More Delhi

An important thing i forgot to mention is that in Old Delhi there are no pavements, this makes getting around a little more tricky. The place i'm staying in is the main backpacker/cheap hotel area, and it's down what i would charitably called an unpaved road.

Every 15 feet or so someone will approach, sometimes it's the beggars, who may have covered their child in mud because they think it'll be worth more, or maybe just a shopkeeper, trying to entice you into a store, or maybe one of the touts who all have the same opening questions. Where are you form? When did you arrive in India? Where are you going next? Usually they try to get you to go into a "government" tourist office or a shop where they get commission. If you are familiar with the game WoW it's possible to leash them as they only seem to have a specific area. During the evening it's more likely to be the drug dealers. In 40 odd degree heat it's not so much fun, and it makes me very wary. There was one older guy from Bhutan i got talking to, who has been a teacher for 22 years and he invited me for tea and just to chat. I was almost tempted until he told me i could meet his daughter who was 27 and not married yet.

The heat is probably the worst thing for me, i sweat under a strong lightbulb, so you can imagine the effect in this oven, but i can't say i've ever noticed that i smell bad, which probably describes how smelly the rest of the city is. As you wander towards New Delhi there are pavements or area's by the side of the road you can walk on which aren't shared by rickshaws, tuktuks, motorbikes, scooters, cars. buses or trucks, but often these places are used as a toilet, so compared to that i smell pretty good.

Another thing that's strange is the men hawking up their guts then spitting it out constantly. This goes on in the street, bars, hotels and airports. If there isn't a toilet nearby then a bin will do, which makes my moral dilema about is this the correct bin for recycling seem a bit old fashioned.

It's a shame because it takes away from what is an incredible city. There is a obvious class distinction, with some workers being ordered around, and a huge obsession with England, though a lot of people don't know anything about Scotland. i usually have to say i'm from the UK before they understand. There's also an obsession about cricket with the womens team seemingly doing better than the mens team at the moment which is causing some consternation.

This is Qutb Minar. Construction began 20 years after the leaning tower of Pisa, and it's 50feet or so higher, and it's straight, though i think this is more to do with a solid foundation rather than superior construction techniques. While construction started in 1193, it was not completed until 1386. The work was started by Delhi's first Muslim ruler with the idea of making it grander than the Minaret of Jam in Afghanistan. That's not made up by the way. Today it's one of Delhi's most popular tourist sites and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.









The detail is fantastic and it's lasted incredibly well considering it's mostly red sandstone with only the last two levels white marble.




To get around the sights i'd hired a car with air conditioning for the day. It is possible to get a tour bus but i'd also wanted to go to a shop that sold motorbike gear far from the centre so it seemed like the best option. Despite me trying to explain what i wanted to the driver he took me to a random "shopping centre" where he no doubt got commission. At first i thought we were at the place i had wanted to go too, and since he bolted out of the car i had to go in. As much as some of the furniture was impressive it was also a bit impractical, so i let him and the folks in the shops know i wasn't happy.

Eventually we got it all sorted out and we trundled on to the Lotus Temple. It's real name is the Bahai House of Worship, though it's open to all religions that worship God. The building inside was very cool despite the heat and very peaceful, despite the comical little boy who got seperated from his mum and began shouting. the guides were trying to shush him, but it's reassuring kids are the same the world over.

One slightly painful part of getting in was that you had to take off your shoes. Now this is normally fine and i don't have a problem being respectful in a house of worship, but in that heat you then had to walk across hot tiles to get inside. There were carpets made of weave in places but not everywhere, so i almost crashed in the door with an "Ooh, Ah" as i danced from foot to foot.

A problem i have in Delhi is trying to place a value on things, or to work out what anything is worth. It's easy enough to do the normal conversions, but for example a litre of water is 10 rupees or 12p, to hire a car for a day to do a tour is 1,000 rupees. To get into most of the tourist sites it's 250 rupees or about £2.60, so visiting four of them is the same as hiring a car for the day, which is the same as 100 litres of water. Another odd thing about the tourist sites is that foreigners pay 25 times more than locals. Again you can hardly grudge it, and we get our own counters so there are less queue's but it feels odd.

India Gate as it's now known sits at the heat of New Delhi. It originally had a statue of King George V within it, but that was removed after independence. It was built to commemorate the 90,000 British indian Army soldiers that lost their lives in World War I and the Afghan Wars. That's the original Afghan War, not the recent one.

Another incredible place is Humayuns Tomb. This was the first of the garden tombs within India and was the inspiration for the Taj Mahal in Agra. It was comissioned by his wife Hamida Begum who is also emtombed there along with around 100 others.

The gardens the tomb is set in have the waterways that you can see in the photograph running all through them, with little pools all round in symmetrical shape.







The tomb and gardens are another UNESCO World Heritage Site, but sadly there is graffiti scratched into the walls inside. It's still stunning though.




This leads us on to the Lal Qila or the Red Fort. A point to mention here is that i forgot my sunglasses, and i can't really see a thing in bright light. Being me i grudge buying cheap fakes and i haven't found naything in a shop that i like so i've taken to wearing my floppy jungle hat so that i can go outside. This seems to cause much amusement in the locals and as i got into the red fort some guys asked if they could have their picture taken with me, i assume because of the hat.

Anyway by this time i was flaking from the sun and sore eyes so all you get with this one is that it's a big red fort.