Journey to the North India [part 1]

9th February 2005


At the end of each travelling trip or at the end of every weekend spent in India, I will always spend some quality time in my living room or in the kitchen or sometime in the office, reflecting on what I had done for the past seven days. I will try to pun it into words hence this journal on practically everything, on the person I befriended, on the happening event, on my train of thought, on my feeling, on the book I read or the music I listen to, at that exact moment. Usually, the must things that will accompany me through this personal moment will be hot tea or a cold beer, cigarette and good music. Right now, I am writing it with Tracy Chapman´s songs, a cold beer and about to light a unfiltered cigarette.

On this journal, I will write about my unforgetful travelling journey to the North India, on the beautiful places I visited namely Agra, New Delhi, mathuran, Vrinduran, Dehradun, Rishikesh and Haridwar. As usual, I will start it from day zero.

Day 0

It was 25th February and Omar, Kamal, Thomas and I were invited by our boss for a dinner and round of alcoholic drink in his classy condo. Needless to say, the dinner was great. It started after few round of whisky and beers. I started it fast and just before the dinner begin, I was so afraid that I might embarrassed myself by getting drunk and talking nonsense that I started to cool it down a little. We were talking about everything under the sun, about the economics, the politics, religion, the thought etc but none about working. We left at about ten something.

Kamal is a visited friend of Omar, from the land of pyramid. This Kamal guy was a result of British Egyptian parentage. Trust me when I say he looks 99% like the great Russell Crowe. Not only he looks like him, but the way he talks, the way he moves, his English accent and everything else are also the same. And this is the opinion of every trainees, not just only me.

Anyway, after we left our boss, Thomas left to be reunited with his Iranian girlfriend while Omar, Kamal, DJ Sharifi and I went to this place, about 5 minutes motor biking away from our residential area where various kind of drugs are being sold, openly. It was my first time of visiting such places. All kind of drugs namely, the hash, the weed, the pill, the ecstasies, cocaine, crack cocaine were being trade off openly, on the street and with few policeman around. It was crazy to see India in such a way. But I was being told, the operation time for this pusher are limited and tightly controlled by the local police. It makes me ponder, what´s the different Amsterdam and Pune since both are selling drugs openly.

We left the place with 4 packages of weeds and a very long hash. Back in A20, the night was chilled away like every other day.







Day 1

Thomas and I woke up as early as six in the morning, to see the street as dead as dead fish and the weather was very cold. Our bus left Pune around 7.00 in the morning and was suppose to reach Mumbai around 10 something. Our train were scheduled to leave Mumbai to New Delhi exactly at 11.45 a.m.

The bus took us for a ride and when it finally reached Mumbai, there was this old lady in the bus was directing the bus driver in Hindi to drop her at somewhere out of destination and to our surprise; the bus driver stupidly followed her direction. What a nimrod. We already late because of the detour destination the bus driver took and now just when we thought everything will be OK, we bump into such a idiotic driver and a old lady. We may as well forget about the long anticipated trip to the North if we miss the train but luckily the bus managed to reach Mumbai bus terminal 10 minutes before the departure time. From the bus terminal, we were supposed to go to Bandar train station to entrain, which will take us around 20 minutes by cab. The crook cab driver already came up with a plan to drive us around (so he can earn more rupees per km). We already knew about all the tactic so we told the cab driver frankly and straight to the face, “Look, we are late and we don’t want any cheating. We need to get to Bandar train station in 5 minutes to entrain to Delhi. We will pay you a lot if you can make it in five minutes hence no driving around”. To cut the story short, the cab driver managed to reach the train station, driving through the rush hour of Mumbai, through all the small roads and we paid him for about RM 20, for just less then one km. The train left exactly at 11.45 am and we were relieved that we were on a journey to what must have been a unforgetful trip to the North.

