many eager waiters ready eager to seat us. I asked for a menu and we checked it over and decided that the joint was too rich for our blood. $6 for any entree is a lot when you can normally get it for $1.75. So, again we left and hopped back in the van, our driver seemingly peeved at our disinterest in his get-rich slow schemes. It's not like we're a couple of Teva+sock wearing $4000 camera toting Germans. We wanted authenticity- again!
So off we went, instead of finding another more humble place to eat, to a Baha'i temple which was no biggie since I grew up in a town where there was a much nicer, less touristy Baha'i temple that involved less BS and chaos. Finally, our driver pal took us to a little strip mall that was recessed in a back alley where there were several restaurants. We found a place that, while still really expensive, was more austere and the food was fantastic.
In New Delhi there are, in several places, large cement 2 car garage-like structures that are used as garbage dumps where cows will just chill atop a mound of trash and chow down. Just thought you should know.
Then we went to Gandhi's last place of residence, the jam-packed Red Fort. When we came out of the fort to find our driver under the tree he said he'd be at, he was chilling with a 11 year old kid who had a little fire going in a coffee can and was printing out tourist photos from memory cards on little portable color printers. I don't know where he got the electricity, but I think he was making a bunch of money especially for a kid his age. We hung out for a minute warming our hands in the fire and when we left, Maurice gave the kid 10 rupees "for the fire" which I thought was interesting in how unnecessary it was; It's ok to give middle class/working class people money, but not ok to give to beggars who are seriously destitute. I think "we" feel like we have more in common with the working folk than the beggars who we have literally nothing in common with. 10 rupees will not bridge that gap so why bother.
We also hit up Parliament which seemed empty but for the security guards with ancient machine guns who ignored the beeping metal detectors that we walked through. The place was full of pigeons roosting high above and shitting all over the place. Is this REALLY the head of government? It seemed like the kind of government building I imagined to exist in Azerbaijan or Georgia, 30 years ago. Bleak!
The next day I tagged along, yet again with Maurice in a chauffeured trip to Jaipur with a friendly driver named Raj who spoke decent English. We saw all kinds of poverty and 3rd worldness on the 6 hour trip and ate at a little roadside shack that served decent dal and chipatti on semi clean steel dishes. The bathroom was a field around the side and we hung out for a bit, enjoying the sunshine. Back on the road, we finally arrived in Jaipur, driving through the old city which is in large part, painted a lightly burnt-orange which I suppose is where it gets its name, the Pink City. Chaotic, loud, polluted, but a lot less so than New Delhi!
Put that in your cheaply-!hired SkullBong and smoke it.
We hopped in and were off as our driver, who's name I can't recall (let's call him Arif) sped through traffic like a fucking madman trying to get his laboring wife to the hospital to bare their first son, into oncoming traffic, around slow-moving buses despite oncoming immovable objects. I leaned forward and was all, hey man, you can drive slower. Thanks! And he obliged and I lived to tell. First stop on our whirlwind tour of New Delhi was the Kutb Minar with is a 72m tall tower surrounded by a bunch of ruins. It was mighty impressive. Even more impressive was the aborted stump of a tower across the complex that had been started by an ambitious successor of the guy who had the first one built. the young gun, I think he was a thoughtful 13 or 14 decided to build a Minar twice as tall as his pop's with a base of the same dimensions. Didn't really seem possible to me, but, hey, I am no mathemagician and, at 19, I dropped out of physics 101 because I was too dumb/ill equipped to score better than a 50% on the tests (and, you may find this shocking to believe, but I REALLY tried). I decided to never try again. JK. Anyhow, all there was of this mega-minar was an unfinished stump about 20 ft tall.
Then we hopped back in the van and were whisked off to a "textile center" which, we found out, means a big sari and fabric and knick knack shop where pushy dudes try to sell you crap. We figured out the deal pretty quick and were all, thanks, but no thanks and hopped back in the van. Drivers of all sorts get commissions for bringing their fares to certain places their pals own/run and so hopefully our driver got his even though we bought nothing. We were sorta bummed that Arif stooped to taking us to a place to sell us garbage. We thought we were getting a BS free tour, but alas, I think those are rare.
He then took us to Hanuman's tomb which was, if I understand correctly, a prototype of sorts for the Taj Mahal, which I have zero plans to visit. It was pretty huge and had many hectares of nice lawns n stuff. We walked around for a while and took photos and then returned to the van and asked to be taken to a good place for lunch. We found ourselves in yet another sari shop being led by a fancily attired waiter to a mirrored elevator, which we thought seemed quite unnecessary for such a building. We were let out in yet another fancy restaurant with many eager waiters ready eager to seat us. I asked for a menu and we checked it over and decided that the joint was too rich for our blood. $6 for any entree is a lot when you can normally get it for $1.75. So, again we left and hopped back in the van, our driver seemingly peeved at our disinterest in his get-rich slow schemes. It's not like we're a couple of Teva+sock wearing $4000 camera toting Germans. We wanted authenticity- again!
So off we went, instead of finding another more humble place to eat, to a Baha'i temple which was no biggie since I grew up in a town where there was a much nicer, less touristy Baha'i temple that involved less BS and chaos. Finally, our driver pal took us to a little strip mall that was recessed in a back alley where there were several restaurants. We found a place that, while still really expensive, was more austere and the food was fantastic.
In New Delhi there are, in several places, large cement 2 car garage-like structures that are used as garbage dumps where cows will just chill atop a mound of trash and chow down. Just thought you should know.
Then we went to Gandhi's last place of residence, the jam-packed Red Fort. When we came out of the fort to find our driver under the tree he said he'd be at, he was chilling with a 11 year old kid who had a little fire going in a coffee can and was printing out tourist photos from memory cards on little portable color printers. I don't know where he got the electricity, but I think he was making a bunch of money especially for a kid his age. We hung out for a minute warming our hands in the fire and when we left, Maurice gave the kid 10 rupees "for the fire" which I thought was interesting in how unnecessary it was; It's ok to give middle class/working class people money, but not ok to give to beggars who are seriously destitute. I think "we" feel like we have more in common with the working folk than the beggars who we have literally nothing in common with. 10 rupees will not bridge that gap so why bother.
We also hit up Parliament which seemed empty but for the security guards with ancient machine guns who ignored the beeping metal detectors that we walked through. The place was full of pigeons roosting high above and shitting all over the place. Is this REALLY the head of government? It seemed like the kind of government building I imagined to exist in Azerbaijan or Georgia, 30 years ago. Bleak!
The next day I tagged along, yet again with Maurice in a chauffeured trip to Jaipur with a friendly driver named Raj who spoke decent English. We saw all kinds of poverty and 3rd worldness on the 6 hour trip and ate at a little roadside shack that served decent dal and chipatti on semi clean steel dishes. The bathroom was a field around the side and we hung out for a bit, enjoying the sunshine. Back on the road, we finally arrived in Jaipur, driving through the old city which is in large part, painted a lightly burnt-orange which I suppose is where it gets its name, the Pink City. Chaotic, loud, polluted, but a lot less so than New Delhi!
Put that in your cheaply-!hired SkullBong and smoke it.
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