May 1 Day 75
We got up, had breakfast in a nice cafe and reorganized and repacked all of our stuff. We left it at the hotel and went to book our afternoon tour.
Tsering was there, looked at our list and got us a driver for the afternoon. he went over the instructions with the driver, who didn't have much English and we were off.
The streets of Delhi (or at least the ones we were on) are usually tree-lined and have planters in the middle of the boulevards. For a city with such a reputation for pollution it seems as if this should lessen the problem somewhat. The driving, however, is like a video game. Lanes mean nothing, vehicles sometimes go in the wrong direction and cars are constantly changing lanes, looking for some advantage. Everyone is often crammed together with only a few centimetres separating them with their horns constantly going to tell others to get out of their way.
Our driver took us to a random location and asked where the Gandhi museum was when we refused to leave the car. He then took us to the right place and we entered the museum just as a large school group was leaving, good luck.
You start by entering the room he was living in before he was shot and then there are two long hallways with pictures and information in English and Hindi. Much of it was on his last day but they did cover his life and philosophy, which was very progressive towards women. We watched the end of a long film on his life which felt like it was made by bureaucrats. It long on pronouncements and footage of people walking and short on actions and implications. It also used flowery language usually reserved for propaganda films ( "the bullet from the deviant assailant entered the pure flesh of his breast" or some such stuff) and had a clear dislike of Muslims and Pakistanis.
Much easier to appreciate were two rooms of elaborate dioramas of events in his life with costumed dolls in emotional poses. Even batter was the upstairs where a personal guide took us through rooms with multimedia presentations of his story. There were videos activated by clutching walking sticks, a train model that could show you video of different places, a tree trunk that lit up when participants joined hands and many other gizmos that kids would love.
We were there for almost three hours and so looked for a washroom before getting back to our taxi. On our way back a guide told us we could not leave before seeing the most important part of the museum. It was a lawn with a chair on it and a mural behind, I guess it was the spot where Gandhi was shot. He kept telling us he was a volunteer and insisting on taking our picture but we smelled tout and quickly got out of there.
Our driver was waiting and off we went to another wrong place. He had written Hindi words next to our itinerary but that didn't help much. The whole time he was driving he was on the phone getting directions from someone before dropping us off at the National Museum and insisting it was the National Art Gallery. I got out to check that he was wrong before insisting he take us to the right location. He eventually asked some official looking people on a sidewalk and got us to the right spot.
We paid to get into the four-story gallery that covered Indian art from early colonial times to now. We started at the top, meaning that we saw the art go back in time and probably should have gone the other way. There were some great woodcuts and appropriations of stiff European style paintings of very Indian subjects. The ground floor had installations based on Gandhi's salt march and recently discovered sketches of participants made by someone who was in jail with them.
As we left we were tole that there were two more buildings to visit but we wanted to get moving. Our next destination was a shopping area so we could pick up an India guide book. Our driver said he needed dinner so we gave him more than half an hour, which we needed. In the third book shop we visited they said they could get it in 5 minutes and we just had to wait. Twenty minutes later it arrived (carefully wrapped) and turned out to be an edition behind. Not knowing where else we could get one and conscious of the time we got it and got back to our car.
We asked our driver if we had time to see Hanuman's Tomb and get back by 6:30 and he said he could but started driving even more aggressively than before and making tsking and clucking sound the whole way. At least he knew where the place was. He said he was going to get his dinner there as the last place was closed down, but told us that we had 30 minutes, not an hour and kept us coming back to the car as he kept shouting new and difficult to understand instructions.
Hanuman's Tomb is a wow. t has many side temples and gardens but as you walk through the main gate you see the structure and pool layout that was a run-up to the Taj Mahal. Apparently more than 100 family members are buried there but the grounds, building and water come together for an extremely impressive effect. We walked around it and entered the inside which had collections of tombs in areas covered in elaborate shadows made by the Arabic-style carved window screens. We had to rush because of our tight timeline but were very impressed and wished we could have lingered in one of the surrounding squares and just enjoyed it for awhile.
