Trapped in Old Delhi

One Saturday a couple of weeks ago, we thought we’d head into Old Delhi for a wander round, so we parked the car and got the Metro into the heart of crazy Old Delhi.  We walked through some back streets, still amazed by the fact that each street seems to sell something specific- firework street, stationary street, sari street and a new one for us on this trip – do-it-yourself street.  We now know where to buy screwdrivers, paint, nails and drills – like a B&Q warehouse!

We also visited Old Delhi’s famous sweet shop - Ghantewala – where we bought a few Indian sweets, they were a bit like very sugary flapjacks – not bad at all, and it turned out we were going to need the energy!

Although the weather has cooled from its 48deg peak, its still pretty hot and sweaty here, so we sought refuge in the only place in Old Delhi with AC – McDonalds (I know its bad! Sorry!).  While enjoying our drink we noticed that it had got dark outside and then the heavens opened!  So we stayed in McDonalds for a while, with half the population of the street!  

Eventually it eased off so we thought it best to escape from Old Delhi and head home – however flooded streets and thousands of people don’t mix so everyone else had the same thought as us and tried the Metro – its was chaos, people pushing through security and people getting trapped at the bottom of an escalator as the crowds were so big no one could get off the bottom of it!  

We didn’t like the idea of how busy the trains would be so another change of plan and we decided to stay in Old Delhi for some food – off we went to Karim's (a famous kebab house in the heart of Old Delhi).

Walking through Old Delhi is not easy, there are always motorbikes/cows/dogs/street sellers/bikes to contend with (and that is just on the pavements!), but 20 min later we got to Karims, to find that due to Ramadan it was closed until evening (we should probably have guessed this, as its by the biggest mosque in Delhi!).  

By this point the roads were gridlocked, I’d never really seen the meaning of the world until this day!  No one was going anywhere, everyone approached each junction on both sides of the road, so no one had anywhere to go once they reached the junction, so everyone just sat there – madness! 

So, we couldn’t travel by road; we couldn’t travel by Metro; we couldn’t walk back as it was too far... so we sat on the steps on the Jammai Masjid (the aforementioned mosque).  We were literally trapped in Old Delhi!

At this point I’d like to apologise to Suzanne for dragging her with us, she’s only been in India a few weeks and so this was truly baptism by fire (or in this case torrential rain!).

We eventually decided to try a different Metro station, another chaotic 30min walk away and managed to escape – we got back to the relative peace of New Delhi and headed straight back to the High Commission for lunch!  India is a country of contrasts and my lunch choice was certainly in contrast to our day in Old Delhi..... Helen xx