Tourist in my own city: Delhi Shenanigans

"I asked my soul: What is Delhi?"

She replied: The world is the body and Delhi its life"

- Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib

My love

More often than not, we human beings take everything around us for granted. Parents, friends, family and most importantly our city! I started travelling around only once I moved out of Delhi after spending close to 19 years there. Once in a while i would think about the charm of the city and the splendour it holds in all the gallies and dhabas, but always wanted to explore outside. Only this time when I went home for winters, I decided to relive the beauty that my Delhi is, and boy I missed it!

You Win Some, You “Loo” Some! – Sulabh International Toilet Museum

Okay so how many of us knew that there is a toilet museum in Delhi? And that it is among the world’s weirdest museums? And that it is free?! (Well most amazing things in life are!)

So, well yeah, Sulabh International maintains a toilet museum in its premises which traces the history of toilets through human evolution. From double-decker toilets to ones disguised as book shelves one can find all sorts of potty pots ever used!

Not only is the museum entertaining but also educational! It was set up primarily to divert the focus of our policy makers towards the efforts that have been made in the past across civilizations to ensure hygiene and sanitation and given today’s status of waste management and environmental sanitation, the organization sure is a stalwart in many senses!

Futuristic toilet from Brazil! With arm rest!

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!

On the toilet used by King Louis XIV in his court!

Double decker toilet used in america in early 1900s

Toilet disguised as a bookshelf!

Eat. Burp. Eat. Repeat. : Dilli Ke Pakwaan

Just as if having mouth watering roadside snacks on every galli and corner wasn’t enough, the Delhi Tourism Ministry also organizes an annual event which goes by the name Dilli ke Pakwaan and as it suggests one can find the most amazing of all foods found in Delhi! From Kashmiri Kehva, some 60 types of Kulfi (they had stuff like paan flavoured and black current kulfi), Daulat ki Chaat (50grams of heaven and milk and cream), biryanis, kebabs, nihari and naan and I cannot go on anymore without salivating like a dog sitting here in Bangalore! Usually held in the last week of every December, must visit for every foodie, hell no, every human being!

God bless Delhi Tourism!

Life is always better with some music, specially on a rustic gramophone!

HoHo Merry Dilli!

During my childhood, my parents did a pretty decent job of what the HoHo services does now, except they didn’t quite allow me to get out of the car and wander around Old Delhi at my whims and fancies. But guess what now you can! With two distinct routes (Red caters to historical / cultural sites and Green to mostly shopping sites), the Hop On Hop Off bus services is one of the most amazing, intriguing, charming, educational ways of discovering the secrets that the city beholds. Also a very good refresher to everything that you may have missed while you snored away in those middle school history lessons!

Red Fort and Delhi fog

Too much grandeur for my camera lens!

Chaddar bazar

Jama Masjid

Dilli 6

Period. One doesn’t even need to go beyond that description. Just saying Dilli 6 conjures up the most mystifying vision of food, parathas, noise, nondescript alleys, moong dal ka halwa, jalebis, Karims, Jama Masjid and haggling. Writing more about Chandni Chowk won’t do any justice. One has got to meander through the lanes to get enthralled by the splendour.

At paranthe wali galli

Going back to Delhi makes you realise how much you missed the wide roads lined with trees, steaming momos which can totally give the ones in Gangtok a run for their money, street shopping to one’s heart’s delight, Delhi Metro and its most entertaining set of commuters, winters and chai, couple of drinks at Hauz Khas Village and a stroll around the lake.

Makes you remember how the city is so much more than front page criminal headlines.

The city has a charm and history than can be shrouded by none.

Bidding Adieu to Summer, Bilbao style!

“Bizarre travel plans are dancing lessons from God – Kurt Vonnegut”

This September I went back again to France (in an attempt to make this an annual thing, and make it sound all fancy!), and luckily for me, this year, the (European) weather Gods were in a much better mood! The 10 days that i was there i soaked up more sunshine than I actually ever have in Bangalore in the last 1.5 years!!

Since last year I had managed to cover a lot of places in France, so this year I decided to drive down further and visit the areas of the Basque Country which lie in Spain (obviously it’s a blessing when you have an adoring boyfriend willing to drive you down to wherever you want!)

Our first stop was Hondarribia.

