Delhi

Thursday, 29 October

The IndiGo flight from Kathmandu to Delhi took an hour and twenty minutes. On time, calm, not a single surprise. Later I thought it was the last thing over the next two days that behaved the way I expected.

We had filled in the paperwork properly before the flight. Since the end of June India has required every arrival to submit the Air Suvidha 2.0 health declaration: Ebola is spreading in the DR Congo and Uganda, and the country wants to know where you have been for the past three weeks. Nobody asked for it. The declaration stayed in my phone like a letter that was written but never opened.

The bus we had booked was there, just not where we were. It had parked somewhere further away, and we waited until the driver found us and took us to the car park on a local bus. Meanwhile a man whose job nobody could work out appeared and told us to line up between zigzag barriers. Nobody understood why. Half of us went, half stayed put, and the man looked at both groups with the same satisfaction. India had introduced itself.

Driving out of the airport, though, made us gasp. Wide roads, flyovers, glass façades: infrastructure some European capitals would envy. The closer we got to the centre, the more the tone of the gasping changed. The road officially had three lanes, in practice five or six, depending on how bold the bus next to us happened to be. Cars, buses, motorbikes, rickshaws, handcarts and a cart pulled by an ox with a sackcloth on its back.

The numbers explain it only in part. Delhi has 8.41 million registered motor vehicles, two thirds of them two-wheelers. In many places the lane markings are worn or missing altogether. Oxen are no longer counted, but in the mid-2000s the city statistics still listed nearly 400 bullock carts. Some of them are probably still on the road.

All this movement happens in a city of an estimated 23.4 million people. That is about seventeen Estonias. Only Shanghai is bigger, and according to a UN projection Delhi will become the world’s largest city around 2028.

We stayed in Paharganj, a five-minute walk from New Delhi railway station. The hotel had a grand name, Singh Empire. Only the name was left of the empire. A place you could stay in, but nothing grand. Helpers, on the other hand, were plentiful: someone at every stair and door who wanted to carry your bag, show you the way or simply be there.

There was no sound insulation between the rooms. When the neighbour took a shower, it felt as if he was washing in my bathroom. There was a window, I have to admit. When you opened it, the wall of the next building looked back at you, almost within reach. As a building designer I can appreciate the solution: the opening is there, the light and the view are not.

Paharganj has been a backpacker district since the 1970s, when the so-called Hippie Trail ran through it. The railway station brought cheap hotels, and cheap hotels brought travellers. A brother of Thamel in Kathmandu, only louder.

Twelve of our group of fourteen went to a Puuluup concert. The Estonian bowed lyre and loopers sounded in South Delhi, at The Piano Man jazz club in the Eldeco Centre in Malviya Nagar. Earlier in the month the same duo had played at the harvest festival of the Folk Music Ait in Viljandi, my home town. It is hard to imagine anything more Viljandi happening in India.

Aivar and I went to look for somewhere to eat. Google Maps started giving directions, but on a completely baffling course: the restaurant was 150 metres away, and Maps offered a loop of almost a kilometre.

Indian Grill Restaurant, however, served a superb meal. Chicken baked in the tandoor, garlic naan and a chicken tikka masala with local spices, its chicken also straight from the tandoor. My mouth waters as I write this.

From there we moved on to Connaught Place. This circular shopping district with white colonnades was built in 1929–1933, and the architect Robert Tor Russell modelled it on the Royal Crescent in Bath, England. Two concentric rings, a park in the middle, streets radiating between the rings. The district is named after the Duke of Connaught. Aivar stayed to look at things of his own. I was still full, so I wandered aimlessly from shop to shop.

In the evening it started to rain. Enough not to want to be outside. But I had to get back to the hotel. Maps first led me through New Delhi railway station. I stood there, feet soaked, rain dripping from my hair, and watched the madness. People coming, people going. Most of the car park was dark.

The station’s first platform was finished in 1926, and the station officially opened in 1956. Today it has 16 platforms, and 350–400 trains and about half a million passengers pass through it every day. This year the station turns a hundred, and a major rebuild is under way. I did not go into the station building. People were sleeping and waiting there, more than I had ever seen in one place.

