India - Day 7 - Delhi
We were all excited at the prospect of landing in Delhi and the fact that we had pre-organised a taxi and guide along with accommodation. It was great walking out of the airport and searching for our name on one of the many hundreds of signs. It was all going well until we ventured outside of the barricaded area.
As our driver wheeled our bags out we were surrounded by people from the streets offering their assistance. We tried our best to 'shoo' them away but failed miserably. We then came across a man with a brick that appeared to be having some sort of arguement with one of our 'porters'. Janelle freaked out, we all tried to get our own bags and put them in the car and then it was a mad rush to get inside ourselves and lock the doors. Janelle still freaked out managed to calm down and we managed to somehow get our way out of the carpark through some strategic chess moves and having the benefit of a bigger car (see Day 4 for road rules). Once we had cleared the chaos of the airport we stopped to change our bags from the back of the car to the roof and were on our way to the hotel in New Tibet in the Paraganj area of Delhi. It was nice to have Atal our guide for the day, as he was very knowledgable and Sari got on well with him, wink, wink, nudge, nudge!Our first stop was Humayun's Tomb, which was amazing. We initally went into what we thought was his tomb only to discover after an hour of taking photos it was only a secondary tomb. Anton eagerly led the way to the much grander Humayun's Tomb snapping everything along the way, including strangers, mating flys and squirrels.
The Taj Mahal is based on Humayun's Tomb design. It was full of little rooms leading no where. Everything about it was intricate, but on a huge scale. We were all in awe of the design and scale and can't wait to see the Taj Mahal.Next we headed to Qutb Minar Complex and were again delighted by what we saw. It was a 73 metre high tower which has a 15 metre diametre at the base tapering up to a 2 metre diameter at the top, it was built at the onset of Islamic rule and is example of early Afghan architecture. It was surrounded by ruins which were again very intricate.
We then made our way past the India Gate but were unable to stop as it was closed. We are looking forward to checking it out on our return to Delhi in the next fortnight.
Back to the hotel for wonderful Tibetian dinner, a nice change from all the curries we have been eating. Off to bed for a well deserved short night of sleep, we are up at 4.30 to catch our train to Ajmer/Pushkar.
