Slept in late. It was a very comfortable feeling to wake up in a personal home as opposed to a hotel or a bungalow. With my friend Kristina at work, I had the whole day to explore Dehli.
First off I got acquainted with the maid, a lovely Indian woman with a great smile and hair reaching all the way down to her bottom. This wonderful lady made me fresh fruit salad and omelet, India got off to a very good start. You know what they say about first impressions…. Supposedly, most people (read expats) here have maids and private chauffeurs, a luxury only the wealthiest can afford in Sweden. In this part of the world, it is viewed as a necessity.
After taking a taxi to the center, I came to appreciate the hesitation to drive you own car in this traffic madness. My driver told me that you need three good things to manage the traffic in India; 1) a good horn, 2) good brakes and 3) good luck. I think he’s got that right.
I hired a bike riksha to take me around Old Dehli (4 Euros for two hours). Old Dehli was exactly what I would expect from an old Indian market; extremely crowded and narrow alleys, where cows, people, motorbikes and rikshas are squeezed together while trying to advance forward; hole-in-the-wall boutiques selling kitchenware, textiles, spices, chai tea and various kinds of street food. The clusters of electric wiring covering the air between the buildings made the engineering side in me cringe. It is truly a miracle how the power still works. I am starting to realize that this is the theme of India - on the surface things looks like complete chaos, but somehow they make it work, just a little differently than we are used to.
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