July 29 - India: Delhi

This morning, we walked to the other side of Connaught Place Circle to go to breakfast at the "Don't Pass Me By" Cafe.  Which we passed by for about 10 minutes down the wrong road until we realized our mistake.  But we finally made it and were very happy with our $2.00 breakfast.  While we were there, we read through the India book and tried to finalize our train/bus/plane schedule to various cities.  We've decided to book two flights because there are some cities that are just too traumatic to get to, and the flights are pretty cheap.  But we planned to take a train from Delhi to Jaipur, so we needed to get somewhere that could book tickets for us.  We trekked back across the circle to American Express - which was closed because it was Sunday.  The tourist office at the train station is also closed on Sunday.  So here we are, in a city that really doesn't have much sight-seeing, and we can't get a train ticket to get out of it.

We walked for about a block and Jon stopped into a pastry shop to get some sweets.  Then we sat on a bench to eat the pastries and consult Lonely Planet yet again.  While we were there, at least 5 different men approached us asking if we needed "help", "tour guides", "taxi", etc, so we decided to walk another block to try and find an open tourist office.  One of the men offered the information that the Government Tourist Office is the only thing open on Sundays, so we thought we would try to find it.  We hopped in an auto-rickshaw, which is a crazy little taxi with 3 wheels - one in front and two in the back.  Our driver, Sunil, said that we brought him good luck because we are his first fares of the day.  Lucky him!  Sunil took us to the Government Tourist Office and told us he would wait "just in case" we wanted to go anywhere else - no charge for waiting.

The Government Tourist Office

The Government Tourist Office was a small, air-conditioned, two-man operation.  Moona greeted us and - when we told him we needed train tickets for tomorrow - asked us about our trip and what our plans were.  He had some much nicer suggestions.  Long story short, we left an hour later with an air-conditioned car and driver, plane tickets, and hotels in almost every city we want to go to, all for about the same price as what we were expecting to pay on our own.  Our driver - Vinod - was at our disposal to take us around Dehli for the rest of the day today!  Before I get into what we did, here's our schedule for the next two weeks:

It's a pretty full schedule!  We're bummed about the two-day bus trip to Kathmandu, but the Varanasi-Kathmandu flights were completely booked.  The worst part about the bus is that it's not air-conditioned, but I'm sure we'll survive.

Delhi Sight-Seeing

It was 2:00 by the time we hit the road with Vinod, so he drove us to south Delhi and took us to a restaurant called Pindi.  Jon made fun of me for ordering Chicken Tikka Masala, which is my favorite, because he says I should try something new.  But this is REAL Chicken Tikka Masala so it was worth the added grief.  The food was delicious and we were very happy.  On our way out, there was a snake-charmer so of course we had to get pictures!

Jon with the snake-man

Me with a "python necklace".  Yes, that is a cobra ON MY KNEES!

Humayun's Tomb

After lunch, we went to Humayun's Tomb, which was built in the mid-16th century by Haji Begum, the Person-born senior wife of Humayun, the second Mughal emperor.  It was quite a large estate when you realize it's only purpose was to house dead bodies.  But then again, we just came from the Pyramids didn't we?  Humayun's Tomb is a good example of early Mughal architecture, with its high arched entrances, domes, and formal gardens.  The Delhi Government is in the process of restoring the tomb and its grounds, and it looks like it will be quite amazing when it's done.  While we walking through the inside of the tomb, there were some janitors that were latching onto tourists as guides.  Jon was interested in what the guy had to say about the graves inside, so he gave the guy a few Rupees - and literally got "The Fifty Cent Tour"!

Not the Taj Mahal - but very similar!

Bahai Temple

Vinod also took us to the Bahai Temple, which was built in 1986 as the latest of seven "edifices raised in different parts of the world, each with its distinctive design, each inviting peoples of all religions and races to worship the Creator of the Universe and to express the love between God and man."  It's shaped like a lotus flower and is surrounded by expansive gardens and pools.  Because it was Sunday, the outside of the temple was incredibly crowded and we had to remove our shoes to go in.  The "greeters" requested that we maintain silence when we got inside out of respect for the worshippers, so it was very peaceful and beautiful on the inside.  The temple was surrounded by glass and had a huge dome roof.  There were plenty of people inside sitting and praying in one form or another and it was pretty cool to see.

India Gate

We also went to the India Gate, which is Delhi's answer to Paris' Arc de Triumph but with an Indian twist.  It's dedicated to the 82,000 Indian Army soldiers who died in the campaign of WWI, the North-West frontier operations, and the 1919 Afghan fiasco.  So we walked around that for a while and tried to ignore the touts with the dancing monkeys because we felt so bad for the poor animals.  As we were standing there resting on a pole, a man came up to us and shook Jon's hand very excited to talk to us.  Upon hearing that we were from Canada, he proceeded to - in a very friendly way - proclaim his intense hatred for all Americans.  We were quite intrigued and asked why.  By now we had attracted a small crowd of about 10 Indians who wanted to hear the conversation.  He said because of America's "duel policy" regarding India and Pakistan.  So I said, "And because of the government you hate ALL Americans?  But there are so many Americans who are very nice."  But he didn't care about this nonsense, and said that he loved everyone else in the world as long as they weren't from America.  We told him that we thought that was quite a shame.  Anyway, the whole conversation was quite congenial and he left with a smile and a wave.  But I now really appreciate the six security checks we had to clear to board our flight yesterday.  I guess every little security helps when dealing with this kind of stubborn thinking.

Then we drove around the Parliament, the Ministries, and drove past the President's house.  The whole area actually looked very similar to the Mall in DC!  After this, Vinod dropped us off at Connaught Place where we traded some of our books for some new ones.  Jon got the third edition of Lord of the Rings, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and I got an Indian book called The God of Small Things.  Then we went to dinner at a place called Nirula's, and hit the Internet Cafe.  On the way back from the Cafe, we caught an auto-rickshaw because they're so incredibly inexpensive that - as Jon hysterically says - "They're cheaper than walking"!