Well Hello Delhi

Tuesday : Today we move into the final phase of our trip. Four weeks has flown by. The Ashok suddenly seems to be deserted. Breakfast is not a buffet today, thank god, but they still manage to screw up. D's omelette is fine but R 's hard boiled eggs are yesterday's. Out auto arrives promptly and we depart for the station. The sun has already seen off the mist and it is starting to warm up. 

As we enter the station a policeman asks where we are going. We tell him that we are travelling to Delhi by Jan Shatabdi and he directs us to Platform 4. "Which coach?" He tells us to go down to the new footbridge for C2. When we get there we see that it is still under construction and definitely not usable so we have to retrace our steps to the old bridge. Once we get to P4 we find a bench near the bottom of the new bridge. This is handy for a chai stall so we get comfy.There are plenty of announcements but none for train 12059. A check on its progess by text suggests that it is only 3 minutes late but we have heard that before. Suddenly our train is there. We are in totally the wrong place and trot along the platform for as long as we dare, giving in at D11. This gives us 6 coaches to struggle through with our packs until we are in the right one. 

We have to evict a man eating his breakfast from our seats. The Jan Shatabdis are more affordable versions of the luxury,  high speed Shatabdis,  but without Executive Class coaches or food inclusive fares. The 2S (D) coaches are quite modern but lack AC, having opening windows instead. We are in AC Chair Class again.  The coach is in much better condition than other CCs we have seen and the train bowls along nicely. Until we get to the outskirts of Greater Delhi, then we crawl in and arrive twenty minutes late. 

There are a couple of really persistent taxi touts who keep blocking D's progress down the stairs off the footbridge. These are the sort of people who get Delhi a bad name. They get told to go and procreate and D makes a beeline for the prepaid auto stand. We get our ticket for 55 rupees which seems ludicrously cheap. We then have a problem finding an auto driver who knows where the hotel is. One older chap knows it but says that the price paid is wrong - it should be another 50 rupees. This fits with D's original estimate so we agree the extra and jump on. It takes about 15 minutes to deliver us to Bloomrooms in Jangpura so worth the extra 50.

Bloomrooms is bright and airy with lots of yellow paint. Check in is quick and efficient with much less form filling than most places. We have a room on the second floor, along the corridor from the coffee point. The room is not huge but it is well designed and spotlessly clean. The Wifi works well and is free. There is another one of these hotels near NDLS railway station in central Delhi. We definitely recommend it.

After unpacking and sorting ourselves out we head for the Metro and take a one stop ride to Lajpat Nagar. We discovered the market here last year and it is a favourite as they keep traffic, even bikes, out and there is very little hassle from vendors. R gets herself a top and we swither over a pressure cooker. You can get small ones here, ideal for cooking dal, and the prices are good.

Tonight we decide to tackle Moti Mahal, one of Delhi's famous restaurants.  It is a temperance spot so we factor in a stop off for a beer in the Broadway Hotel's quaintly named Thugs Bar. We travel into the city by metro which seems much busier than even last year. Any time soon the Bardapur line, which passes through Jangpura, will be extended almost into Old Delhi but for now we have to change. We get off at NDLS. One side of this station is backpacker haunt Paharganj, full of touts and cheap hotels. 

The other side is Ajmeri Gate - full on manic India, a chaotic sea of food stalls, traffic and noise. By now it is dark. We have difficulty finding an auto walla who can understand where we want to go but eventually a chap driving some kind of electric golf buggy says he does. He does a U turn into oncoming traffic on a dual carriageway with a massive concrete divider. To save the battery he does not put his lights on. He has to stop to ask directions a couple of times but we get there and let our nerves settle over a chilled Kingfisher.

A five minute walk takes us to Moti Mahal. To our surprise it is empty, maybe something to do with tonight being the night when there is no 'qawwali' music performance. The house specialities are butter chicken and makhani dal so that's what we go for with peas pulao and roti added. It was brilliant!  Equally enjoyable was a stroll through some of the lanes of Old Delhi. Commerce is still thriving at 9 p.m. and various tradesmen are still busy in their workshops. We manage not to get lost (just) and emerge at the Delhi Gate. From here we take an auto to the Metro and a train home. By the time we got home we were exhausted and slept like logs.

Sorry about the photo problem. It seems to be afflicting all Blogger posts at the moment.