Delhi (08.02.08)

Delhi is everything...
It's enough to take a few minutes walk to get a rather clear image of the city. Chaos, noise, dirt, annoying salesmen, overwhelming size, multitude of questions. Why, where, what, when, how...?!

After a long story about his life in Delhi, Gaetton gets us into a rickshaw. He haggles about the price and tells the driver to take us to Canaught Place. City center. Then he lives us and goes to work.
Disorientation, consternation, destabilization.
From now on we're gonna discover the city alone. No problem.
The streets are: “oh my God, how come I'm still alive...”. Everyone could drive here. It seems there are no rules, at least no one follows them. Winkers, right of way, lights - what for?! A horn replaces everything. If you want to drive in India you need to learn to use your horn properly.

We're sitting on the back seat in the rickshaw and ... we're still amazed. The driver rushes stubbornly, drives through little spaces between large lorries, almost crashes with cars and motorbikes. There's no safety belt, no window, just a piece of cloth between my face and the street. Wind is blowing strongly, whenever we turn I feel like falling out.
Phew.
Over.
Conaught Place.
Crowds, horns, similar buildings, no map, no orientation.
We're looking for an exchange office.
Rule nr 1: never talk to hucksters, never show your interest, never let somebody guide you.
My fault.
We break this rule as soon as we make our first steps in the city center.
A young Hindu approaches us.
What are you looking for?
Silence.
I'm not working here!
He shows us a little market. We want an exchange office! So he guides us in a mysterious place. We try to escape but in vain. Then we cross a street. Wow! That's a pure extreme sport. Meanwhile a Turkish guy approaches us. Says he would show us the office. But he guides us to a tourist office. Well, yes, no they're gonna try to sell us something. Already annoyed we just ask for a map and escape quickly. But we can't go alone. Again and again some man offer us to be our guide. No thank you. We'll manage. Finally, a guard (there's plenty of them here, near every shop) shows us a strange exchange office. Looks suspicious. Shabby. Whatever. I'm coming first, Paula keeps on saying it can't be a safe place. Finally, we reach the second floor. Two men look at us with big smile. There's plenty of cigarette smoke inside. The man says we'll get the receipt. Ok, so let's risk. There are 2 computers, but they don't use them. Counting money on a paper sheet. They take our passports and say they need to copy it. Hm, cool. Should I be worried?
We check the money several times, ok. Seems, they haven't cheated us. And after a while we have our passports back. Phew.
Ok, now we need some rest, some food. Need to look around, discover the city.
No way.
Hucksters everywhere. Watching us all the time. When we sit down on a bench, to look peacefully at the map, a guard approaches us and says we shouldn't stay here. Asks what are we looking for. But can't help us. Keeps on saying we should go somewhere else. Ok, no problem. Arrivederci.
So we end up wandering around the Canaught Place. It's awful. Extremely chaotic, all the streets look similar, we give up.

Polluted air makes me feel week, noise makes me feel dizzy, my mind stops working. Food! That's what I need. But there are mainly Chinese restaurants around and Indian food in a little kiosks on a street. I'm still not brave enough to try it. Finally we end up in a place that I hate strongly. McDonalds. With Indian menu. Not bad.
There are plenty of people here, mainly those rich ones. We meet two Polish girls that are finishing their 3 weeks journay today. Talk for a while and get back to Mahilpapur. All I need is some rest...