Adventures in India 3: New Delhi Tourism 2

We started off the next day in the pre-dawn darkness, which was a little chilly. Our friend planning the trip had signed us up for a bike tour of the old city. I think most people with some idea of what traffic can be in India are at this point a bit concerned for our health. We met up with the guides outside a hotel not that far from our own, arriving early because traffic was light and and then standing around in the cold for a bit. The guides said something along the lines of 'We have to do this early in the day before the traffic gets bad', which made sense but also meant the later we got into the tour the more dynamic the traffic might be. There were about as many guides as people on the tour - it turned out that they basically rode protection around us - trying to create a protective ring of natives around the tourists.

My impression with New Dehli (and maybe India in general) traffic is that if you see a gap you must commit fully and instantly, or someone else will assume you're not going and do the same. You are actually safer when you move faster and dive into and out of traffic. People driving assume you are going to do it. I felt like there was a flow that I could understand - I worked to have very high situational awareness so I could take any opportunity that arose immediately. The group in some cases was not able to stay fully together as a vehicle or cart or something cut off the route, or else you had to detour around it at speed. The cobbles and the weaving weren't that bad - the bikes were well chosen for the venue and well-maintained. I had fun most of the time, visibly more fun than some other members of our party. It may be that the 2000+ miles of road biking done in Japan better prepared me for this challenge than those who have been driving since they turned 16.

I don't have pictures of us actually riding, for obvious reasons. We mostly stuck to very narrow streets in the old city, which still had motorcycles, animals, people brushing their teeth, etc, crowding them despite the early hour. They also tend to have open gutters/sewers on the sides which only sometimes have gratings over them - definitely don't want to fall in. This image is from one of our first stops - look one way and see an ancient mosque.

Look the other way and see people sleeping outside and in ad-hoc structures and garbage everywhere.

As it got lighter the traffic definitely picked up.  We crossed this one on foot.

At various points in the trip in cars and tuk-tuks we were involved in at least three accidents, all just fender benders. So that's about one a week if you drive regularly in New Dehli and if our sample is representative. This is an example of a less benign crash. We saw a handful of these too.

We went to a wholesale spice market, mostly for the view from the roof. The air was so suffused with hot peppers that we sneezed the whole time. People carrying enormous bags of peppers were everywhere and we tried to stay out of the way.

A large number of merchants and other families live in/above the market. The guide said the men cooking on the small fires here actually have long-term deals with the resident families, serving several specific families as cooks. I think this is because there isn't any space or ventilation for cooking in the individual apartments. This venue did not hide the kind of poverty and filth a lot of people are living in. Having apartments, these folks aren't on the bottom rung either.

And then you go up onto the roof and see an incredible view - I recommend looking at this one on Flickr or otherwise expanded for the detail.

Also there were monkeys - they ignored us and we returned the favor.

The tour takes the subway between two points to avoid traffic. The subway is very clean and modern - I think aside from a security checkpoint and some signs in Hindi it could have been in any major city. The bikes were brought back by guides who stayed behind - didn't bring them with us.

Then tuk-tuks for the next leg

The main guide (I think all of them actually, but I'm not 100% sure) turned out to be Nepalese, and he's based out of a refugee colony for Nepalese people in the city. The tour ends there, with some optional shopping in Nepalese shops and breakfast at a Nepalese coffee house. While 'refugee colony' sounds pretty grim, it was actually much cleaner, quieter, and better put together than nearly anything else we saw in India. It was a relief to walk past the outer walls and hear the traffic sounds fade to nothing. There was also a lot less pressure from shopkeepers, so you could browse without being harassed, though the guide may also have been part of that. I don't think we bought anything as we didn't see anything we needed to have, but it was a nice change of pace.

The coffeehouse would have looked totally in-place in the US. The bread and omelets were tasty and cheap, though the tour price included breakfast. Ana tried yak butter tea - it isn't bad, and kind of tastes like liquid pie dough.

Overall, the bike tour was fairly adventurous in terms of both taking your life in your hands and also going places where you're potentially intruding for the purposes of tourism, which isn't a great feeling. I probably wouldn't do it again having done it once, but I'm glad we did it this time as it was the kind of experience likely to be remembered. 

At the end, our friend who planned the trip said 'I figured you'd say no way and we'd cancel this'. Having seen the traffic in India, I'm not sure I would have signed us up for a bike tour, but it was a very enjoyable way to see the city. More pictures are available on Flickr.