The morale of the story is, never trust the Indian! Never give them even the benefit of the doubt and if you did, you will be the one that end in doubt. It is in the culture. If you ask them how long will it takes to walk from A to B and if the answer is 10 minutes, then you add another ten. If you ask them how long will they take to prepare a meal and if the answer is 20 minutes, then add another 15 minutes. And you ask them how many km from A to B and if the answer is 50 km then you add another 20km. I hope you got me. This is what exactly happens to us in every things, time, date, timeline, km and etc. Enough said.

The train was a upper class train. It was a AC 2 and everything was great. It was complete with bed, pillow, blanket and everything else you need for a comfortable 24 hours journey to Delhi. Thomas got the upper part while I chose the below part, with window. With lots of time to spare, I started my journey with a mission to finish my Jim Morrison´s biography and so I did. The CDs that accompanied me through the journey and through the reading was Jimi Hendrix´s “The axis outtakes”, Tracy Chapman, Eric Clapton´s “Chronicles” & “Blues”, X-Japan´s “Ballads”, Guns n´Roses, Buena Vista Social Club, Wings, KRU, Kompilasi lagu Melayu Rocks, John Mistress, Amir Yussof´s “Aquarius” and a few more records.

So, the 24 hours bluesy train journey was with Jim Morrison´s legendary life and nap in between. There was this guy with lots of beard, like Osama and his family members. Some of the passengers did come up to him and showed him kind respect like he is kind of a religious priest.

Anyway, in 1968, Jim Morrison was at his peak, attracting more and more enemies than friends, that would like to see him disappear off from the face of the earth or being put in the silence including the CIA, the FBI, the secret service and the Nixon administration. The same people who were harassing John Lennon at that time for his staunch anti-war or to be exact anti-Vietnam war (Make love, Not war protest). Jim Morrison shared the same opinion too hence the threat. And for the record, the whole court lawsuit against Jim Morrison about his on-stage sexual misconduct was all political conspiracy which prompted him or left him no choice but to live in exile in Paris, France which later in his life, was found death in the hotel in Paris. (In the revolutionary era of the 70s, France didn’t have a good diplomatic relationship with the United States.)

At night, it was a perfect moment, perfect time when Guns n´Roses´s “Night train” was played. I was still reading about Jim Morrison. At about midnight, I decided to put down Jim Morrison and to retired into sweet dream. I was awoken in the middle of the night by the beard guy, who snored like a camel. To cut the story short, I woke up at seven something and the train reached the Old Delhi train station at 10 a.m.

The moment was finally arrived, to met with the most gorgeous girl I had been anticipated to meet up with, Gesine the Gytneth Patrow look-alike, the girl I admire and adore so much that she left me hanging when she went back to Delhi.

After exchanging hugs and kissing on cheek, we wasted no more time by sight seeing New Delhi.

New Delhi is India’s capital, is a political and business hub as well as the country’s major getaway. The city is like any other big and develop city, spacious and well planned with 5-6 lanes roads, expressway, modern transportation, first class infrastructure, lots of modern architecture skyscraper building and also a centre of governance and administration.

The first place we visited was Jama mosque or also known as Masjid jama, in Old Delhi, the biggest mosque in India. Just for the record, 20% of India population is made up by the Muslims which statistically about 200 million approximately. This figure made India the second largest country with Muslim population, more than any Arab nation or Pakistan or Turkey. The first being Indonesia.

Masjid Jama has three great gateways, four angle towers and two minarets standing 40m high and is constructed of alternating vertical strips of red sandstone and white marble. Its courtyard can hold up to 25000 people hence the largest mosque.

The area was a busy streets, packed with street traders, lots of people, markets, restaurants, stores, craftsman.

Opposite Masjid Jama is the infamous Red Fort which was the second places we visited in Old Delhi. Red Fort or its sandstone walls extend for 2 km and vary in height from 18m on the river side to 33m on the city side. We were appalled by how the ancient people could built something huge like the Red Fort. It was really huge inside.

After these two places, we stopped at one of the Muslim restaurant, order mutton briyani rice, butter naan and a bottle of mineral water. The whole day, we were walking quite lots and in the afternoon, around 4pm, we stopped at this very classy restaurant and I ordered a cup of coffee to soothe up my inside. It was equipped with a beautiful garden, few benches and lots of green.

