Old Delhi | India Blog

I think when many people picture India, they picture Old Delhi.

Old Delhi – three stops north of Connaught Place – is where one sees the giant bunches of power lines that criss-cross narrow streets crowded with people. Awning-covered markets are at every turn and the the intersections have few right angles. None of the buildings look like they’ve seen renovations in decades, except perhaps the variety of temples, churches, and mosques. The only signs of modernity are cars and scooters squeezing through and, of course, the McDonald’s right on the main drag.

My co-workers told me it gets so crushingly crowded on Saturday afternoons and evenings that you have to shove your way through just to get back to the metro station. The best time to visit, apparently, is on weekday mornings. But like many folks, I’m at work. Since everything is closed on Sundays, that left Saturday morning.

Old Delhi

So I awoke Saturday morning, had a hearty breakfast, had a talk with my intestines about the otherwise delicious chicken dinner from last night, skimmed a couple websites to get an idea of what to see, then off I went, chilling in the Ladies Car toward central Delhi.

But Delhi does have a way of making me grumpy, a little bit at a time.

Whether it was the pushy beggar who wanted more than two chocolates at Vaishali station, or transferring at the metro station and getting a train shorter than the platform and so having to jog with everyone else and squeeze into crowded last car, to every single rickshaw driver outside Chandni Chowk station trying to get my attention. (My favorite was the guy who said “It’s far, it’s far,” as if he knew where I was going. I didn’t actually know precisely where I was going, I was just following the crowd, but I also knew that every place of interest to me was in walking distance.) I think the worst was the kids who decided it would be funny to throw water balloons at my back after I finally did get on a rickshaw, then who laughed when I shrieked in cold, wet surprise. Then, after I recovered from that and was enjoying my ride to the mosque, thinking that my friendly rickshaw driver was doing a surprisingly good job pointing out the sites on our short journey, and that I might even give him 50, he turns around and charges me 150.

But everything was made up for at the mosque.

Jama Masjid
(Masjid = Mosque)

The mosque did not seem particularly welcoming at first (especially toward women). It was 300 rupees ($6) just to get in. And not only did I have to take off my shoes, they made me (as a woman) wear this god-awful robe apron thing “to cover up.” I assured the dude robing me that the garment was covering me up no more than my conservative clothes were already doing. I still got the robe tied on me.

However, they did allow one nice thing. I did not have to go barefoot on the warm, dried-bird-dropping-covered stone. I could purchase slippers to wear!

Jama Mosque, where I can dress like my great-grandmother
(At least they didn’t make me wear a headscarf.)

My OCD tendencies only cost me 100 rupees

After dark, it’s a Muslim Men’s Club

I’ve been reading The Muslim Next Door, which is giving me new appreciation for just how pro-women, pro-gender-equality, and pro-religious-tolerance the religion of Islam actually is according to scripture, so it is eye-rolling to see all this even in democratic India.

However, all of that aside, this is why the mosque made my day:

THEY LET ME CLIMB UP THE MINARET!

Like, actually get inside and climb the thing! For only 100 rupees.

The inside of the minaret is just a stone, spiral staircase around a column, going all the way to the top! That’s it. It’s tight enough where it is difficult for one person to pass another. Nowhere to fall, and the occasional tiny window out, it just goes up and up and up. HOW COOL IS THAT!? It is about 12-stories tall, the tallest thing by far in the area. And I was breathing hard when I reached the top. But worth it!

…reaching the top

It is one of the best views of Delhi I’ve had so far. I could see in every direction. At first, I was sharing the top with a foreign couple and their son. Then I had the top to myself for a little while before it started getting crowded up there.

The difference camera placement makes.

However, I assure you, mom, that the barrier went completely around from top to bottom.

View of Red Fort

View toward Karim’s restaurant
(How many autos do you see in this photo? I count about twenty.)

