We successfully navigated our bags through bag security with only one minor hiccup - they thought the temple bell that I bought was a gas cylinder! Thats clearly how you know you're in a fuel crisis, when you think tourists from America are smuggling petrol or gas onto an airplane. Haha! Then at the Air India check in the line was actually in front of counters that had no signs over them, rather than the counters with the Air India signage. After a brief wait in the departure lounge, they called our flight to board. We had already gone through three security screenings where they scanned our bags and bodies and also did pat downs (which honestly got quite fresh!) and when we got to the tarmac to board the plane we had to do one more. Thankfully there are separate lines for ladies and gents and there are far fewer ladies than gents, so that helped the process for Mom and myself! Poor Dad.
I must say that I was feeling rather cynical at this point, after all the pat downs and such, especially since it was Air India making us go through all of this and India is (depending on which source you listen to) responsible for the fuel crisis. So it was with a large amount of glee when I reached the area to have my backpack searched by a surly Indian man and he IMMEDIATELY pulled out three tampons. He was, needless to say, less than thrilled and rather appalled. I on the other hand had a good chuckle! We settled into our seats for a short flight, and before I knew it we were landing in Delhi. It was quite nice to land in the daytime, as when Dad and I had flown through before we landed late at night.
Immigration had a bit of a line, but not too long, and before we knew it we were in a taxi heading to our hotel. Our hotel was called the Hotel Kyron, and is in an area of Delhi known as Karol Bagh. Karol Bagh is a veritable warren of small lanes and alleys all winding around a central market area which is absolutely jammed with people! Our driver had a really difficult time finding the hotel, and Mom had bought an India SIM card for her phone, so she pulled up the hotel location on her iPad and helped our driver find the hotel! Saved by technology. Our hotel was small but clean and comfortable, and after getting checked we decided to go for a quick walk around the area. We quickly decided that was a bad idea as we had absolutely no idea of how the area worked and the roads were tiny and crammed with manic drivers all going really fast and caring not at all about the pedestrians timidly creeping their way along the edge of the street (ok we were the only pedestrians acting that way, but STILL!). We agreed to make one more lap to try to find a store selling water and snacks and we happened to stumble across a great looking restaurant, Crossroads. In true Kithil style we were absolutely famished and excited for our first meal in India. We walked in and, to our surprise and initial concern, we were the only customers! Then we realized it was about 3:30 and happily sat down. We were starving so set about ordering papadams, palak paneer (which in the US we call Saag paneer), channa masala, butter chicken, and butter naan. Oh, and rice. The waiter kindly accomodated us by putting some soccer on the TV right above our table and we were so happy! Oops, I forgot to mention that we each ordered a Kingfisher beer. Our food began to arrive! And then... it didn't stop arriving. We ordered WAY TOO MUCH!!! I'm happy to report that we ate most of it though. We took our time, eating and drinking leisurely and left about 5:30 to walk back to the hotel. We decided to be in for the night and rest, as we knew we were going to have a hectic time ahead of us.
After a decent nights sleep in our rooms directly across the hall from one another, we headed down for breakfast. Of course it was a massive transition from the feast at Dwarika's but it was still quite good. I had some potato and pea curry, roti, a hard boiled egg, and chai. Mom had pretty much the same, and Dad ate an entire loaf of bread in the form of toast - ok fine, not quite that much, but I'm pretty sure that he had like 6 slices of toast! Topped with marmalade, of course! After breakfast we asked the concierge to get us a taxi to take us to the ticket office for the Hop On Hop Off bus tour of Delhi. We had booked our tickets online and thats where we were going to pick up the bus itself. After waiting in a fairly dubious area for our bus, we hopped on (pun intended?! haha) and began the tour. I had expected to see mostly Western tourists on this bus tour, but to my surprise we were the only Caucasians on the buses that we were on for the entire day!
The bus stops at about 16 or so places, and we were going to try to do as many of the stops that we were interested in as possible. Our first stop was India Gate, in the center of New Delhi. India Gate is built on the Rajpath, formerly known as Kingsway under the British raj. It was built in 1931 to commemorate the loss of the 82,000 soldiers of the undivided British Indian Army in the first World War and the Third Anglo-Afghan War. The area around the gate is a huge park, and the gate looks kind of similar to the Arc de Triomphe. It was a great place to walk around and see local Delhi life as the park was full of families relaxing on their Sunday off. We got back on the bus and went on on to Indira Gandhi museum. Mrs. Gandhi was the first female prime minister of India (no relation to Mohandes Gandhi, by the way) and she was assassinated in 1984. Her son, Rajiv, became prime minister after her, and he was assassinated in 1991. Mrs. Gandhi's father was the first prime minister of India afterindependence from the British Empire. I highly recommend that you all read more about them - they were a fascinating family. He's a handy link in case you'd like to read more!
After this we got back on the bus and headed towards Dilli Haat, which is a bustling market area. When we first got on the bus this morning there was a youngish guy (I'm the worst at guessing ages - maybe early twenties?) standing behind me, and Mom and I caught him fixing his hair in his phone camera. He smiled at us and seemed really friendly. When we got back on the bus after the museum, he got on at the next stop and immediately recognized us. He came up to us and said hi, and asked for a selfie! Many of you may have seen this as I posted it on Instagram and Facebook. It was really sweet though because he was excited to see us again and so eager to get a photo with us! That was a really nice moment to have happen. By this time were starving, as it was around 2:00. We decided to make Dilli Haat our lunch spot. After getting off the bus we went into the market and decided to eat at the first little local Indian restaurant that we saw. Holy YUM IT WAS SO AMAZINGLY DELECTABLE!