Finally, we decided to call it a day and we took a public bus back to Gesine´s house, which was in Gurgoen, southern Delhi, about 90 minutes away from the main city. We reached Gurgoen at about 7pm and we hung out at India´s most famous coffee-house café, Coffeeday. As a boring man with not much to choose from the menu, I ordered the usual Arabian Height. In CoffeeDay, they have this MTV jukebox that contains lots of songs from all kind of genres namely pop, rocks, blues, jazz, oldies etc. I tried to dedicate Aerosmith´s “crazy” to Gesine but was in vain somehow because of the machine.

The night weather in Delhi was so much colder than in Pune. It was started to get below 10 degree. We walked for about half an hour more to Gesine´s house.
We met up with Gesine´s friend, Raveesh who work for TCS (TATA Consultancy Services). This Raveesh guy, look and talk like Fashan. Fashan my friend, I know you never read my crap but if you do, I just wanna let you know that this Raveesh looks like your clone.

Together we went to a nearby Punjabi restaurant for a very nice and hot and spicy dinner (against the cold weather). I ordered Roasted chicken and Aghani chicken and needless to say, it was fantastic.

The night was completed with a bottle of Rum and whiskey.

Day 2

Gesine´s house was really cool. The house have one small balcony and two roofless balcony, on top of each other (a double story roofless balcony).

We woke up around 8 a.m. We had milk, chocolate bars from Germany, toasted bread with butter, marmalade and fried eggs for a breakfast.

Then the beautiful morning, blessed with morning breeze and sunshine prompted me to do what I do best, writing a script for my travelling journey while listening to Tracy Chapman´s “Fast car”.

Day 2 was Friday and Thomas and I parted with Gesine, to proceed our travelling journey to Agra and she went with her group of friends (Delhi trainees) to Panna National park, about 15 hours train ride from Delhi. So, Thomas and I went to the bus terminal to board a bus to Agra but somehow ended up in a completely wrong place. The bus ride took us about 40 minutes to realize we we heading to a wrong place. We were completely clueless about the route and all that stuff. Somehow someway, being the survival and traveller like we always are, we managed to reached a Nizamudin train station instead. So, we decided to board a train to Agra instead. While on the bus to the wrong bus terminal, the government bus which quite a run-down, there were this guy, together with kids and friends were shifting house through the run down bus. Imagine the whole bus was full with his old stuff like bags, metals, fans and all that household stuff. It was a crazy bus ride.

Thomas and I managed to visit two of the famous place in New Delhi before boarding the train to Agra which is the India gate and the parliament. The former is a big arch, contain thousand of names of Indian heroes that died during the world war 2, located just opposite the parliament and are situated along way the big and long road. The latter is the parliament itself, the Putrajaya of Malaysia but I think two times bigger and the road leads to the parliament is 5 times longer than the one leading to the building of our Ministry of Prime Minister department. It took us about 35 minutes to walk from one end to the other end.

We entrained from Nizamudin railway station after deposited our luggage onto the railways cloak room at 8.30 p.m. and reached Agra at around 1.30 a.m. and the weather, as expected was at the coldest, in between 5 to ten degree. We were dumbfounded and surrounded the bunch of crook, bloodsucker, tongue-twisting motherfucker auto-rickshaw driver. Also known as the ugliest bloody slasher in India. Think you can find only one or two honest one in a hundred.

Reaching the crookiest town of Agra in the middle of the dead night, surrounded by all the slasher can consider dangerous for your pocket. Different crook would tell you different hotels (often a bad one simply because they want to earn a commission) and the rate to get there is a blood-sucking rate. Lucky for us, we were having the most important survival kit for traveller, the Lonely Planet (LP), also known as the travellers bible. From LP, we decided to check in to Kamal hotel, somewhere very near to the Taj Mahal. And Kamal hotel turn out to be a very good one, a recommended one, no regret.

