Some Goodies from Delhi

Connaught Place, the heart of commercial Delhi, India, Mar 2013. To me Delhi has two hearts, one is this one, and the second is India Gate. Just look at the map of Delhi and you'll know why I feel like that. Both are huge roundabouts with, I think 12 roads radiating out. Connaught Place is a circle with buildings all around it, and under it. The middle of the circle is a park.

Here are some pictures of Delhi, a place I’ve not posted about for ages. This was my first port of call in India. I still remember the first thing that struck me when I stepped off the plane, the smell of diesel fumes, and the bleach that the cleaners used for disinfecting the marble floors of the airport. This was the old airport. That was March 2003, and it was near midnight when I arrived.

Since then, I’ve been there uncountable times. Stayed there for the first two years of my life in India. OK, it was not exactly Delhi, but Gurgaon (in neighbouring Haryana state), but c’mon, that’s like an extension of Delhi. Heck, it’s nearer to the Delhi international airport than the rest of Delhi.

And we keep coming back. Delhi’s where we ran to when I and Anu decided to elope. Do it the Bollywood style as my Indian colleague advised. And it’s the place we stop for flight connections, but the one main thing that Delhi’s got, that no other place in India has, …the scores of embassies around. And for an Indian, you need darn visas to just about every place on the face of the earth (with the exception of maybe Nepal and Bhutan). That’s why Anu’s passport is filled so fast. We Malaysians rarely have a chance to fill up our pages in the five years’ validity that we get.

The last time we were there was in March. We stayed there for about like 6 days, just for one purpose, to get Anu a Malaysian visa! We tried the new metro (subway) system, which was pretty good. And that’s about it. Every place that the hotel travel desk recommended, we’ve unfortunately visited before!


India Gate, side view, Aug 2007. This is an even bigger roundabout than Connaught Place. Unlike Connaught Place, there’re no commercial buildings around, only acres of parks, fountains and government buildings. See my old post for a frontal view.


The gates of Rashtrapati Bhawan, the presidential palace, Dec 2006. Nope, couldn’t enter.


Qutub Minar, the 13th century victory tower of the Muslim invasion of Northern India


Anu at Qutub Minar, Dec 2006


Yours truly, at the Qutub Minar complex, Oct 2007


With fellow Malaysian, Ranaith, Leighton's Safety Manager of the Agra-Bharatpur Highway Project


Dilli Haat, a bazaar selling arts and craft from all over India, Nov 2006. And there're food stalls representing the various states of India, if not you think I'd be interested, hehehe


The Lotus Temple, worship house of the Baha'i Faith, New Delhi, Dec 2006. People of all religions are welcomed to any Baha'i House of Worship, and the best thing about the Lotus Temple is that it's free, there's no entrance fee!






Scenes from the Lodi Gardens, Oct 2007. This is the jogging ground of New Delhi. It's filled with trees and old tombs, a nice escape from the chaos outside


Birla Temple, Delhi, Aug 2007


Anu's elder sister, Manju and her son, Kunal at the Red Fort, Delhi, Aug 2007

There's another very interesting place in Delhi, the Akshardham Temple which unfortunately, does not allow cameras and phones, what a spoilsport!

Stopover City Kolkata

The Victoria Memorial, Kolkata, India, May 2007

I'm not happy. Over some unjustified deductions in my payslip. But I have hopes that it’ll be sorted out. Meanwhile, to keep my mind away from that issue, and to not spoil my mood any further, here’re photos of a city that we visit quite often. Every year, a couple of times at least.

Why? Because all flights into Assam and North-East India fly via Kolkata. (OK, with the exception of some flights from Delhi and Mumbai that goes direct to Guwahati). And Kolkata has direct flights to most of the main cities in India and every airport in the North East, plus direct international connections to a number of destinations, including Kuala Lumpur and Dubai, the cities that matter for us.

That’s not all. My high and mighty international banks (namely HSBC and Standard Chartered) have no branches in our dear village of a city, Silchar. The most convenient place where they're in is, …yeah, you guessed it, Kolkata, where each of them has at least emm 6, maybe 8 branches?? Don’t actually know.

Kolkata’s not small. Its population is around …20 million people. That’s about the population of Australia!

And although we’ve been there uncountable times, we’ve not thoroughly explored the place except for the New Market area, and Salt Lake (to be near the banks). I’ve been keeping these photos for ages to post them with the other attractions in the city, when we visit… But what the heck, these are almost antique now. Could have sworn I have more photos than these but dunno where they are now…


The spanking new International Airport of Kolkata, Apr 2013. I like the looks, neat and simple, but bold, with huge calligraphy on the ceiling. Nice touch, but there’s next to zero facilities (meaning no shops & restaurants) when we were there. Heard it just opened a few months back.


