Dizzying Delhi

Today on our "rest day" we were up and off to do some shopping Delhi style.  None of us could sleep in as our clocks haven't fully moved over yet.

At breakfast I learned that wait staff in India have the art of hovering mastered.  They pulled out chairs, filled cups, bussed plate, met us at every corner of the buffet.  We must have had about 5-6 people helping us.  If you so much as wave your hand when talking, someone thinks you've summoned them!

After breakfast, we went to find an auto-rickshaw.  On the way there we saw two children, maybe 3 and 1ish sitting beside the sidewalk.  They seemed to belong to someone, but it also looked like they spent the night sleeping outside.  Not a hundred steps away men were fixing motorbikes and engines using their own car as the workshop/toolbox.  Meanwhile at our hotel, dignitaries from other nations were arriving in brand new Mercedes Benz's.  These are the great contrasts that make up Delhi.

We caught an autorickshaw to take us to the Central Cottage Industries Emporium. They aren't quite wide enought for three fat western bums!  Tish had the honour of hanging out the side, while Murray sat on the blind side with the curtain.  I'm not sure which is the lesser of two evils.  The traffic was quiet and our driver was good.  Lanes were still optional.

The emporium was overwhelming - 5 floors of handiwork from all over India.  The fabrics were amazing.  You could spend days just looking at fabric alone.  Tish shopped for a bedspread, Murray was after gifts for his family and I found some incredible table runners, bracelets for MJ and fabric for my aunt.  Aunt Celine, get this, 10 different jewel shades of silk fabric all with the same embroidered pattern.  I can't wait until you see them!  Three of these bracelets belong to MJ:

Here's an examples of the type of furniture they were selling:

 I stumbled upon a music shop and they had tabla drums for $80!  The shop keeper played them for me and I was able to get a video.

After the emporium, we walked further into Connaugt Place, which is one of the main shopping districts.  By now, the people had arrived.  There were people everywhere - selling food on corners, and hawking every imaginable type of merchandise.  I was offered reading glasses at least three times!  The salesmen are very persistent and will follow you for blocks!  They start by chatting you up and then work to steer you into their establishment.  You quickly learn to either ignore or wave them off fairly sternly.  It seemed like every person we met was on a mission to capture a tourist.

We finally found a lunch spot and had a great Indian lunch.  The food was wonderful and the service equally hovering!  At one point I thought the server was going to cut Murray's food for him!   During lunch we were chatted up by two friendly fellows from Kashmir, who, lo and behold, worked at a pashmina shop just next door.  Murray is convinced they followed us in to work us over lunch.  After much talk about the virtues of Kashmir state and promises of free accommodation next time we're in the neighborhood we went over to their shop.  It was about 150 square feet with 6 staff and a million scarves.  The scarves are incredibly soft and very expensive.  Here, Murray and Tish are sampling the goods:

We eventually managed to extract ourselves from their shop to go check prices.  We carried on, looking for a set of shops that carry items from each state.  Again, we met many helpful souls with directions and something to sell.  One fellow told us to just walk down an alley and we'd be there.  The alley was long and bustling with all sorts of people.  We decided to take the long way and in the process ended up buying 5 ties.  At the stand I told the saleman that I wanted cool ties like the young guys at the stand to which the cool young guy exclaimed, "I'm 30!"  We had a great laugh at that.  Spencer and Fraser, here's where your ties came from:

From there, we found a number of shops that sell goods from specific states in India.  We all found more treasures to add to our bags and then we headed for the adventure that was the Kashmir shops:

The Kasmir fabrics are all silk or wool and are hand embroidered.  Every piece takes between two weeks and 6 months to complete.  Tish was in fine haggling form and had two stalls competing against one another and one fellow putting together a two for one deal, until his coworker/relative showed up and stopped the fun.  Tish left without anything, but I managed to purchase a silk wall hanging.  It was great fun!

We hired another rickshaw to go back to the hotel.  In order to turn around, he proceeded to push the rickshaw backwards in traffic until he could do a U turn across oncoming traffic!  Thankfully we survived and had a quick ride home.  Traffic circles seem to mean free for all here.  Its amazing how things keep moving.

Throughout the day, the power kept going off for about 20 minutes at a time.  Nobody blinks.  They keep shopping, computers run on battery power and stores stay open.  In Canada, they'd evacuate every time.

Oh yes, my room.  Here is a photo.  Apparently the heating system does nothing, so we had the hotel provide us with portable heaters.  Thankfully, my room won't be a frosty 17 degrees like it was last night.

Tomorrow, we meet with Dr. Singh to discuss the national level training and then its off to see a few sights before the end of the day.

I've finished my coffee and chocolate, Skyped my family while I was ending my day and they were beginning theirs and the hives that mysteriously appeared on a good chunk of my torso have gone away thanks to Murray's chlor-triplon (I must have reacted to some food or soap.) so it must be time for bed.