The Oldest Tricks in the Book

Just down the road from Vivek Hotel 

I went late on Saturday to Hamayuns Tomb 

As a special treat, Fakir Chand the attendant on the First Floor  at the Vivek Hotel  took me for a ride on the back of his motor scooter. I had been wandering the back streets around the hotel yesterday morning, just watching what was going on when I recognised him. I had been watching street vendors - one frying up naan bread (?) and another giving a guy a shave as he squatted in the dust . As he shaved the cream and whiskers off he wiped the blade on the back of his forearm so he had a growing mass of whiskers and cream sliding down towards his elbow. Fakir was waiting for a pharmacy to open, along with the guy he was chatting to and several women and a girl squatting silently on the ground. Later back at the hotel I hopped on the scooter with him and we shot up the street, a wild weaving and dodging and tooting sort of ride and eventually got to his destination, a sort of butchery. What a treat! It was  a very hot day, dry and dusty and the tiny kiosk was on the edge of a  busy concrete roundabout, dust and cars and noise everywhere. Ghastly looking almost featherless chickens  were crammed into tiny cages, and hanging from the roof were the skinned carcasses of what they call mutton but which are goats. There were flies and feathers and muck everywhere, and a horrible smell. The  miserable chooks  would be selected  by shoppers, hauled out by their wings and have their throats nonchalantly slit and swiftly thereafter  plucked and chopped up and put into a plastic bag. Certainly fresh - but somehow I think I'll go veg from now on.

I returned to my room and packed everything up, filled up on water and headed out looking for a ride to the Station. The first tuktuk driver wanted R400 so I carried on up the street and found another guy who charged R100. It was a good ride and we went past the Red Fort and a few Temples and old city Gates and what-have-you to get to the Old Delhi Station, unsurprisingly massively crowded and busy.

Wandering the streets outside - I had allowed myself tons of time - I saw the usual beggars and squalor and a man either dead or near dead, covered in flies. Back on the platform  I met a couple of Kiwi girls, waiting for the same train, heading to Jaipur and the same Hotel, but they were getting into a different carriage. I ended up in a pleasant airconditioned carriage with 4 others  - an Indian Geriatrician and practitioner of some sort of spiritual meditation - but he wanted to talk about endometrial cancer, a couple from the UK doing the Golden Triangle circuit - which is Delhi- Jaipur-Agra( Taj Mahal) and a young Indian middle manager who was reading a book called "The Ten Management Disasters of Unsuccesful Business Practice" - or some such! He was a lovely guy, just coming back from a visit to Nepal and had been on the train 30 hours and had another 30 to go!. It took 6 hours to get to Jaipur and the journey was fun. It was great to get out of Delhi and see some green fields and wildlife. At Jaipur station the TukTuk driver took us to his preferred Hotel after "ringing" our one and saying it was full. This is the Oldest trick in the Book - so we borrowed his phone, rang our place ourselves and they came and got us.

For the next few days I will be here at Krishna Palace,  www.krishnapalace.com  - have a look : its a charming restful place with delightful Hosts. Its about $30 per night. Should be good - and BTW no Delhi Belly so far!