Rickshaw ride
As the streets grew busier our driver noted (and I remember reading about this) that he couldn't bring us all the way into the old city. Cars are not allowed to park there. So he drops us off about a mile away and we are directed to a pedal-drivel rickshaw for two. Paul and I look at each other. Score!
We climb on. The seat is narrow and tight. No matter. The "driver" is about 20 years old and 90 pounds soaking wet. Off we go.
We zig-zag through the winding streets and are feeling elated by this experience. I forgot my video camera and could kick myself. I snapped best I could.
We had started from a side street but as we came out of this section it was obvious that our guy was going for the main thoroughfare. I looked at Paul and as we took a hard right yelled "here we go!"
And go we did. He knifed us right between a truck and a taxi. Traffic whizzing by we turned again and now were on a six line road. We weaved in and out of traffic, our pedaling driver was earning his money I can tell you. What is obvious is that this is a ubiquitous experience. No one seems to expect anything other than us careening between motorscooter families of four and decrepit buses.
Speaking of which we stopped at a light and a typical example of the buses pulled up right next to us. Cars drive on the left here so I had a birds eye view of the driver.
Believe me this is completely typical. No door, barefoot driver, wires dangling at his knees.
And yes this from my perch on the rickshaw right in the middle of traffic. Hilarious to note that given this is a drive on the left country, we are technically in the "fast" lane.
We start up again and now head into an even busier section. There are vendors lining the streets with ware typically just set onto the ground. There are festivals and music and food vendors all up and down. This mass of people just seems to go on forever.
I took a series of quick snaps here to give a sense of how we and the surrounding traffic moved. Note a couple of things here.
First how the foot traffic spills out directly into the street traffic. I love the fellow just starting at my camera.
Second watch the driver ahead of us with the red turban.
We swing out wide directly in front of a car and several motorcycles. I think our rickshaw driver didn't even look. We catch up to the red turban and swing around the man with the rolling cart selling sweets.
We come up along another vendor selling slices of what appears to be pineapple. This is common all over the city. Vendors selling sliced fruit. Pineapple is clearly popular. The fellows cart wheels wobble like they're going to come off any moment. He's moving fast too.
Sure enough shortly after we pass him we hit a typical traffic jam. Traffic is coming out of a side road to the left, crossing our lane and trying to get to the opposite lane to our right. Didn't quite work out that way. This took a couple minutes to untangle.
We hit a small uphill section following this and our poor driver had to get off and push the bike to get us going. We felt bad but didn't want to embarrass him by getting off. Sure enough he had us going again in moments.
Then a downhill section and we were nearing our quarry, the Red Fort in old Delhi. As we continued along downhill on this very wide road Paul and I began to realize that our driver would have to swing around and get us onto the other side of the street across 6 lanes of traffic going the other way.
We were working up a good head of steam. We could see the Fort entrance. We could see the turn up ahead
There was no traffic light.
I'm thinking to myself (turns out Paul was too)... "he's not going to try to just cut across all that..."
WHOA!!!
The drive suddenly takes a sharp right, essentially a 180 degree turn, and we're just flung directly across the stream of oncoming traffic. Paul and I are basically screaming. The rickshaw lurches. I'm sure we're two wheeling at this point and I'm going to end up in the gutter or worse under one of those buses. The rickshaw continues to pull hard and has now fully turned us so we're moving with the traffic vs. against it and just as suddenly we pull over and we're here.
Off to the Red Fort.
We climb on. The seat is narrow and tight. No matter. The "driver" is about 20 years old and 90 pounds soaking wet. Off we go.
We zig-zag through the winding streets and are feeling elated by this experience. I forgot my video camera and could kick myself. I snapped best I could.
We had started from a side street but as we came out of this section it was obvious that our guy was going for the main thoroughfare. I looked at Paul and as we took a hard right yelled "here we go!"
And go we did. He knifed us right between a truck and a taxi. Traffic whizzing by we turned again and now were on a six line road. We weaved in and out of traffic, our pedaling driver was earning his money I can tell you. What is obvious is that this is a ubiquitous experience. No one seems to expect anything other than us careening between motorscooter families of four and decrepit buses.
Speaking of which we stopped at a light and a typical example of the buses pulled up right next to us. Cars drive on the left here so I had a birds eye view of the driver.
Believe me this is completely typical. No door, barefoot driver, wires dangling at his knees.
And yes this from my perch on the rickshaw right in the middle of traffic. Hilarious to note that given this is a drive on the left country, we are technically in the "fast" lane.
We start up again and now head into an even busier section. There are vendors lining the streets with ware typically just set onto the ground. There are festivals and music and food vendors all up and down. This mass of people just seems to go on forever.
I took a series of quick snaps here to give a sense of how we and the surrounding traffic moved. Note a couple of things here.
First how the foot traffic spills out directly into the street traffic. I love the fellow just starting at my camera.
Second watch the driver ahead of us with the red turban.
We swing out wide directly in front of a car and several motorcycles. I think our rickshaw driver didn't even look. We catch up to the red turban and swing around the man with the rolling cart selling sweets.
We come up along another vendor selling slices of what appears to be pineapple. This is common all over the city. Vendors selling sliced fruit. Pineapple is clearly popular. The fellows cart wheels wobble like they're going to come off any moment. He's moving fast too.
Sure enough shortly after we pass him we hit a typical traffic jam. Traffic is coming out of a side road to the left, crossing our lane and trying to get to the opposite lane to our right. Didn't quite work out that way. This took a couple minutes to untangle.
We hit a small uphill section following this and our poor driver had to get off and push the bike to get us going. We felt bad but didn't want to embarrass him by getting off. Sure enough he had us going again in moments.
Then a downhill section and we were nearing our quarry, the Red Fort in old Delhi. As we continued along downhill on this very wide road Paul and I began to realize that our driver would have to swing around and get us onto the other side of the street across 6 lanes of traffic going the other way.
We were working up a good head of steam. We could see the Fort entrance. We could see the turn up ahead
There was no traffic light.
I'm thinking to myself (turns out Paul was too)... "he's not going to try to just cut across all that..."
WHOA!!!
The drive suddenly takes a sharp right, essentially a 180 degree turn, and we're just flung directly across the stream of oncoming traffic. Paul and I are basically screaming. The rickshaw lurches. I'm sure we're two wheeling at this point and I'm going to end up in the gutter or worse under one of those buses. The rickshaw continues to pull hard and has now fully turned us so we're moving with the traffic vs. against it and just as suddenly we pull over and we're here.
Off to the Red Fort.
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