Kamal hotel didn’t have budget room and since we didn’t want to travel around town to in search for others, we decided to check in the relatively expensive room, fully equipped with tv and 50 cable channels like CNN, MTV, Channel V, Star World, Z movies channel etc, giant size beds, chairs, attached bathroom etc for about 450 rupees.

We jumped onto the big bed and outstretched all part of our bodies like a cat while CNN Conect was showing a live debate about the relevance of the Arab world in Islam and world economic, politics and the Iraqi issues. The invited guest to the program were crown prince of Bahrain, Sec-Gen of the Arab world, the Vice President of Israel, NDP of Egypt and Jordanian foreign minister.

Day 3

We woke up to see the thick breeze and experiencing one of the coldest weather in Agra. The winter season was still continue. Thomas and I went to the roofless restaurant, The stuffmakers restaurant (also recommended by LP). It was really a great place with a direct clear view on the Taj Mahal. I ordered a plate of half boiled eggs, omelette, chocolate milk and banana lassi for a breakfast. After breakfast, we changed room to the budget room which is also very good for money.

At that moment, I was still watching, not believing that I was that close to the Taj Mahal, one of the wander of the world. I still recalled those days when I was studying it in the history books, how it was built, and the cost and price of building it and all that stuff and now I was about a few miles to the infamous building of the wonders.

Right now, the kitchen left Meike and me only. It is quarter to 1a.m. and most inhabitant of A20 already went to bed. John Mayer´s song is playing in the air and Meike just done with her guitar strumming while I am sipping my second cup of hot tea. Two bottle of beers had be consumed earlier. The cigarette is still burning on the ashtray.

Earlier, they were discussing about the camping stuff. Anyway, I actually don’t plan to sleep hence lots of tea and cigarette, so I could finish up this seemingly endless travelling journal.

OK, back to the story. We hired a rickshaw driver to drive us to and around Agra for whole day. His name is KK. We hired him after he managed to convinced us about his specialty, about how well he understand the feeling of traveller and bla bla bla…

At the end of the trip, we felt that somehow his service didn’t really justified the cost, which was about RM 35.

First place was the baby Taj Mahal. The Mughal empire built this baby Taj before they build the real Taj. The baby Taj is much smaller and serve as a kind of prototype to the real Taj. Nothing much to boast about. Second historical place we visited was the Agra fort. Agra Fort is located on the bank of Yamuna river. The auricular fort’s colossal double walls rise over 20m in height and measure 2.5 km in the circumference. They contain a maze of buildings that form a small city within a city. The most impressive building to survive most of the damages is the legendary white marble Pearl Mosque.

We took so much of photos that when we reached the real Taj Mahal, Thomas´s digicam almost ran out of battery. It was a real emergency. Basically everything was confiscated and being kept in the cloak room except for camera.
The feeling of seeing the proud, the arrogant, standing tall and proud, the Taj Mahal was indescribable. It was fucking unbelievable. The one monument I used to look at in a book or magazine now came to life, standing in front of my eyes.

It was huge and we were appalled, amazed and somewhat overwhelmed. The Taj, often described as the most extravagant monument ever built for love is needless to say, India’s de facto tourist emblem. The building is so perfect and extravagant that some of the masterminder who help built the Taj had their arms or thumb amputated, to assure a similar design never repeated in any part of the world. The Taj is accessed through an outer courtyard which has gate facing west, south and east. The south gateway is inscribed with verses from the quran in Arabic. Lucky for us, we visited the Taj at the right season which is the winter. So the surrounding was hazy and windy thus we were chilling. Enough said. Let’s move on.

At the end of Taj visit, we took a cycle rickshaw back to our hotel. Thomas and I decided to walk the night market and we ended up eating lots of local varieties and junk foods along the way. We brought couple of beers back to the room and after a few chapters of John Grisham´s “The broker”, we went to Yash café, another rooftop café for a dinner. Tomato garlic spaggethi, hot lemon tea and sweet lassi was my dinner. The café was showing the movie, “Monster” starring the beautiful Charlize Theron. Later, after the movie, I asked the boss to play the best of Mr Bean and there the night goes, laughing at the old classic comedy of Rowan Atkinson. Remember Mr Bean in the church, in the restaurant, on the beach and so on? Ha…It was a great laugh.