As I left, I got a little baggie to keep my purchased slippers in. I retrieved my shoes and a guy nearby wanted donations for watching my shoes. Indeed, unlike anywhere else I’ve been so far, there did not appear to be a shoe check here; you just put your shoes on the pavement with everyone else’s and hoped no one walked off in them. But, seriously, like that dude knew they were my shoes. Right. Anyway, before I walked back down the stairs, I looked at what they were selling at the stall by the entrance.

That SAME Delhi-Agra-Jaipur Golden Triangle book!

So then, I walked back to Red Fort, the other major monument in the area. My “no, thank you”s to rickshaw drivers were getting pretty weary. Some guys were persistent. I had to look one in the face and repeat NO, thank you for the fifth time for him to finally stop asking. I walked all the way to the bottom gate of the fort, but as it turns out, there is only one entrance, so I had to walk all the way back, at least this time on an inner street without rickshaws. Glad I wore sunscreen.

Red Sign

So, Red Fort. It’s red. It’s a fort. Yep. The audio tour, which you could listen to as you walked and enjoy some background music and historical information, was worth the couple bucks, but other than the relative peace and quiet of the large garden space and the pretty nifty-looking red walls, there isn’t much else to recommend here. This is one of the major attractions in Delhi for some reason, certainly one of the first I heard about, and it gets a lot of worldwide visitors, being a World Heritage Site. Honestly, seeing the variety of people was far more interesting than the fort itself. Saw Japanese tourists, African tourists, European tourists. Even Middle Eastern tourists I think.

Inside the fort. Cool tree in the fort.

I caught one Indian dude with his camera phone pointed at me. But it was less weird because as soon as he realized I was okay with him snapping a photo, he wanted to take one me with his elementary-aged boys, then with each individually, shaking their hand. (Shaking hands with children… and repressing my OCD instinct.) I got the impression that he was from outside the city visiting the capital… and the weird-looking foreigners were just part of the experience. (I mean, they were for me! Though I didn’t snap any without their permission.) So afterward, I asked if I could take a photo of his kids, too:

One guy later actually asked so politely for my permission to take my photo, that I almost wasn’t sure what he was asking. These two guys did the same thing all the other guys have done (a photo per guy) but were just super polite about it.

With the exception with the water-balloon-throwers, I generally find the kids to be adorable. The schoolchildren love to say, “Hello, how are you?” or “What’s your name?” or just wave. Obviously, they are learning English in school and the brave ones want to practice it. Japanese schoolchildren are very much the same. I always try to respond in textbook English; probably the English teacher part of me.

So, I figured I should actually try to walk around Chandni Chowk (i.e. Old Delhi) before I returned because it was so famous. I decided to head in the direction of Chawri Bazar, the next metro station down, thinking that would give me a good overview. I had a cheap chicken biryani (rice) for lunch in a literal hole-in-the-wall establishment near Karim’s. (And, in fact, if you are looking for Karim’s – very famous restaurant – it is just south of the mosque.) I turned and started walking on the smaller streets, kind of purposely attempting to get lost for a little while. And I did.

Chandni Chowk toward Karim’s
(from the mosque)

I think I wandered out of the famous part, where each street is a market that sells something different (spice, paper, saris, tools, food), and instead into a very old neighborhood. Narrow streets with lots of people out and about. I bought a bottled orange juice from one of the many little convenience stores and started taking turns at random. No right angles. No rickshaw drivers talking to me, just ones going by making dropoffs. It all felt so old. It would have felt like a time warp except for the periodic honking and speeding by of a motorcycle. but it was an indescribable experience. I didn’t take any photos here. I felt briefly like I was in Cairo because this apparently is a Muslim neighborhood. The large majority of women I passed were in burqas or at least fully covered. My presence did not seem to particularly bother anyone; they were just going about their day. I felt amazingly safe, actually. The only people who talked to me at all were, you guessed it, schoolchildren.

The lack of right angles confused my sense of direction a little, though. I ended up exactly where I started. After that, I took the most direct route on the map to get to Chawri Bazar station. An interesting walk in, I think, the paper street.