Day 3 Delhi

On the third day it was time to organise myself for where I was going next as I did not have a hotel for the next night! This meant another journey to the New Delhi Rail Station and this time nothing would put me off so batting all touts aside I made my way to the 1st floor of platform number 1, even here a tout tried to tell me I was in the wrong place - but I persevered and found the office along a small corridor marked only with a postage stamp sized notice for tourists connected to room 123 and 122. Here I was able to sit in AC luxury while filling out the paperwork required to by a rail ticket - passport number, destination, time, train number etc all went into the form and finally the payment in cash of 1090r (about £16). This paid for the ticket on the Shabati Express departing at 7.20am and arriving 7 ½ hours later in AMRITSAR the site of the Golden temple and place of pilgrimage of Sikhs.

After organising the train it was back off into New Delhi to find a phone as my T-mobile did not work here!! I ended up buying a pay as you go phone for £40 including credit with an Indian sim from Vodaphone (Which appears to be the only really serious company in India). To obtain a phone here you need a passport, a photo id, another address id and you need to sign a form in 5 places including across your photo. It would appear that mobile phones are taken very seriously in India.
This completed I was able to contact a hotel in Amritsar where I was pleased to find there was available rooms and booked myself in for one night…

Then off to do the tourist trail on foot and metro. New Delhi houses the Palace and ministries of defence and other government buildings - they are all very impressive and stand in a line with the War memorial arch in an area of open green space crossed by 5 lane highways. I walked amongst the impressive architecture and was able to speak to some of the guards on the gates (It is always best to ask for permission before taking photos of anything military).

The area also houses the National Museum, a round building housing three floors of art, bronzes and images. It is worth a visit for 300r but the exhibit halls are small and include only limited artefacts in comparison to the British National Museum. Once again the army has a presence here and this gives confidence that you are safe.

While I was in the area I wanted to get to the War Memorial and managed this feet only due to an official ceremony to remember to fallen taking place. Ambasidorial cars came with military escorts to lay a reef and then departed crossing a 7 lane highway as the traffic police blew whistles and gestured with white gloves to stop the traffic. All of the cars are old and not to fast, and stopping traffic in Delhi causes chaos quickly as the flow is relentless - there are no gaps because although there are traffic lights they are not on as it would interfere with the flow!!

The commonwealth games are coming to Delhi in a month and there is a lot of work being done in preparation for this event. Many of the roads and pavements are being re-surfaced and the grass is being replanted. However, what shocked me was that the “tented hovels” that I saw on the roadsides and on small areas of parks were in fact the workers homes - they travel with there possesions to where the work is a set up home, which is no more than a set of sticks and plastic sheeting with rags. The workers themselves worked as small units each family repairing one corner of the pavement or resurfacing one stretch of road - all work done by hand and where heat was required simply start a fire. One group of women were sorting out grass into single plants as I passed in the morning and by two hours later they had planted almost all of the grass by hand along a stretch of road near the national museum. If the industrious workforce is anything to go by then they will be ready - However, one or two people that I spoke to seemed to think that it would be hit and miss and pointed out that Glasgow was already ready for the 2014 event!!

My final night in Delhi meant that I needed to get to the 24th floor restaurant to get some amazing views of the city. It was worth the trip as the city limits were not visible even from this height, it just seemed to go on forever with a mix of modern and ancient buildings lining a maze of streets. However, it is also very green with many buildings sporting a frosting of vegetation due to the climate.

Final stop was coffee at Costa (once again with security) for an expresso and sandwich. The experience was a shock as I found a hair in my mushrooms!! However staff were excellent and changed the sandwich quickly while sorting out the coffee.

Ended the evening with a walk in the dark back to the hotel to pack and say goodbye to the owner. It would be a 6am start to catch the train for Amritsar…