That’s the end of day 3.

Day 4

We woke up at around the same time. This is what we will usually do when travelling. Open our eyes as wide and as long as possible so we could keep discovering. When the eyes close, the discovering stop, so it would be consider a waste of time. Sleeping time is when you are not travelling.

After having a mushroom soup, sweet lassi, 2 fried eggs with butter toast and hot lemon tea, we proceeded to a bus terminal to purchase a bus ticket, further up from Agra, call Mathuran. It was a local bus, transporting hundreds of Indians to and back daily from Mathuran to Agra and vice versa.

The bus ride took about 2 hours and we reached there around 4p.m. This Mathuran place had so far, the worst and ugliest road in India. It was bumpy all the way. We took a rickshaw to a wrong temple which was about 30 minutes from the mathuran bus terminal. We were suppose to visit Iskon temple or also known as the English Temple but was being brought to Krishna temple. Ironically, this Krishna temple in Mathuran had the strictest gate checking, even more complicating than the Taj. None of the state of the art technologies including digital camera, mobiles or battery or lighter or cigarette were allowed. This temple is the birth place of Lord Krisna.

At about 5pm, we went to the real artistic temple, the Ishkon temple (the picture was one of the selected photo in LP 2004). It was magnificent. There was some European pilgrims or newly converted to their new religion there, busying practising the chanting.

The highlight of day 4 was when we were brought to a Vrinduran train station where we were suppose to get a ticket and back to Delhi. It was around 6 something and it was already dark. But what happen was the train was very quiet which quickly gave us a sudden suspicious that the train station doesn’t work. With few beggars, rusty railways, no passengers and no one to speak English (unlike most railways in India), it was confirmed to us that the railway station never work. And suddenly, we were out of the usual noisy town, stranded in the un-operational railway station, and worse still, the sky was already dark and we were clueless on our whereabouts. The time was meaningless to the locals and everybody seems to rush back home, thus neglecting everything else. And just when you need them, the crook bloody motherfucker auto rickshaw driver, for the first time, they were nowhere. GREAT!!

Luckily, we came across this mid thirty guy who cycle a cycle rickshaw, rode us deep into rural area to one auto rickshaw driver which drove us for about 45 minutes to the real train station. So, were finally, out of the place and caught ourselves safe again, and were ready to entrain back to Delhi. We had only 5 minutes before the train leave to Delhi, so we eat everything our hand could touch namely biscuit, vadapao, chai and all that stuff.

The train ride back to Delhi was already packed so it was miserable for us not to have any seat. The journey took us about 4 hours and during that 4 hours, Thomas and I were just squatting and seating on the floor, shoulder to shoulder with the Indians, near the train’s toilet. I managed to read few more chapters of Grisham and newly brought book about Karma and stuff (for Omar), listened to couple of CDs including my all time favourite malay band, WINGS and Eric Clapton.

We reached Delhi at around 11.45 pm and it was a city never sleep, so there was lots of crook motherfucker. We took one of them, that drove us to the main bazaar, which according to LP, are nearby our branch office where we are suppose to go to work day after.

We checked in at King hotel which had a very big dog, very friendly, grey hound species. The room was also equipped with tv and attached bathroom but the rest was just basic and adequate.

The channel was showing one of the episode of The Simpsons family, the most dysfunctional family in the world of comedy, and also my favourite cartoon of all time.




Day 5

Day 5 in our first day at the branch. We took a auto-rickshaw to our branch office at Assaf Ali road, one of the messy street in Delhi. The building of our branch look like one of the war thorn building in the Eastern Europe. With lots of debris, holes through the walls, smash glasses and stuff like that. No wander they are in the midst of shifting office. Through the holes, you can see kids running around the roofless top, women were caught chatting while hanging up laundry, and youth were just laying flat on the roof, enjoying the chill weather.

