Written on October 10, 2008 at 12:09 pm by Christine Ka'aloa

Delhi: Surviving Solo & Haggling for a taxi to Chandni Chowk

Filed under Delhi, India, Off-beat, Weird... Reality! {no comments}

Fri, Oct 10, 2008: Delhi

Today I get up late; I’m awoken by Dev at Shahi Palace. He is calling to check in, concerned and wanting to see how my trip’s been going Post-Tour-Scam experience! Those guys at Shahi sure are a good bunch!

This means that my India Vodaphone SIM finally works again!

My red-eye flight with India Air leaves at 1:15 AM tomorrow morning and my hotel is allowing me a late checkout. It’s hard to decipher whether I should extend my stay in India and continue on. I want to experience more, but the fatigue of constantly scrambling to find my bearings in this crash course of solo travel is getting to me. It’s not easy to travel solo 24/7 with last-minute preparations made on-the-fly; at least, not easy in India.

My annoyance is primarily that I wish I planned for myself better! Right now, I seek an oasis of calm, “a moment” of beauty and a bit of spoiled privilege to rejuvenate myself. None offers itself within the Delhi madhouse of honking horns, zig-zag driving, near death collisions, dirt, bugs, haggling, outdoor urinals and the constant visibility of poverty.
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Everything is a Negotiation

As a tourist, most of the time you’re uncertain of whether a smile means you’ve just been scammed or if someone is going to ask you for rupees for it! Places with ‘fixed prices’ are a godsend vs that constant feeling that no matter how earnestly you haggle, you’re going to be a victim of a hiked up tourist price!

Haggling for a Taxi in India

There is no “ART” or playfulness to my method of haggling a taxi. I simply ASK a local what the going-rate is for my destination before hailing an auto!

Armed with my new Indian vocabulary…

1 – The Swivel-bob head action which looks like a NO but really, means “Okay, why not?”

2 – The Chalo! hands (a “Go away” flicking of a hand as if shooing away flies)

I have two points to my closed negotiation with taxi drivers:

1) I state the rate I’ve been given by a local upfront OR
2) I tell the taxi driver I want to use the meter! (something most want to avoid )

Last day for gift-getting is a scramble. I’ve done nowhere NEAR the amount of shopping as I hear Margaret & Dan are doing on this trip… I hail a taxi and direct him to take me to the famous Chandni Chowk.

The coolest little heart of Delhi

Chandni Chowk (or Moonlit Avenue) is a congested and historic marketplace of in the heart of Old Delhi with dilapidated havelis and small, winding streets and souks crowded with worker traffic, pedestrians and merchants specializing in a specific commodities.

Saris! Saris! Saris! & India’s Human Plows

Spices, jewelry, books, grains, sweets,… you name it, Chandi Chowk’s got it! I got my Dad’s kurta and dhoti here. Here, the traffic of people, workers and rickshaws is a messy and congested swarm as it is everywhere else in India, but out of that, what catches my attention are workers I’ve dubbed, “Human Plows”!

In Chandni Chowk, a cargo of product or produce is transported via two methods (see pictures here):

1) It is strapped to the top of a worker’s head or
2) Loaded on a pull-cart wagon with one worker up front pulling, followed by two worker behind, pushing!

These cargo loads are monstrous and these men do not make it look easy! Their sweat pours with physical strain and uneasy facial twitches and winces.

Cows are sacred in India…

It’s a bold sight to see men doing the mule work, strapped to the yoke as the cows lazily look on! This gives me an immediate respect for The Human Plow. It-is-what-it-is in extreme manual labor and a hard day of honest work! And despite the discomfort and the strain of their work, most of these hard-working men will make the time and energy amidst their work to lend a smile to my camera. They love having their picture taken & why shouldn’t they?…The work they do is phenomenal!

Like worker bees and ants, each worker is necessary to pushing the giant wheel of commerce- the smallness and greatness of his destiny is enslaved to arduous manual labor and the daily contract of a few rupees!
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Is it safe to eat Street Food in India?

I’m getting progressively bolder about eating foods locally. Today I pull out all stops. A part of me foolishly believes that I’ve NOT experienced true India until I’ve experienced Delhi-Belly, so I go crazy with sampling those foods off the streets sold in “the newspaper envelopes and banana leaf bowls”!

Street food is a common & inexpensive. It’s like a fast food restaurant without a roof! A chai stand lends a table & bench for people to “sit & sip” or it may consist of only one person, squatting on a mat while brewing cups for willing squatters.

Food vendors sell a range of things- chaat (like Indian Chex Mix or mixed plates & you choose the mixing), puris, samosas, jalebis (a deep-fried breakfast pretzel soaked in sweet syrup), curries, etc… Anywhere nearby is ‘squat or stand’ real estate for patrons taking their meal-on-the-go.

Of course, I stick to safe food rule. I order foods, which are piping hot, boiled or fresh out of the fryer. No cold liquids (unless it’s bottled) or foods which have sat out a while. I love the Indian sweets and while they are neither boiled or fresh out of the cookery, I feel they’re still safe.

The cups, packages and bowls that hold street food is a novelty! No plastic knifes, forks or paper plates – everything is biodegradable trash. Small newspaper takeout packages carry samosas and burfis, etc… ; while takeout bowls for curries are made of banana leaves. On my trek in Bhaktapur, Nepal, I noticed one chaat vendor had made scoops from folded paper and his cups were of composition book pages containing a child’s homework on it.