Old Delhi

 Morning rush hour crush.

 Street scenes.

 Our guide Prerna, on the left.

 Jama Masjid, Delhi's oldest and India’s largest mosque.

The Sikh temple Sheeshganj Gurudwara.

 The food kitchen for the faithful and the poor.

Another bicycle rickshaw ride.

 Check it out.

Tuesday, March 13^th.

I woke this morning at 5:30 to the sound of an alarm that turned out to be coming from my computer. I have not set the alarm for weeks, but last night I left the computer on and the sound up and it rang.

I used the time to type the blog and then went down at 7:30 meet the new group. We have a female guide! Her name is Prerna and she is 26. The group is 12 people from Canada, Australia, Britain and the US. The average age is in the fifties. They seem like a good group.

We had a quick breakfast at the hotel and then set out on a walking tour of Old Delhi. We took the tube. We had to take two lines and three stops on each. It was rush hour and the trains were absolutely jammed. Prerna took the women to the end car which is for women only, and told the rest of us if we didn’t get on this one she would be waiting at the next station. We did miss the first, but jammed on the second. It was way more crowded than anything I have ever been on. People were pressed up against you in every direction, even my left arm which was holding my camera bag and hat was separated from me and wrapped behind someone else. There was no way you could fall down let alone move. When we got out I felt like a fullback as I got pushed out by people from behind. One of our group said he couldn’t believe that Intrepid put us on there in the first place, as he put it ‘if you want to get robbed or molested get on there.’ Anyway, the second train was a little less intense and we made it to our destination.

I was struck by the much more modern dress of the women here. Unlike the south many of the women, especially young ones wear western clothes. The men don’t look much different. The city is absolutely chaotic with horns beeping and hordes of people everywhere.

We walked as a group to a local temple, which we could only see from outside, devoted to one of the many Hindu gods and then to an ATM. After that we went to Delhi’s largest mosque, the Jama Masjid. I had been here before when I was in Delhi in 2011, only then it was raining and today it was sunny. Again I had to wear a long material wrap to cover my legs and pay to take the camera in. The mosque is large with a vast terrace that can accommodate thousands of the devoted.

After that we went to a Sikh temple. We had to wear a small bandana head covering and go barefoot. We walked in and sat down at the back and just observed the people, listening to the singing and read the lyrics. We went through the temple and into a large kitchen where the temple cooks hundreds of meals daily for the local faithful and the poor of other denominations. I’m not sure why, but we sat with them and had a little food.

The last activity was another bicycle rickshaw ride through the chaotic traffic of Delhi. It was not as long or as interesting as the one last week, and this time were largely ignored.

Then we tuck the tube and retraced our steps back to the Pooja Palace Hotel, which, although basic, is actually nicer than I thought it was last night. Inside Prerna gave us some details about tomorrow’s train rides and then most of the group took off to do their own thing for the afternoon. Prerna wanted to talked to me and get some details from me, so I stayed in lobby with her and a woman named Mary. After providing the details she wanted, we talked. She is an amazing young lady. Over the next hour, she told us the story of her young life. She graduated from the best university in Delhi and took an office job helping Indians apply from Canadian visas. She realized office work was not for her, so against her family’s wishes she took up adventure guiding near her home town in the foothills of the Himalayas. She did that for a couple of years, but eventually found it exhausting because people would get altitude illness or food sickness and that made the trips really hard. So, when Intrepid decided to hire on female guides, she applied. Somewhere around there she put the kibosh on the arranged marriage her parents had set up. She said that when she started to go out with him, she just knew that the arrangement wouldn’t work. The invites were already sent out when she pulled out, which put her mother in the hospital with stress. But Prerna thinks it was only emotional blackmail on her mother’s part. She has now led seven trips in India and is engaged to someone she met in school. He is a fighter pilot in the Indian air force and although her father is pleased, he’s an army man, it took longer to convince her mom. But, she is getting married in May and is all excited. She said it will be a small wedding with only a thousand guests! Amazing, self-determined new modern Indian woman. I am looking forward to traveling with her for the next two weeks and learning about the area of the country she comes from.

I went to my own room and relaxed for a bit before venturing out to find something to eat. There were no plans for the group to eat together. I wandered out among the masses of people and the myriad of small shops and across a six lane road to a restaurant called the Feast Restaurant. It turned out to be an upscale place that catered to the new generation of young Indians. I had a falafel wrap and a berry milkshake. It was really nice to not have curry for a change. Back to the room to type and get a good night’s sleep, as I am very tired from yesterday.