A free day in New Delhi
Bart in Indiareis 2018 2018-04-30 19:14, laatste update 2020-09-30 13:00
Today was our last free day before going to Kolkata. On Mondays, almost all monuments are closed, but with Bart, Alexander and I decided to go and look at them from the outside. Walking to the metro, it was already hot outside (we slept long, so it was about 10:30 am). Inside the metro there is air conditioning, so we could cool down again. We walked to see the Red Fort from the outside. After that we walked through a market and went to the metro again to visit the Lotus Temple, which was in another part of the city. This was also closed, but we could get quite close by walking through the park that was around it. It had become even hotter, so after a break in the shade, we decided to walk back to the cooled metro to go back to our air conditioned hotel room.In the evening, we all gathered to have dinner together. Even the persons who stayed in bed sick all day joined. The restaurant served ``bottomless'' drinks and had food which was between Indian and Western food (I had a spicy vegetarian burger, but they called it mild). My belly was not happy with the amount of food I ate, but after some rumbling, it got calm again (others were less fortunate :-( ).
Although it feel like a week, we only had three whole days here in India. I start to get used to being here. The heat is still overwhelming, but I can handle it much better. The streets seem bigger and the horns of all the Tuktuk's don't make me jump anymore. Though some changes are still difficult: In India they drive on the left side (in theory, in practice they can drive everywhere). It is important to remember that when crossing the streets. I still accidentally walk on the right side of stairs, instead of the left side. Also, I often forget that pointing with your finger is considered rude. You have to point with your thumb or with you whole hand. On the other hand, we have seen a lot of Indians pointing with their finger, so it won't be a big problem.
In these three days we have also encountered some special Indian behaviour. In the train back to Delhi, we sat next to some soldiers who where going to defend the border with Pakistan (the Indian interpretation of the border of course). They where very friendly and interested in us. I'd say that they offered us some food and alcohol, but that is not the right way to describe it. It was more like they forced us to eat their food and drink with them (``You six need to finish that bag of nuts, before we arrive in New Delhi!'' By the way, we failed, there were still nuts left when leaving the train) Very generous, but very strange. Saying ``no'' was not helping.
Another strange event happened today when buying lunch in a supermarket. After paying, Alexander saw that there was a mistake on the receipt and that he had payed about 800 rupees (10 euro) too much (He had payed 1100 rupees instead of 300). They were very friendly at the consumer service, but it took a very very long time to get the money back. First they needed to make many photos and copies of the faulty receipt, then they passed it on to about 10 other people, who went away with it, coming back some minutes later. There were multiple checks on what Alexander had bought and how much that should cost. But eventually, after 20 minutes (which seemed like an hour), Alexander got his money back. Luckily there was air conditioning inside.
Tomorrow we are getting up early to go visit our first institutes, so I'am going to bed now.