In the branch office, we met few of the sales engineer and most of the salesperson are cool people including the branch secretary, Ms Susmitha, who looks like one of the good looking Bollywood chick, but in the mid thirties.

We were suppose to work in the branch for three days but we managed to gauged and obtained all opinion and ideas on the branch-HO-client coordination in our first day. It was funny that when we were in HO (Head office), the various departments was complaining about the branches in all inefficiencies but now that we are finally in one of the most top performing branch, the Delhi branch, the branch people said otherwise. Suddenly, Thomas and I felt like a consultant hired by the CEO to solve all inefficiencies because even the regional manager, Mr Sudhagar Shetty was trying hard to put forward on HO´s inefficiencies, with a hope that our report will go to the chairman, which we will eventually present a report of our finding.


The first day was just mere talking and taking down notes. Then during lunch, we went to the most happening place in central Delhi, the Connought place (CP). It is like a huge roundabout, separated by blocks of building. The size is about the whole of our Bukit Bintang. CP is a very classy place and in CP, most restaurant are all top end restaurant and most store are all branded. Shops like Reebok, Adidas, banks, Gucci, Polo, Thomas cook, Airlines agencies, expensive restaurant and lots more. The cheapest restaurant we could find was Subway, which happen to be one of the most pricey restaurant in Korageon park, Pune.

In the evening, the most senior salesperson, Guru, drove us to our company guest house. We were expecting some ciplak house but were shocked when we were sent to this big kind of pent house, reserve only for company’s big clients. The house was at the highest floor and was well equipped with huge living room, furniture, tv with 50 over cable channel, big bedroom with big attached bathroom. It is similar to any of the 4 star hotel expensive room.

That night, as usual, it was cold and windy, we went to the main bazaar and I ended up brought a sleeping bag. We had a dinner at hotel shilton´s rooftop, overlooking the street of the busy bazaar. French onion soup and chicken chowmein was my dinner while heating up my hand and body on the fire heater beside our table.

Day 6

We woke up at around 8 something and CNN was reporting a courtroom updates about the Jackson trial. CNBC was reporting about Malaysia’s latest measurement about deporting her illegal immigrant as a headlines.

Speaking of the Jackson trial, I really think Michael Jackson is innocent. Whoever the accuser it is, he or she is up to Michael’s wealth and fortune and determine enough to kill his reputation. How can a court again and again allow any Toms or Dicks to press charges on the same account? This is all conspiracy and full of twisting political strategies, to destroy a living legend. Just like how they manipulating medias and peoples that resulted in the assassination of John Lennon, the death of Marilyn Monroe, the death of Jim Morrison and God knows who else.


Second day working at branch almost the end of our visiting. Since we almost obtained all we wanted from this trip except for the appointments with clients (which scheduled on the third day), we practically did nothing. Thomas was starting to compose his diary and arranging his photo gallery while me, was caught openly surfing the net, checking and rechecking my emails, updating my blog, replying all emails, and reading lots of Malaysiakini articles especially Sim Kwang Yang and Farish Noor articles.
In the evening, Thomas and I met up with Gesine again for a dinner at the same rooftop of hotel Shilton. Restaurant’s name was Kitchen café. After dinner, we went back to our company guest house to celebrate Deepak´s farewell party. Deepak had worked for Forbes Marshall for almost 5 years and now he got a better offer from other big company. So, there farewell party had lots of Rum (Bacardi), lots of Whiskey, lots of Tandoori chickens, chips, nuts and lots more of junk foods. Needless to say, most of them was drunk, dead drunk except for me and Thomas and most probably the regional manager and Guru. I guess all salesperson had the same nature, smoking like hell and drinking like crazy and swearing like no one cares. If Lee Chi Wei the salesman is like that, so is the salesman in India.

Part 2 of this journal will be available shortly.