Hondarribia, which in Basque means sand fort is a quaint border town located on the west shore of the Bidasoa river. The first thing that hits you when you step foot on here, is how different the pace of life is from France which is just a couple of kilometres away! Almost felt that the car ride was more than a ride, it was a journey back in time (or forward?!), to a space where good food, good ambience, walking by the beach, watching pristine white sailboats and colourful yachts on the deep blue waters, meandering aimlessly on cobbled streets define a way of life instead of the madness that consumes us as we run every morning from home to the gym to work to the local bar to back to bed. It was a Wednesday and we only planned to stop for a few quick hours to walk around the town, but it almost felt like in the middle of a festive season with kids running all over the place, people old and young sipping on wine and gulping down beer on the tiny bar stools that pockmarked every walkway and lively music floating through the air.

Apart from chilling, soaking in the good life and leaving all worries behind, the other things to do here would be to relax some more (!!) and maybe to visit the Ermita de Guadalupe, a small church situated on the hill top.

From postcard to reality!

Cobbled pathways of Hondarribia

Next up was the city, which is now a part of my ‘favourite cities’ list; Bilbao. Before coming, the usual things one would have heard about Bilbao were..umm nothing more than a small gritty industrial town, but it is magnificently surprising to see how culturally oriented the city has become with marvels of art to stumble upon at every second turn you take!

First up of course is the most famous attraction – the Guggenheim Museum. Designed by Frank Gehry, the building in itself is an architectural masterpiece. And even before you can enter the museum, you are hit by a blast of art by from the several installations around museum premises.

Installations outside the Guggenheim Museum

That moment of pride - Anish Kapoor at Guggenheim

The Guggenheim is situated right next to Casco Viejo, the old town which is full of charming streets, quaint houses, magnificent churches, boisterous bars, quirky shops and lots of good food!

When in Bilbao, one must try the pinxtos (Basque tapas), and we were just lucky to have landed right in the middle of the pinxto festival! This is when almost every pub (which double up as cafes during the day) serve their specialties and compete with each other to win the best pinxtos award!

Now since Bilbao is a valley town nestled between mountain ranges, it’s a pretty good use of one’s time there to take the funicular as it creaks and moans its way up Mount Arxanda from where one can get spectacular views of the entire city.

At Mount Artxanda

Sunset at Mount Artxanda

Finally on our way back to France, we decided to make on last stop at Donostia- San Sebastian. If ever you have dreamt of what the perfect beach would look like, then Playa de Concha and its extension Playa de Ondarreta would be the epitome of that dream! With the golden sandy beach stretching till the eyes can see, water more blue than you’ve ever witnessed, hundreds of toned bodies soaking up the sun, it is easily one of the best beaches I have ever been to! Walking towards the western part of the beach, you reach Playa de Ondarreta and if the sumptuous beach wasn’t enough to enthrall your senses, then definitely the sculptures embedded in the rocks would. The installations by Eduardo Chillida, create a mystical harmony between human art creations and the creations of nature. 

Playa de Concha

Installations at Playa de Ondarreta

San Sebastian, screams art, culture, history and positivity from every brick! No wonder it has been named as the European Center of Culture for 2016. One can spend hours walking around the old city, savoring the pinxtos followed by the churros, witness wedding celebrations at the Ayuntamiento de San Sebastian, laze around in the courtyard of the Plaza de Constitucion, walk up to the sculpture of Christ as the Good Shepherd or just check out the Aquarium at the end of the pier.

Plaza de Constitucion

It is true that visiting Spain is tantamount to a visit to India, it’s a collection of small nations working together, each with its own distinct art, flavour and culture and yet fusing together so effortlessly. A weekend in the Basque region will most probably be spent OD-ing on art and beauty and letting the smells and tastes overwhelm your senses.

These are not the most advertised European destinations, but by far one of the most beautiful and fulfilling journeys I have taken. 

We'll Always Have New York!

“One hand in the air for the big city

Street lights, big dreams, all looking pretty

No place in the world that could compare

And we’ll always have New York”

I started working last summer, and our mighty firm sends all new recruits to New York for 4 weeks for training (and 6 weeks if you fail a basic test, which guess what I did (on purpose, of course!))! How cool is that!

All that I had seen in the Hollywood movies and the American TV shows for almost 2 decades was finally going to unfold and unravel in front of my senses for 6 whole weeks! And to top it all, BenJ flew down from France to spend a little over two weeks, and who would deny the increment to fun and enjoyment when travelling and discovering with the one you love.

