It might sound silly, but… I love the Delhi metro.
Not only does it help you avoid the fun, but exhausting, exercise of dealing with rickshaw-wallahs, but it also provides with entertaining and sometimes spiritual moments (plus: on the more mundane side of things, it's usually on time, goes to lots of places and is really quite cheap!).
When entering the metro you are first greeted with a number of useful hints and suggestions like:
- "Do not befriend unknown people" (sad, but hey, the metro's always right, right?)
- "Any suit case, toy, thermos or transistor left unattended can be a bomb" (so please remember do not leave your transistor lying about)
- "Do not bring any unauthorized explosives or fire arms" (in case you're carried some authorized TNT you're fine…)
After having taken those to heart you might have already reached the center of the city. Here you'll find an intense experience of human contact, in the form of a crush and push to get on and off at the popular central stations of Rajiv Chowk, C Secretariat and New Delhi. Don't be afraid to push a little bit extra, even if it's completely useless and won't get you ahead in any way at all.
All in all, the metro is great. I love it!
PS. I am a bit afraid that one day I'll bump into the women who has recorded the English speaking voice for the metro. Her "Get down here for XXX" is truly frightening. If anyone is planning on making an audio book of Roald Dahl's "Witches", she'd be your perfect candidate.
PPS. The queue in the first picture is from the top of the stair case. The queue goes on for a good 50 m after the corner in the bottom of the stairs.