Delhi, India's capital city

[-AX-]

Last year I visited India in January and February with my girlfriend. We traveled from Delhi to Chennai on the West coast and a bit of the east coast. In the next days/weeks I will post a couple of photo threads of cities rarely seen here on SSP.

DELHI is the capital of India, a sprawling mess of bustling neighbourhoods full of life, smells, noise and chaos, at least from my westerner point of view. I visited Delhi in 2013 and 2016 on previous trips and it never ceases to amaze me. I usually stay in the Pahar Ganj area, a densely packed neighbourhood with it's main commercial street going west from the main railway station. Most backpackers stay in that area giving it a traveler-friendly vibe, complete with burger joints and souvenir shops. It is not far from the Old Delhi area, the original city before the British took over. That part is my favourite of all, with it's sprawling markets and narrow alleys. Delhi, as the rest of India, is PACKED with people. Everybody is pretty friendly towards westerners. One feels pretty safe there (men, at least) but also completely out of place. I had already explored newer, more modern parts of New Delhi on previous trips, including a typical booming suburb called Gurgaon (my photos from 2017 here) but this time we stayed in older, more traditional parts. Most photos are taken in Pahar Ganj, Old Delhi and a few in the tibetan enclave of Majnu-ka-Tilla.

We arrived at night under a thick pollution cloud, pretty usual in winter due to the burning of crops in the plains. The smell was strong before the plane even touched the ground, I had never experienced it before. With a growing middle class buying cars and rapidly expanding suburbs, the pollution is set to become worse in the coming years.





















































Bulk and spices market in old Delhi














Thanks for watching!

[sopas ej]

Cool photos! I like.

Makes me soooo wanna travel again; my partner and I were gonna go to Sri Lanka last year but COVID ruined our plans. :/ Seeing these really makes me itching to travel to places in Asia and elsewhere... I'm SOOOO over Europe, hehe; I just have that "been there done that feeling" about it.

[mrnyc]

so great -- cant wait to see more.

its about time we get some hardcore india up on here.

and yes this definitely makes me miss traveling.

better travel days are on the horizon i hope.

ps -- that second pic from the bottom tho!!!

[bilbao58]

Great photos! I'm always shocked to see the electrical wiring.

If you're interested, here's the link to a local Delhi writer and photographer that I've been following for over a decade on Flickr. He has almost 60K photos, most taken in the old city. https://www.flickr.com/photos/mayankaustensoofi/

[edale]

Thanks for sharing your photos. Definitely not a city I'm itching to visit, but it is interesting nonetheless.

[LAsam]

Wow, looks like organized chaos in some places! Being someone who is a tad claustrophobic, just seeing these photos makes me get a bit tensed up. I'm sure one adjusts after a period of time there, though. Thanks so much for sharing! I don't recall seeing much of India in the photo section.

[Murphy de la Sucre]

I gotta say you had GUTS to travel in India with GIRLfriend. If I was wrong or overreacting, I blamed on media.

[itom 987]

Delhi would be an amazing city to explore!

[muppet]

Intoxicating -I had no idea it got cold in India

[hauntedheadnc]

I used to work for an Indian lady and would tease her about how it seemed at that time, that India produced absolutely nothing in the way of TV shows other than the soap operas to which she was devoted.

"We have NYPD Blue," I would say, "Why not NDPD Khaki?" and she would have no answer.

Well...

• Video Link

I loved that show, which was filmed in Delhi, and it was fascinating to get that look into the city.

[Segun]

Originally Posted by -AX-

Lawd have mercy. How does one make sense of this? I get frustrated trying to pull a cord out of a box of old wires. Great pics.

[the urban politician]

^ Yeah seriously, can you imagine what people do when there is a power outage? Imagine going through that spaghetti factory trying to figure out which wire caused the failure.

[the urban politician]

Nice to see India in all of its dense, haphazard craziness though.

[xzmattzx]

Very interesting

[IMBY]

Last time I was in Delhi was in Feb. 1996, long before it became too polluted. With my COPD today I'd never be able to deal with it today!

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by -AX-

This is the pic that really gets me. Inside: Peace, calm, refinement. Outside: Utter chaos. It reminds me of a scene from Ghost in the Shell.

[Segun]

^ not to mention the single phone charging cord

[-AX-]

Thanks for the great response! I appreciate your comments and recommendations!

Originally Posted by muppet

Intoxicating -I had no idea it got cold in India

India stretches into the Tibetan plateau, it gets to -20 celcius at night in Leh! But if you're takling about the plains, well in january the night time temperature is often around 5-6 celcius. The south is warmer though.

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Yeah seriously, can you imagine what people do when there is a power outage? Imagine going through that spaghetti factory trying to figure out which wire caused the failure.

I think that they just don't bother and add a brand new wire each time.

[Cirrus]

What really intrigues me about these pictures, and many Indian cities in general, is how they mix the clutter of what we in the west would call 19th Century urbanism, with the trappings of modern technology.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

What really intrigues me about these pictures, and many Indian cities in general, is how they mix the clutter of what we in the west would call 19th Century urbanism, with the trappings of modern technology.

Are you saying India is... steampunk...? Please tell me that's what you're saying.