Today I meet my group for the first time. They are from the USA and their names are Sarah, Adam and Cislla. Cislla is originally from Romania and she does photoshop-work for a living. Adam is in online-marketing and Sarah is an architect. We are all around the same age… (I’m guessing – did not ask)
They are a very interesting group and I’m lucky to be exploring India in their company.
At breakfast I saw the weirdest thing – one of the Indian music videos was shot in Cape Town.
We take on the traffic in our little white Avanza and pick up our guide along the way. Our driver will be with us for the duration of the tour and we will have a different guide at every location. This is gonna make guide tip calculations interesting.
I asked our driver if we have the Avanza-like thingie for the entire tour. He answers in the affirmative. Soooo, tomorrow – where will we put the luggage? He points to the roof – as if its the most obvious thing in the world. Alllll righty then. Okay – stupid question I guess – this is India after all.
Our first stop is Jama Masjid Mosque. You take off your shoes and put them on the pile (and my South African question is… will they be there when we get back? I hope so, I really like those shoes – the Brazilian plastic ones) and then as western women we get funny floral gowns to wear. Should make for interesting pictures. They ended up more a hinderance – specially when climbing the 120 odd steps in the minaret. But I made it up there – tiny spiral stone staircase and took some pictures from the top. The (self-appointed?) minaret guide took the camera – jumped over to the other perch and took other pictures and we are just looking at each other… I’m thinking… dude, that’s my camera, don’t drop it. The mosque is beautiful, but we did not get to see the prayer-hall, only the courtyard and the ablution fountain. And yes – our shoes were waiting for us 🙂
Next was a bicycle-rickshaw ride through the maze that is Old-Delhi. We felt kind of guilty for having such a big breakfast and now this guy has to bicycle us around. To me it was a combination of Marrakech and Stone town, narrow roads, people, goats, dangerous electrical wiring, people, bicycles, scooters all weaving and honking and shops selling everything you can think of all round – clothing, barbers, food, VERY fresh chickens. One even advertised International and local air-tickets and visas – I’ll give that a miss.
After the chaos of Old Delhi we escaped to the sanctuary gardens of Raj Ghat – Ghandi’s place of cremation. It is beautiful and quiet surrounded by lovely colored flowers.
Then onto India Gate, the parliament buildings and Humayun’s tomb. In the complex we saw the most beautiful old tomb and mosque – I’m such a sucker for Islamic Architecture…. Jenny – you would have burned your camera out. Then onto the ‘main event’… Humayun’s tomb. It is stunning – once you get up the really steep stairs. And you can see a lovely white Jain temple from the platform – thank you for our guide for giving us that tip to go and look for it. It was the first (and last) Mogul tomb with ‘mixed stone’.. from then on with the exception of the Taj Mahal, Mogul tombs were built in red stone. It is hard to describe, but it is light and airy and not depressing like the western idea of a tomb.
By now it is 2:30 and we went for lunch – curry, rice and roti’s and naan bread.
After this break we went shopping at a shop that specializes in carpets and pashmina’s. We skipped the carpets and me – being me – fell in love with the 2nd most expensive pashmina in the shop (the most expensive being silk – don’t go there). I walked off with my soft woolen aubergine pink/purple indulgence and will probably repent in leisure. The others bought multiple items and we drove the sales-people crazy… LOL!
After that – surprise – we visited the Qutb complex – one of the oldest towers in the world. The entrance ticket is the same ticket as the Humayun’s tomb, so I guess our guide figured – why not we already paid for it and I could see he has a deep spritual connection with the site (originally a Hindu temple). It was not in our itinerary and ironically one of the places I would have liked to see – but had to accept, you cant have it all. Well, maybe you can 🙂 The site was awesome and just up my alley (old buildings and ruins). It makes one sad that so much destruction takes place in the name of religion – all over the world.
We arrived back at our hotel around 18:00, tired, hot, dusty and ready for a shower and as some-one said – a power nap. I settled my room-service account and ordered us breakfast packs for tomorrow morning as we hit the road at 6am. Supper was a bag of chips (Uncle chips – spicy treat) Some sort of masala curry flavour – apparently made by the same company as Lays – they claim. Also black tea with sweetner.
Can’t wait for tomorrow and Holi. Going to wear an old t-shirt as we were warned of random colour-bombs (balloons filled with coloured water). Celebrations already started today and some people were multi-coloured in the streets. We get white clothes for the celebrations at the hotel in Shahpura Village – but that is a five hour drive from Delhi and anything can happen.
Well – that’s me for the day. It is 21:15 and I have to get up at 4:30 to be ready (in the lobby, suitcase packed etc ) at 5:30 if we want to hit the road on time.
I heard today that my internal flight on the second leg has luggage limit of 15kg. Already my case was 16 kg for the flight here. Apparently I can leave some stuff at the hotel in Dehi (same one we are in now) as I return here before going to the tiger park. I have a luggage scale and we’ll see how that pans out closer to the time.
Check-in with you guys tomorrow after Holi…. Best not put any chocolate in my luggage if it is going on the roof – rather eat it now – if only I had chocolate.
Happy Holi from Delhi
Linda
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