Once again we ordered way too much and didn't care in the least. They had samosas that they were frying at the front of the restaurant so of course Mom and I had to get one each. Then Dad ordered paneer masala and I ordered channa masala and Mom ordered aloo ghobi! Then we got butter naan and I think rice and OHMYGOODNESS IT WAS ALL SO GOOD! We ate really quickly and then screeched to a halt, astonished at how quickly we'd eaten and how full we had become. We looked at our serving dishes and realized that we'd eaten approximately half of each dish. Good grief! That was the meal when we decided that we didn't need to order rice (silly rice, I'd rather have more room for curry anyway!) and that perhaps we should just order two dishes to share between the three of us.
We left with full tummies and happy souls. We decided that our Dilli Haat experience had been amazing and decided to move on Qutb Minar, which none of us had heard of but wanted to explore nonetheless. We climbed onto a bus which was PACKED full of people and headed that way! However before we could actually head that way there was some kind of a fight between a passenger and the guide on the bus, a really nice and intelligent young woman. Back and forth they went, the man being extremely rude to the woman, until finally the man huffed off the bus with his large entourage in tow. Who knows what actually happened, but there was definitely some Indian drama! And then we were finaly on the way. There was a really nice couple sitting behind Mom and me with their baby boy - the boy was so sweet! You could tell he was tired, but he wasn't actually crying, just more grizzling about being sleepy. They got off the bus at Qutb Minar as well, and we all crossed the road. It was kind of confusing because the ticketing office is across the street from the complex itself, but it's really fun towalk across crazy Indian roads so all was well. I'm mostly kidding - because it is actually kind of fun but it's mostly terrifying! With tickets in hand, we excitedly entered the gates (even though we didn't really know what we were seeing, other than an ancient minaret). Turns out that its actually a huge complex that is dominated by the minaret, which is covered with intricate carvings and inscriptions from the Koran, and is slightly higher than 72 meters. In times past it was considered one of the "Wonders of the East", second only to the Taj Mahal. Work was begun on the Minar in 1202, it was Qutb-ud-Din Aibak's victory tower, celebrating the advent of the Muslim dominance of Delhi and much of the Subcontinent that was to endure until 1857.
In addition to the tower, there are the ruins of India's first mosque, Quuwat-ul-Islam, which translate as the Might of Islam. The mosque is mostly in ruins, however it retains its sense of majesty. There is a some funerary complex, and set apart in this area is the tomb of thirteenth century Delhi sultan Iltutmish. It is the most attractive tomb, with a plan exterior to the building and an interior decorated with geometric arabesque patterns, calligraphy, and lotus and wheel motifs.
WWe spent a long time here, wandering around and taking lots of photos. It is a truly beautiful place. During this time Mom and I were approached quite often for photos and I've come up with a rule. When asked for a a photo, I will say
- Always to children and girls
- Mood dependent on teenagers
- Never to adult men
As silly as it sounds, it does get quite tiring to be enjoying your surrounding and be interrupted over and over again. It happened a lot in Burma, but this feels different for some reason. Less innocent, perhaps? We all three felt that we could have spent a longer amount of time here, but dusk was approaching and we needed to catch the last bus at 4:40.
When we got back to the bus the same couple with the cute baby boy was on board again. I began talking with them and learned that they were South India and visiting Delhi on holiday. Their little boy, named Devansh, was 6 months old and just as cute as can be! The man worked for Dell and the womon for IBM, and we all had a really nice conversation. It turned out to be extra great that they were so kind and interesting, as the bus ride back to the city center was almost two hours! We were getting really really tired! When we were approaching the last stop, at which we would disembark, I asked the guide on the bus if it would be easy to catch a taxi from the stop. He said NO, absolutely not, no taxi's or tuk tuk's would be there. Well that's a bit scary! The couple offered to let us use their cell phone to call our hotel to have them send a taxi, which was so kind of them! I got on the phone right as we pulled up to the bus stop. Which was in front of a fancy hotel. With a line of at least 6 taxi's out front. Oh, there were also about 5 auto tuk tuk's. So.... clearly the guide didn't know what he was on about! We thanked the couple profusely and said goodbye to them. We walked towards the taxi's and then decided that after our crazy day we could use a little dose of the posh. We walked into the hotel, used the facilities, and sat down in the restaurant for a drink and a snack. I drank my dinner in the form of a gin and tonic, Mom had a fresh lime soda, and Dad had (SURPRISE!) apple pie with ice cream. Lovely meal all around! We easily got a taxii back to our little hotel in the crazy market area -- the drive was quite thrilling! Loads of traffic, everyone honking, cow carts cutting off tuk tuk's that were cutting off car's that were cutting off coaches and all off these vehicles cutting off the unimporant pedestirians!
We made it to the hotel alive and in all of our respective pieces, what a success! We happily turned in a bit early as we knew we'd be having a really busy day on Monday.
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