And now that I look back at last year’s glorious summer, here’s a rundown of the things we miss, things we loved and things we want to do over and over again:

1.       Walk the High Line: The High Line is a public park built on a historic freight rail line elevated above the streets of Manhattan’s West side. It is by far one of the most underrated and most charming ways to get a feel of the city. We walked the High Line, danced to African pop music there, sat next to a guy who wrote 5-minute stories on an ancient typewriter, painted for charity, walked some more and watched the sun set behind the crazy skylines.

The Highline gives view to some amazing graffiti

And like us, you may get to paint for charity!

Or just watch stories being spun out of thin air (via a typewriter!)

2.       Spend a Sunday (or two) at the Central Park: No matter how much is said about this urban park covering almost a third of Manhattan, it will never be enough. It is one of the most entertaining ways of spending a Sunday (or any other day as long as it’s sunny and you don’t have to work!) without burning a hole in your pocket. Walk across the length of the park, be a spectator to the several baseball matches, groove at one of the many Summer Concerts (we were lucky to be right in the middle of a thumping Fatoumata Diawara performance) and you never know, but you may also get to witness a wedding right there in the middle of the park!

A lazy Sunday afternoon at Central Park watching one of the umpteen baseball games                          

3.       Subways: God bless the MTA for the brilliant subway line connection down and across the borough! Almost like the Delhi metro (well the Delhi metro is a little more sophisticated), the subway system offers brilliant opportunities for people watching, people watching and more people watching! With music performances inside the stations or sketch artists pock marking the system, a ride from one place to another can never be boring.

4.       Speakeasies: When in New York, dump the fancy, glitzy bars with over priced drinks and even more over dressed crowd and find yourself a speakeasy for the night. We got talking to the locals about their favourites and picked out two: The Bathtub Gin and The Blind Barber. The Bathtub Gin was the first one we hit and boy it did live up to the definition of a speakeasy! We kept standing in front of a coffee shop for 5 whole minutes, scratching our heads and figuring out where the bar was, till a gentleman finally showed us inside the coffee shop where a hidden door leads you to the dimly lit, sophisticated, gin-based-cocktails serving, burlesque performance showcasing bar. With amazing drinks, polite service, brilliant performances and yes the hidden entrance, The Bathtub Gin was not a disappointment. The Blind Barber was our next stop. Hidden discretely behind the doors of a nondescript barber shop, the ambience, the drinks (not as good at Bathtub gin though) and the music was well worth the trip to the East Village.

5.       Hester Street Fair and other markets: The Hester Street fair is a perfect way to spend a lazy, balmy weekend afternoon. With artisanal street food, vintage clothing, hand-made jewellery, colourful stationery and not overly crowded, it’s a fairly good alternative considering the hustle bustle of most markets and fairs. BenJ gifted me two pairs of earrings and a necklace from one of the vendors here and they are by far one of the most quaint looking pieces of jewellery I own ( <3)

6.       Discover D.U.M.B.O: DUMBO, an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, is a neighbourhood in south Brooklyn with an interesting combination of old warehouses, quirky shops and restaurants and the magnificent view of Manhattan. We checked out the multiple old warehouses converted into creative centres, clicked (LOTS of) pictures with the Manhattan and the Brooklyn bridges in the backdrop, bought chocolates from the Jacques Torres chocolate shop (the lady working there told us about the speakeasies), and just sat at Fulton’s Landing watching the ferries pass by.

One of those mesmerizing photo-ops

The view from the other side

                                     

Apart from the above favourites, we walked (and we walked and walked and walked) almost across all streets and avenues and was the best way to discover New York. Be it amazing graffiti in different nooks and crannies, rice and chicken on 53^rd & 6^th (The Halal Guys and yes this cart is a NY Landmark and the chicken makes the queue stretching for a block and a half every bit worth it!!), all the museums (working in a firm associated with any of these museums can get you free entry), the tiny, yet expensive cafes in Meat Packing, the bustle when you get off at the Union Square station, getting lost inside the Grand Central Station! New York gave us the best two weeks last summer (and the best Facebook profile picture options!!)

Walking led us to discover some of our favourite haunts

                                  

And we made some of our favourite memories, in New York