Four Days in Delhi: Part 2

The tour bus is a time portal to 1978. There is an abundance of fake wood paneling, synthetic carpeting and knobs and buttons that don’t work. Despite my instincts, I refrain from making a judgment about the coming tour based on the vehicle. I have my fingers crossed the guide will be a magical repository of knowledge about the seven cities of Delhi. I’m imagining him as an old, gray-haired Indian storyteller who has traded an audience of hookah-smoking locals for busses of tourists. With the first crack of the intercom my hopes are dashed.

The noise directed at the 20 of us on the bus is technically English but even that description might be kind. I turn my attention away from a guy peeing on the wall just outside the bus to get a good look at our guide. He is middle aged, short, a little plump and seems genuinely irritated he has to narrate our tour. He is wearing a plaid fedora, a bushy mustache, a Cosby sweater, gray slacks and white tennis shoes. His English is suspect but the ancient intercom system makes everything he says almost completely unintelligible. He is well aware no one can hear or understand what he is saying but he simply doesn’t give a damn.

What I’m able to pick out from his mumbling and from the schedule of the tour is that the morning will be spent in New Delhi and the afternoon is reserved for the old city. At first I’m slightly amused by the guide but after ten minutes of driving I find myself disgusted with the prospects for the day. As we head to our first stop, a large but relatively new temple blessed by Gandhi, we drive down an impressive avenue lined with embassies. The narration from the front of the bus is as follows: “US embassy,” pause, “Canadian embassy,” pause, “Malaysian embassy,” pause, “Chinese embassy,” longer pause, “Pakistan embassy,” followed by a guttural throat clearing noise and silence. I turn to Chetan, who is sitting to my right across the aisle, and with a sorrowful headshake say, “riveting stuff.”

The first stop at a completely forgettable temple flies past. I take a few pictures, dodge postcard sellers and return to the bus. As I wait for the rest of the group to return, I notice several motorists weave through traffic, pull over as they come upon the temple, say a few prayers and keep moving. It’s a wonderfully Indian scene.

Back on our motor chariot we head for the Qutub Minar, a nearly 240 foot brick and sandstone minaret built by an Afghan conqueror at the end of the 12th century. The tower was erected as a victory monument in the midst of the ruins of a destroyed Hindu temple complex. It is massive, beautiful and awe inspiring.

Our guide gives us 30 minutes to explore the tower and ruins littered around its base. A comically short amount of time for the site but I duck in and out of crumbling mosques, through Indo-Saracen arches and around intricately carved pillars, repurposed from the Hindu temples once the heart of a destroyed city. The 30 minutes fly by. Back on the bus we head for an unannounced stop.

After 20 minutes of battling rush-hour traffic we pull into a gravel parking lot of a handicrafts emporium. Our disgruntled guide announces we have 45 minutes to shop. I immediately pull out my map of Delhi, pick out a few sites I’m dying to see, announce to Chetan we are leaving the tour and begin my hunt for a rickshaw. As we leave the tour behind, I grab one last glimpse of our guide. He is sitting on a broken down chair outside the Emporium, staring at nothing, irritated as ever.