I took another way: over a bridge, through a tunnel, past sleeping people and mud. By then the rain had peaked, and I was glad to be partly in hiking clothes. On the bridge I stopped and looked at the huge mass of railway tracks below me. Like in a film. I was not ready for it. But I was here.

Finally I reached the hotel. Then my phone battery died too.

New Delhi station’s numbers are hard to digest. Half a million passengers a day is more than a third of Estonia’s population. During festivals it rises to 700,000, more than the populations of Tallinn and Tartu combined. The station has 16 platforms and 20 tracks, and each platform handles 13–23 trains a day. On the Paharganj side a 442-metre footbridge runs above the tracks.

According to the railway, the platforms hold 48,000 people at a time, 3,000 on each. What happens when more come was shown on 15 February 2025: Kumbh Mela pilgrims rushed for the trains and at least 18 people died.

The current rebuild costs 2,469 crore, or 24.7 billion rupees (≈ €232 million, ≈ $260 million). The works take 45 months and should be finished in January 2029. The platforms are rebuilt in four phases so that trains can keep running the whole time.

And this is just one station. Indian Railways carries on average 23 million passengers a day on about 13,200 trains. That is almost the whole population of Australia, every single day.

Friday, 30 October

In the morning the same bus and the same driver were waiting. We drove to Nizamuddin, to the tomb of the Mughal emperor Humayun. First the museum. The Humayun Tomb World Heritage Site Museum, opened in July 2024, is built underground and shaped like a baoli, a stepwell, so that it does not hide the monuments. It is also an underground bridge between Sunder Nursery park and the tomb complex. About 500 objects are on display, among them the original gilded finial of the mausoleum dome, which a storm brought down in 2014. You could look at the model of the mausoleum for hours.

Then the park. Big, green and quiet. After the railway station the night before it felt almost unfair.

The mausoleum was completed in 1570. Humayun’s widow Bega Begum had it built, and it was the first great garden tomb on the Indian subcontinent. Later it became a model for the Taj Mahal. More than 150 members of the Mughal dynasty rest here, which is why it is also called the dormitory of the Mughals.

The shapes have their own logic. The plan carries the Persian name hasht bihisht, eight paradises: an octagonal chamber with Humayun’s cenotaph in the middle and eight rooms around it. The corners of the square are chamfered, so the building reads as an octagon. The plan has 124 vaulted chambers in all. Water channels divide the garden into four: the charbagh, an image on earth of the Islamic garden of paradise.

In the middle of the six-pointed stars on the gates there is a lotus flower. Two interlaced triangles are a familiar sign in Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition, while the lotus is a Hindu and Buddhist symbol. Several faiths fit side by side into a single stone ornament.

We still had time, and at Cortasso café in Sunder Nursery we had the best cappuccino of the trip. With it a banana and chocolate cake, which, as it turned out later, is one of the house signatures. The others’ cakes were wonderful too, some of them better than anything I had tasted before.

Then we drove to Old Delhi. Good grief, what a hell. The rain and the muddy streets amplified the whole drastic picture. Beggars. Children running along with you, some hanging on your arm. A workshop where goats, chickens and other animals lived among the tools. Shopkeepers waiting only for you to look their way.

In the distance rose the Jama Masjid with its minarets and worshippers. Its original name is Masjid-i-Jahan Numa, the mosque that reflects the world. Shah Jahan, the same emperor who gave us the Taj Mahal, had it built in 1650–1656. The courtyard holds 25,000 worshippers, and two minarets of red sandstone and white marble rise to 41 metres. Construction cost a million rupees at the time.

Our lunch cost 1,700 rupees in total (≈ €16.00, ≈ $17.91). The proportions are right. We ate at Gumbad Café, a rooftop restaurant right opposite Gate 3 of the mosque, with a view of the Jama Masjid. It was the second superb meal of the trip: tandoori chicken, paneer tikka and garlic naan, green mosaic tiles and an oriental pattern on the table.

Down on the street you could have filled up for 20 rupees (≈ €0.19, ≈ $0.21). Opposite Gate 1 of the mosque begins the Matia Mahal bazaar, where the smell of kebabs rises from the grills, biryani simmers in big pots and a plate of nihari costs about 50 rupees (≈ €0.47, ≈ $0.53). Then again, the local bacteria would probably have quickly settled with ours which of them is stronger.

