India: Solo on a Shoestring - memoirs from a trip in April 2005 (The premble followed by part 1,2 and 3)

It begins


It came out of the blue really, which meant that there was a dearth of traveling companions. Throw in the potential company of a married couple going along to take a romantic holiday; I knew that I would be alone for at least half the trip. Not a bad prospect given the fact that Germany went spectacular in late August 2004. I was looking forward to April the 9th when we would push off from Lahore on the Lahore-Delhi bus service. It was quite an experience but I shall refrain from writing about it since a lot has already been said about the bizarre nature of the bus ride.

After a tiring day of dealing with customs officials on the Pakistani side of the border (the Indians were actually professional!) and pulling through the tiresome routine of border crossing at Wagah we hit the Ambedkar bus terminal at sundown on Saturday, April 9th. Conventional wisdom from previous expeditions had led my traveling companion and I to remain awake all night, partying, waiting for the early hour of departure.

I had the butterflies. Its not very common for Pakistani’s to go backpacking in India. There are a lot of exchanges and delegations happening but a pure backpacker trip is not all that common in India. For that matter, Pakistani backpackers are extremely uncommon anywhere in the world!

First impressions

Delhi was huge and populous and the bus network was environmentally friendly. Delhi was clean.

My traveling companions and I decided to book our return seats immediately for a day exactly fifteen days away. We then proceeded to our host’s on Sri Aurobindo Marg, opposite IIT campus. After getting the initial introductions out of the way e decided to shower, change and hit the bar. We were lucky to find on just around the corner although the name gave it off as a pansy hangout. Going down the steps we found the place to have loud music, loads of teenagers and expensive alcohol. The turquoise cottage, as the joint was called was abandoned after a kingfisher was downed and we made beelines for the beds.

Most of Sunday was spent catching up on sleep. Later in the afternoon we went to Darya Ganj for registration and to check out the footpath book bazaar, which had a lot in common with the one in Anarkali in Lahore except that this one was never-ending. We picked our way for two kilometers through various hawker stalls eventually making our way in front of Jamia Majid. Khurrum complained about food and now that we had converted a lot of dollars he led us in a restaurant and proceeded to order mutton and chicken. I must say it looked absolutely delicious but Faiza and I stuck to our guns about maintaining a vegetarian diet for the duration of our stay.

Jamia Masjid had a festive air about it with a large number of local tourists and a flock of pigeons. It was almost sundown when we left the largest mosque in India and made our way to Chandni chowk. I expected to find a hustling and bustling old city market place but instead I found a landa bazaar look alike. Slightly disappointed with the legendary Chandni Chowk we caught cycle rickshaws to the old Delhi train station to make train bookings for our respective trips, which were to begin the next day. No such bookings could be made from here and we ended up going to the Hazrat Nizamuddin railway Station where the lines were painfully long and the reserved counter for tourists and freedom fighters was closed. Conventional wisdom once again pushed u to rely on the bus network.

We woke up the next morning to a traditional south Indian breakfast and it turned out that our hosts, the Dharmarajans were extremely sophisticated folk and took great pride in their south Indian origins. It was fine with us because the south Indian cuisine is one of the most vivid experiences to be brought back to Pakistan.

I left most of my stuff behind and packed the essentials. In the way I got dropped off at Bikner house in New Delhi, from where all buses for various locations in Rajasthan departed. I got a seat in a second tier bus called the silver line for Jaipur. I looked at the Gold line buses enviously but the weather had not yet crapped out on me and I guessed I could survive without the AC. Plus the budget would be thrown off balance with first class travel.

The bus ride was pretty uneventful except for the noisy men sitting in front of me who were discussing the various options the youth of India had of making it big in the call-center boom that was taking place. By early evening I had reached 'Sindhi Camp' (the central bus station) situated in the heart of Jaipur.