At Kolkata’s Old Airport, which is closed now, Aug 2012. With Mary Kom, India’s 2012 Olympic bronze medallist for women’s boxing. She’s from Manipur, a neighbouring state of Assam. We’ve bumped into a few well-known people in the airports while travelling in North East India. We flew in the same plane once with the Chief Minister of Assam. He was on the seat just in front of us and Anu didn’t recognize him!




More views of the Victoria Monument


Recognize this? My Facebook profile photo – taken in the gardens of the Victoria Memorial, Kolkata


Howrah Bridge, Nov 2006. Taken with my old film camera.


Inside the Indian Museum, Sudder Street, Nov 2006


Sudder Street with a church in the background and a pulled rickshaw, taken from inside the Indian Museum. Sudder Street is in the New Market backpackers’ area. This is where we usually stayed before Justin was born. After that we sorta upgraded ourselves.


Kalighat Temple, May 2007. Well known for animal sacrifices, mainly pigeons and goats. Mother Teresa’s Nrimal Hriday (hospice for the dying), is just next door.


A rare picture of Anu pregnant, June 2009, at Fairlawn Hotel, Sudder Street, one of the nicer hotels in the area. Owned and run by an Armenian family, probably settled there during the Armenian diaspora days

Our Little Yellow Car

Just realized, I have no pictures of our little yellow car in my blog, so here're a few...




Our Tata Nano at a temple on the Jiribam Road, near the Assam-Manipur Border. Yeah, we crossed over to Manipur that day, but only for a drive around in Jiribam.

Leaving Home

I’ve moved again. Finally left India for Dubai, for better or for worse, I don’t know, but I’m positive. Leaving home was hard since I had to leave my wife and son behind this time, …till ‘things’ get done. Things here mean the friggin passport. Yup, you read correctly, Anu’s friggin passport is still not done! It’s more than 2 bloody months now! I fume if I think about it. I can write a book about this passport issue so I’m not going touch on that subject. No thanks to the passport ‘thing’, this is the first time I’ve been away from the family since …let’s see, the beginning of 2011!

I’ve started work for my ex-boss. Everything’s basically still the same here. Dubai is as we left it nearly 3 years ago. It is still sand and pylons all over the place. … I don’t know why they need so many friggin high tension lines and pylons around the city. Dubai’s full of fantastic looking buildings, but I guess nobody ever thought of trying to do something with the darned pylons. If I were them, I’d have organized a Pylon Design Contest or buried them deep under the desert.

Another common sight, the tower cranes are still around. But a lot of them aren’t moving, and I figure they’ve not moved for years. There’s a look of desolation in many of the building sites. Half built facades, nameless towers, abandoned housing estates, ghost construction yards and locked up offices. Some of the housing estates look like a ghost town straight out of a Wild West movie.

And it’s still as expensive as before. Except for petrol, everything in Dubai is expensive, especially accommodation and food. I heard house rental prices just shot up 50% in the last couple of months. So I guess it’s my bad luck for coming 2 months late huh?

This part of the world is completely barren from the air, a vast expanse of brown. It’s a world of a difference compared to Kolkata where I flew out from. Kolkata is completely green with pools all over the place (of course, this is the heart of Bengal)! Nice to look at, not so nice to live beside, especially if you’re not trained to withstand the itch of a thousand mosquito stings from young.

The main consolation about being here is that I’ve not had a single mosquito bite since I stepped into Dubai. A big contrast to our cosy home in Silchar – a minimum of 8 stings per sitting. They even sting thru underwear, so you can imagine… Heck, mosquitoes must be an endangered species in Dubai, but who cares? I don’t! And I’ll gladly kill the last surviving mosquito if given a chance.

Another plus point is that I don't sweat. Not as much as if I'm in another place anyway. I’m a sweaty type of fellow. In Malaysia, I sweat non-stop. I shower at least 3 times a day in Malaysia, and I’d have started sweating even before I put on my clothes. Here it is hot, definitely hotter than Malaysia, but I’m dry! And my clothes can last two days of wearing before I wash them.

But this dry weather seems to affect the body in strange ways. While I don’t sweat, I tend to be more prone to sweaty palms and sweaty feet here. And this causes my shoes to stink. Come to think of it, this was the same when I was staying in the UK as a student in the mid-90’s. I don’t sweat but my feet, god, do they stink! Which brings me to a hypothesis: Sweaty people are less prone to Athlete’s Foot. I’d test that hypothesis if I’m medical student.


Here's a view from my room, International City, Dubai