Small, narrow streets. Windows and screens with incredible carving. What craftsmanship, and in a place like this. I saw no rats here; I saw them in the morning walking near the hotel. The smell of urine and incense came along with us. The scent of palo santo reminded me that the same wood burns at home. At home, though, it does not hide a bad smell, it cleanses.

The day turned into evening, and we simply drove past India Gate, which had been on the plan. The 42-metre arch, designed by Edwin Lutyens, is a memorial to about 74,000 Indian soldiers who died in 1914–1921 in the First World War and the Third Anglo-Afghan War. More than 13,000 names are carved into it. Next time, for sure.

Most of us went to the same Connaught Place we had visited the night before and got a feel for Indian shop culture. As you entered a shop, an assistant came along with you at once. Not pushy, just there when you needed them. Good, quality materials. Prices high by Indian standards, cheap compared with Estonia.

Aivar and I came back by rickshaw. About 20 minutes and 100 rupees to the hotel (≈ €0.94, ≈ $1.05). A very kind and warm-hearted driver, a sincere man who waited until we had gone. That is a good way to leave, so that you come back.

Saturday, 31 October

Flight AY122 from Delhi to Helsinki left at 07:50, on an Airbus A330-300.

The seat that wasn't there

For the flight home I had bought seat 51L back on 25 November 2025, almost a year ahead. It is a window seat in the exit row, where you can stretch your legs. The seats for both directions (51A and 51L) cost €98.03 in total.

In the meantime Finnair changed its plan for the route. The late-October flights were supposed to get an A350; in the end an A330-300 flew. The aircraft changed and my seat disappeared from the booking. I was given 36G instead. That row has a little more legroom than a standard row, but the seat is in the middle of the centre block, with a neighbour on each side, and you can only reach the aisle by climbing over someone.

The day before the flight I tried to get the seat back in Finnair’s chat. The first agent promised to fix it, but the chat closed before the end. The second said 51L was already taken and gave me a refund form. Why the seat changed, nobody answered.

At the Delhi desk they shrugged. The agent thought I could not have bought that seat a year ahead in the first place. I still have the confirmation email. Nine and a half hours ahead.

Planning a year ahead was supposed to prevent exactly this. On this point I am disappointed in Finnair. At home I still need to write a claim to get the seat fee back.

Fog from the ceiling

Before take-off white vapour started pouring from the ceiling vents. It was not smoke or disinfectant, just ordinary fog.

On the ground the aircraft’s air conditioning chills the outside air hard and blows it into the cabin. In Delhi at 7:30 that morning the air was 19 °C and the dew point 18 °C. Relative humidity was over 90 %, there was fog on the airfield and visibility was 1.5 km. When the cold air mixes with the humid cabin air, the mix drops below the dew point and the water vapour turns into visible droplets. Just like your breath on a cold day.

The fog vanishes within a second or two of the vent as the air warms again. After take-off the outside air is dry and cold, the cabin dries out and no more fog forms. You see the same thing more often in the tropics and on humid summer days. Real smoke would have a smell.

325 km/h

At take-off the seat screen showed a speed of 325 km/h. That is 90 metres a second, or about 175 knots. The wheels probably left the ground a little slower: an A340 of similar size and weight lifts off at about 290 km/h. The screen updates with a delay of a few seconds and the aircraft keeps accelerating after take-off, so 325 was the reading in the first seconds in the air.

Over Turkmenistan

I am writing this 11 kilometres above Turkmenistan. I did not get the window seat. I sit in the middle, a neighbour on each side. Maybe I did not need a window. Everything worth looking at is inside anyway.

In my ears Ludovico Einaudi plays from Finnair’s media selection. A piano in no hurry to go anywhere. It is like a bridge back to civilisation, where other rules, order and routine apply.

At home I will turn the clock back three and a half hours. The flight gives me extra time. Those hours are not mine. They belong to Eva and Karl Villem, who spent two weeks without me so that one crazy mountain addict could go where he gets fed. I am grateful for that.

The hiking clothes, some of which I wore every day from start to finish, go into the washing machine. The incense, the dust and the Delhi rain will come out of them. The memories will not. Digesting them may take as long as it takes me to get here again. Next time together with them.

At Pashupatinath I saw that the circle never stops. Now I know where the centre of my circle is.

Not on a mountain.