Written Sunday 21/01/18 11 AM return to India 2018
OUR STORIES for our stay in
Delhi - Wednesday (Blog) / Thursday (Blog)
/ Friday (Blog)
(LAST INDIA POST IS HERE (12/April/18 - Amritsar and wrap-up of India Trip)
click on images for enlargement and
correct orientation
Saturday 20/01/2018 Delhi
Saturday morning we were up
early, a bit before six, and off to our neighbourhood chai street vendor. For our
first three days we struggled to get to the nearest metro, which we would take
a tuk tuk through unbelievable
heavy traffic for twenty minutes to because that was our first instructions how
to get to it. The night before in some dark alley somewhere in Delhi in one of
our totally lost moments we hailed a tuk tuk and it took them about 45 minutes to find their way to
the alley we live in. I am sure we should have some natural alert instinct of
any possible dangers, 
especially with cameras and other things worth more
than a couple of rupees we cart about to record our moments
but we don’t. So we were happy to be informed that
there is a metro stop five minutes away from where we live. The रामकृष्ण
आश्रम
मार्ग
stop (OK, the Ramakrishna Ashram Marg stop).
I was a tad bit interested in the Rama Krishna Ashram which is near us, maybe
we will get to it tomorrow, due to the popularity of the Krishna movement at
the end of the 1960s in California. It was the hippie thing to be involved with
though at that time I got involved with a different cult for a decade but I was aware of its hold on others. Those of you
who are young enough to have experienced the 1960s would have seen this sect at
airports and malls (even in Adelaide) around the world with devotees or pretend
to be devotees chanting stuff, burning incense and handing out flowers. (The Vedanta Society of Southern California, with its headquarters in Hollywood, was founded in 1930 by Swami Prabhavananda). Incidentally, the New York Times (International
Edition, which we collected in KL on the way to here) had a cover story about
when the Beatles went to the TM ashram in Rishikesh and how it is being
renovated. Not sure if we will get there. But back to our local subway stop.
Groovy. Not far away. It is on the Blue line which we took for one stop to Rajiv Chowk, where we
caught a train on the yellow line to the INA
stop as we wanted to check out a hotel we had booked for when we
came back through here in April. We immediately did not like the area, nothing
beats our area with the narrow streets, startled looking cows, people trying to
sell us tours, shops, chai carts, and the bustle of this older area. However,
Narda did find a dress she liked and bought it so that was a fortunate stop in
one of our worlds. Back on the yellow line we thought going to the end of the line
would be good. Huda City Centre was sort of pronounceable which made it a logical
destination. However, after a series of stops the train started going back and
never made it to Huda. Wanting to persevere to our desired stop we crossed the
track to continue our journey. It was then I spotted two signs of interest;
this was of course, at the Saket stop, one sign advertised Garden of Five Senses and another a cinema. I
told Narda that I wanted to go to the Garden of Five Senses, but feeling a ‘rolling
of the eyes’ coming on I said and there is a cinema at this stop too and she
was quite interested. Another extremely busy hustling part of Delhi where we
got swarmed by tuk tuk
drivers we just kept walking to who knows where? Realising our utter lostness,
and seeing a park with a sign for the Garden of Five Senses we asked someone
about the cinema and of course the garden. The person told us that the Garden
of Five Senses was not worth the bother, pleasing all five senses of Narda, and
that yes there was a cinema.
The only English movie playing
was ‘The Darkest Hour’ which we have seen good reviews for and we paid the
extra 25 rupees for the ‘premier’ seating (total 400 rupees for the two of us
or six buck USD) believing we would get good seats. However, the seats were
average and close together with little leg room, but we were in a balcony, so I
suppose that was the extra we paid for. Movies in India begin with standing for
the national anthem. The movie was good, however, there were several
anti-smoking commercials at the start and throughout the whole movie in rather
large letters at the bottom of the movie was a line about not smoking. The ironic
thing was that Winston Churchill and lots of other people in the movie smoked
the whole time. Half way through the movie there was an intermission that
lasted about half an hour filled with ads, most of which were impossible to
know what was being advertised.
And that pretty much was our day. we never made it to Huda City or the Garden of delights but getting back to our area around nine pm we had another great meal and that is it.
subway youtube of this 24 second clip
