Delhi
Trip Start
Jan 04, 2008
1
102
130
Trip End
Dec 17, 2008
Delhi, India
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Getting through immigration was easy and we booked a prepaid taxi in the arrivals hall. Outside we found our driver and headed off for the city centre. It was all a bit of a culture shock after Abu Dhabi, but the hour drive into the city on the motorway was very entertaining with our driver swerving around 4 people on a scooter, a 2 foot deep hole and 2 massive elephants in the slow lane
The Senate
. He even tried to sell us some hand rolled "Indian Weed" cigarettes which we later learned were just tobacco without any special ingredients, but the cheapest at 5 rupees a pack, that's about 7 pence. After stopping to ask a couple of elderly, bearded, turban wearing men (I guess the local Sat Nav equivalent) for directions we arrived at our hotel. Being past 10pm we couldn't really see what was around the hotel but the inside was okay with a rooftop restaurant for some drinks before bed.After quite a culture shocked first night in Delhi, what with dodging elephants and being offered "Indian Weed", we set about the next day a little wary of our surroundings and rightly so, considering the number of homeless people around the hotel and on our walk to the metro. The metro however was surprisingly good and we bought an all day travel ticket for $2 and set of to the heart of Delhi, Connaught Square to get lunch at United Coffee House, our first curry of many to come. After a good lunch we hopped back on the metro again as there wasn't too much to see in the Connaught area and headed to New Delhi and Rajpath area. Here we checked out the Presidents Palace called Rashtrapati Bhavan (a bit like Buckingham Palace) and Sansad Bhavan the circular parliament building, before walking the 1 ½ km to the India Gate, myself taking a great catch from some young lads playing cricket in the gardens alongside the road, the old skills are still there then
Rashtrapati Bhavan
.India Gate looked very much like the concrete runway in Vientiane in Laos, except this was a war memorial to the Indians who lost their lives in World War 1 and on the Northwest Frontier (border with Pakistan) rather than defiance to Americans who had provided a country with a load of cement to make a runway. This area was very nice and a lot quieter and more relaxed than central Delhi, but the locals seemed to have an intense fascination with us. Constantly staring and even requesting photos with us, very weird, but possibly something to do with the fact Helen had her knees on show, very suggestive !!!
After India Gate we were a bit knackered due to all the walking in the midday sun, so headed back to the hotel to plan the following morning and also eat our second curry of the day, I feel there might be a theme emerging here. We also talked to an Argentinean girl at dinner who we had mistakenly identified as being on the Intrepid trip, her name was Pas and after we had gotten over the fact we weren't doing the same trip we still had a good chat to her about both her and our travels.
Day 1 of our Intrepid Trip of India had arrived, but we weren't meeting the rest of the group until 1pm, so decided to do a few more sights in the morning. We managed to bargain a tuk tuk driver to take us to Humayun's Tomb and the Gandhi museum for a reasonable rate - or so we thought. Humayan's Tomb was the first stop and a very impressive temple from the 16th century that had been designed by the same architect as the Taj Mahal, the grounds were nice and peaceful in the morning and the architecture far more impressive than we were expecting
1-Rashtrapati Bhavan
. After an hour wandering around we walked back to our tuk tuk and were all set to go to the Gandhi Museum, but it seemed our driver had different ideas. He seemed to think we would be better off seeing the Bahai house of worship or Lotus Temple and to be honest even after 10 minutes of arguing it was pretty clear we weren't going anywhere else. Tired of arguing the point we gave in (not that we really had any choice) and arrived at the Lotus Temple which to be fair was an eye catching temple and had free admission to boot. After a mosey around it was time to head back to meet the group and after another 10 minutes of debate with the driver we finally managed to make him to succumb to returning us to the hotel, getting what you want in India it seems, can be hard work sometimes.We met up with the group at the hotel which was again a mix of young and old, couples and singles, many nationalities and our local guide Ravi from Jaipur. After the usual 1 hour introduction we made our way on the Metro to the Old Delhi area, we were by now dab hands on the metro so it was quite amusing to see the shock on the others faces as we crammed into the train. Once we arrived in Old Delhi we wandered through the local bazaar which was chock full of people, smells and the never ending piles of rubbish (Delhi is not the cleanest of places, they don't even have bins or refuse collection) to Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India
1-The Senate
. It's not quite in the same league as the mosque in Abu Dhabi, but was worth visiting if only for the views to the Red Fort which we thought we would also be going to see but this was not the case, ah well, the itinerary was a bit vague to say the least. After visiting the mosque we made our way back through the bazaar to a Sikh Temple, where we donned some lovely orange head scarves before entering barefoot through some foot baths on the side of the road, lovely !! The Sikh Temple was a lot more low key in comparison to the Mosque, the main focal point being a dude in a turban fanning a big book (the Sikh Sacred book) with a large feather and some chanting and drums in the background. What was interesting was the communal kitchen where volunteers were cooking huge vats of curry and making chapattis to provide free meals for all the people visiting the temple, this is apparently done in all Sikh Temples, so a good religion to choose if your prone to being a bit peckish after praying. Obviously I had to have a go at stirring the curry pot with a 5 foot spoon, it's not often you're involved in making some food for hundreds of people, not sure I was any good at it mind you, as the old Sikh chef seemed to have a bit of a wry grin on his face.
After having visited 2 religious temples it was time to head back to the hotel area to get dinner, most of us were knackered and hot and Suzy the girl who had arrived from England that morning with her husband David had done 30 hours straight. The lack of sleep, water and the hot and muggy temperature was obviously draining, which culminated in her coming down with a migraine and then promptly spewing up on the Metro platform, poor girl. So it was straight back to the hotel for them and dinner for us around the corner from the hotel, for yes, yet again another curry. An early start awaits the following morning, to get the train to Agra to see one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and the main reason for coming to India, The Mighty Taj Mahal.
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