Back at our cab the vehicle smelled of curry and our driver was enjoying a smoke. He kept clucking at the traffic and driving like a maniac. At one point he pulled over and got a foil packet from a guy at the side of the road. He then had both hands off of the wheel as he mixed the packets while he drove and then dumped them into his mouth, bit by bit. After this he kept opening the car door to have a good spit until angry glares from Meg made him just spit out the window.
This stuff is paan. It can contain tobacco or betel paste (or rarely neither) and gives a head rush and makes you do big spits. Our already erratic driver was possibly on a betel nut high and we were glad when we got back to the Tibetan refugee area of town.
Tsering wasn't there so we grabbed our bags and had a quick dinner at The Big Apple before heading back to the office. The Visa machine wasn't working so we were told we could pay for the tour in McLeod Ganj. Tsering seemed surprised and concerned about our driver's behaviour. His helper walked us to the bus pick up area but when it appeared that waiting might be in order he quickly gave us our tickets and teamed us up with another woman who would be on the bus.
She was very nice and helped us get sorted. Apparently 7 or more buses go from Delhi (a stop a short walk from the Tibetan refugee area by the side of the road) to Dharshala/McLeod Ganj every night. The bus had almost fully reclining assigned seats, a/c and a movie screen, but no washroom. We watched Aquaman with Hindi subtitles (I don't think English ones would have improved this turkey) and drifted off to sleep.
We had two overnight roadside stops to offset the lack of a washroom. Our driver drove like a cabdriver and was on the horn and jamming the brakes all of the time. Most of the passengers slept or at least were considerate except for a young monk, of all people. He played loud techno on his phone during our 3 am stop and then played noisy video games. Fortunately, earplugs and an eyeshade were in my bag and so I slept well even if Meg didn't (the opposite of what usually happens.)
We got up, had breakfast in a nice cafe and reorganized and repacked all of our stuff. We left it at the hotel and went to book our afternoon tour.
Tsering was there, looked at our list and got us a driver for the afternoon. he went over the instructions with the driver, who didn't have much English and we were off.
The streets of Delhi (or at least the ones we were on) are usually tree-lined and have planters in the middle of the boulevards. For a city with such a reputation for pollution it seems as if this should lessen the problem somewhat. The driving, however, is like a video game. Lanes mean nothing, vehicles sometimes go in the wrong direction and cars are constantly changing lanes, looking for some advantage. Everyone is often crammed together with only a few centimetres separating them with their horns constantly going to tell others to get out of their way.
Our driver took us to a random location and asked where the Gandhi museum was when we refused to leave the car. He then took us to the right place and we entered the museum just as a large school group was leaving, good luck.
You start by entering the room he was living in before he was shot and then there are two long hallways with pictures and information in English and Hindi. Much of it was on his last day but they did cover his life and philosophy, which was very progressive towards women. We watched the end of a long film on his life which felt like it was made by bureaucrats. It long on pronouncements and footage of people walking and short on actions and implications. It also used flowery language usually reserved for propaganda films ( "the bullet from the deviant assailant entered the pure flesh of his breast" or some such stuff) and had a clear dislike of Muslims and Pakistanis.
Much easier to appreciate were two rooms of elaborate dioramas of events in his life with costumed dolls in emotional poses. Even batter was the upstairs where a personal guide took us through rooms with multimedia presentations of his story. There were videos activated by clutching walking sticks, a train model that could show you video of different places, a tree trunk that lit up when participants joined hands and many other gizmos that kids would love.
We were there for almost three hours and so looked for a washroom before getting back to our taxi. On our way back a guide told us we could not leave before seeing the most important part of the museum. It was a lawn with a chair on it and a mural behind, I guess it was the spot where Gandhi was shot. He kept telling us he was a volunteer and insisting on taking our picture but we smelled tout and quickly got out of there.
