Namaste and welcome to my India posts. I’m pleased you are joining me on day four of Wren’s Worldwide Wanderings Blogging from A-Z challenge. D is for Delhi, India.
India has come a long way from my first experiences in the 1980s. Amazing, beautiful, captivating, and downright hard work, we are somehow always drawn to return many times.
Two of our children attended an Indian boarding school in the foothills of the Himalayas. In exchange for this life-changing experience, we opened our Australian family home to two Indian teenagers. Through their polite, shy ways, our family gained a greater understanding of Indian life.
My wardrobe now contains a couple of colourful silk sari’s and I can do a reasonable job of dressing myself without a wardrobe malfunction, should the need arise!
Our most recent return to Delhi was in 2018 you can read the posts here…
- Inspiring India
- New Delhi Lodhi Street Art
- The shambolic delight of the National Gallery of Delhi
You can all of the feels in Delhi, from amazing palaces to city slums. The city of Delhi actually consists of two components: Old Delhi, in the north, the historic city; and New Delhi, in the south, since 1947 the capital of India, built in the first part of the 20th century as the capital of British India.
Today I would like you to brave a bike ride with me and get to know Delhi a little better.
DAY 21 – Delhi By Cycle
We are grateful for the early start to our Shah Jahan Bike tour, which we foolishly thought would be well over by the time Delhi awoke. Wrong.
The bright orange sit up and beg-for-your-life bikes are well maintained and comfy looking. There is a big saddle and no gears to worry about. Each comes fully equipped with all the latest safety features; an essential noisy bell and working brakes!
Ok deep breath, and they’re off….through the small windy streets of the bazaar. It ’s a seeming catastrophe of auto-rickshaws, motor scooters, pedestrians, dangling wires, potholes, and rubbish. The journey goes like this:
bell, brake, swerve, bell, brake, phew!!
But it doesn’t take long to get the hang of it and ringing our bells like old pro’s we come across all sorts.
As the sun creeps higher in the sky we arrive in the wholesale Spice Market. The spices penetrate deep in our lungs, making us cough and sneeze. We are grateful to escape into the dark interior of the Gadodia warehouse and emerge sputtering onto the rooftop, pleased to have survived ‘death by cardamom‘ and to be in the relative ‘fresh air’….
From here we can look down on the early morning tradings of the Spice Market… And our guide, Daniel a history graduate fills us in on what life has been like in the area for hundreds of years.
It is calm and peaceful on the rooftop. Down below is a whole different story.
Back on our bikes, I feel like I’m in a low budget Bollywood movie. One where the rich Indian street life whizzing passes me on the big screen. I should be in a long flowing pink and gold sari.
I try to take in the sights, avoid a collision, keep up with my group. It’s exhilarating and a complete sensory overload.
We leave Old Delhi for the respite of the calm, leafy wide streets of the Civil Lines District ‘Anyone for Chai?’ The old colonial past of whitewashed houses and manicured lawns are in complete contrast to a few km’s away.
Red Fort
Refreshed and up for the next adventure, we cycle up Chandi Chowk, a main thoroughfare of Delhi towards the Red Fort. Then onwards through the market streets thick with goats and towards the looming Masjid Mosque. This area is crazy busy and at times we are forced to stop and resort to pushing our bikes through the crowd.
Moving on, we pass an elephant lumbering into town in his Sunday best for the weekend festival and celebrations and peddle like crazy through a maze of increasingly crowded market alleyways to arrive at Karim’s famous restaurant for our breakfast. We’re hungry and the house specialty is the delicious slow-cooked goat with naan and a coke. The menu gives an option for a whole goat – 24 hours notice required…
As we sit and exchange stories from the morning’s ride, we all agree that we couldn’t have wished for a better introduction to life in this great city than Delhi By Cycle.
What a brilliant tour…
4 comments
Bike sounds like the best way to experience the city.
Hair raising, colourful and perfumed, what a tour!
I’d love to visit India. It looks so vibrant
Debbie
Have had an email pen pal for about 9 years. She lives in Chennai. So fun to read of other regions of the world.