Our driver was waiting and off we went to another wrong place. He had written Hindi words next to our itinerary but that didn't help much. The whole time he was driving he was on the phone getting directions from someone before dropping us off at the National Museum and insisting it was the National Art Gallery. I got out to check that he was wrong before insisting he take us to the right location. He eventually asked some official looking people on a sidewalk and got us to the right spot.
We paid to get into the four-story gallery that covered Indian art from early colonial times to now. We started at the top, meaning that we saw the art go back in time and probably should have gone the other way. There were some great woodcuts and appropriations of stiff European style paintings of very Indian subjects. The ground floor had installations based on Gandhi's salt march and recently discovered sketches of participants made by someone who was in jail with them.
As we left we were tole that there were two more buildings to visit but we wanted to get moving. Our next destination was a shopping area so we could pick up an India guide book. Our driver said he needed dinner so we gave him more than half an hour, which we needed. In the third book shop we visited they said they could get it in 5 minutes and we just had to wait. Twenty minutes later it arrived (carefully wrapped) and turned out to be an edition behind. Not knowing where else we could get one and conscious of the time we got it and got back to our car.
We asked our driver if we had time to see Hanuman's Tomb and get back by 6:30 and he said he could but started driving even more aggressively than before and making tsking and clucking sound the whole way. At least he knew where the place was. He said he was going to get his dinner there as the last place was closed down, but told us that we had 30 minutes, not an hour and kept us coming back to the car as he kept shouting new and difficult to understand instructions.
Hanuman's Tomb is a wow. t has many side temples and gardens but as you walk through the main gate you see the structure and pool layout that was a run-up to the Taj Mahal. Apparently more than 100 family members are buried there but the grounds, building and water come together for an extremely impressive effect. We walked around it and entered the inside which had collections of tombs in areas covered in elaborate shadows made by the Arabic-style carved window screens. We had to rush because of our tight timeline but were very impressed and wished we could have lingered in one of the surrounding squares and just enjoyed it for awhile.
Back at our cab the vehicle smelled of curry and our driver was enjoying a smoke. He kept clucking at the traffic and driving like a maniac. At one point he pulled over and got a foil packet from a guy at the side of the road. He then had both hands off of the wheel as he mixed the packets while he drove and then dumped them into his mouth, bit by bit. After this he kept opening the car door to have a good spit until angry glares from Meg made him just spit out the window.
This stuff is paan. It can contain tobacco or betel paste (or rarely neither) and gives a head rush and makes you do big spits. Our already erratic driver was possibly on a betel nut high and we were glad when we got back to the Tibetan refugee area of town.
Tsering wasn't there so we grabbed our bags and had a quick dinner at The Big Apple before heading back to the office. The Visa machine wasn't working so we were told we could pay for the tour in McLeod Ganj. Tsering seemed surprised and concerned about our driver's behaviour. His helper walked us to the bus pick up area but when it appeared that waiting might be in order he quickly gave us our tickets and teamed us up with another woman who would be on the bus.
She was very nice and helped us get sorted. Apparently 7 or more buses go from Delhi (a stop a short walk from the Tibetan refugee area by the side of the road) to Dharshala/McLeod Ganj every night. The bus had almost fully reclining assigned seats, a/c and a movie screen, but no washroom. We watched Aquaman with Hindi subtitles (I don't think English ones would have improved this turkey) and drifted off to sleep.
We had two overnight roadside stops to offset the lack of a washroom. Our driver drove like a cabdriver and was on the horn and jamming the brakes all of the time. Most of the passengers slept or at least were considerate except for a young monk, of all people. He played loud techno on his phone during our 3 am stop and then played noisy video games. Fortunately, earplugs and an eyeshade were in my bag and so I slept well even if Meg didn't (the opposite of what usually happens.)
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| A Gandhi diorama. |
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| Hanuman's Tomb, predating and inspiring the Taj Mahal. |
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| Inside the tomb. |
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