We woke up early the next morning to head to the Pune airport to catch our flight to New Delhi, way up in the north. It's about a 3-1/2-hour flight, spanning a couple hundred miles. India doesn't look that big on a map, but it is quite large. And I'm from the US, which is still larger. I think the Europeans were probably a bit more shocked at the size, since Spain is about the size of Texas, and again, Americans have a much different concept on large-ness, since we really do have so. much. space. here that we don't even realize it most of the time.
We landed in New Delhi, and the climate changed dramatically. There was a perpetual gray haze (I actually typed out "graze" because I basically made up a word to describe what it was) with a stifling humidity, with temperatures in the mid-90s (low-40s if you're a Celsius person like most of the world). Now, I love me some humidity. Like, people actually make fun of me because of how much I love it. And even I got to thinking the humidity in New Delhi was a bit much, and we got to stand around for an hour waiting for our tour bus to show up, only to have it be too small for all our luggage (we replaced it the next day). The bus had air conditioning, and we were all happy campers.
After the hour-long bus ride from Indira Gandhi International to our hotel, and complaining about the state of the rooms (it wasn't
that bad, but apparently my best friend had been told that the hotel was going to be a lot nicer than it actually was), we had a quick lunch at the hotel and set off in the pouring rain to
Humayun's Tomb, which is a complex in the Nizamuddin District to honor the Mughal Emperor Humayun. It was built between 1569-70 by the emperor's wife. It's also a UNESCO World Heritage site given its significance, as it's rumored that the mausoleum itself was the inspiration for the Taj Mahal in Agra.
It's a beautiful complex, even though just about the entire time we were there it was pouring down rain, and the humidity was sweltering. The one thing I'd forgotten to pack was an umbrella, but I got loaned a poncho instead, and it was horrendous because the plastic literally stuck to my skin and the print melted off.
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| The tomb for Isa Khan, which actually predates Humayun's Tomb by about 20 years, and was built for an Afghan noble who actually helped against the Mughal invasion. |
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| Detail of the artwork done in the arches outside Isa Khan's tomb. Each piece has a different design. |
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| It's rather hard to tell how absolutely rainy it was, but we found out later it could have been way worse. |
The tomb itself is incredible, built in red sandstone, and thankfully the skies cleared up a bit and it managed to stop raining. It was still humid, but it was the rainy season, so it was to be expected.
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| The mausoleum |
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| The central dome inside the mausoleum. |
After hanging out in the complex for a while and getting frustrated with our guide, who'd been hired because he supposedly spoke Spanish (but really couldn't), we got back in our air conditioned and climate-controlled bus and headed off to the India Gate towards the center of town, which meant getting to see a good chunk of central New Delhi. The Gate is in a location near most of the foreign embassies, which was pretty cool. We had difficulties with our guide here, as they get commissions off of restaurants they recommend, and the first place he took us to was uber-expensive, even from a European/Western perspective, which we didn't appreciate (since my best friend's husband is Indian and all, we weren't about to be treated like Typical White People). We ended up deciding to do dinner back at the hotel, which was included in our stay.
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| It was actually a holiday in India, a day to celebrate brothers and sisters, and the place was packed. Though it may be like this all the time. It is India and it's always like this. |
The
India Gate (or All-India War Memorial) was built to commemorate the Indian soldiers who fought for the British in World War I and onward (the technical dates are from 1914-21).
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| Facing the Rashtrapati Bhavan, or the Viceroy's Palace. The India Gate is to my back. |
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| As the sun has set, with the Canopy on the other side of the complex. |
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| The Rashtrapati Bhavan far in the background, with bats (not birds, bats) flying in the sunset. The president of India has this building as his official residence (it's basically the Indian White House, or Moncloa, or 10 Downing St, etc. etc.). |
And with that, we got back on the bus and headed back to the hotel to plan the next day.
Here's what our itinerary looked like, from the airport. Our hotel was at the northernmost stop on the map.
August 8.
The day dawned with a trip to the
Qutb (or Qutb/Qutab) Minar, located on the south side of the city, which was where the Muslims first set up an empire in South Asia, called the Delhi Sultanate. We'd decided not to take anymore of the guide's BS, trying to see if he could actually explain what was significant about our visits in English instead of Spanish, since not just was his Spanish not that good (and this was someone
hired because he was supposed to be able to speak Spanish; it wasn't that we were that demanding, since enough of us could speak English, but there were enough who couldn't that we needed someone who could actually speak Spanish) but he couldn't explain very well what was going on. My best friend basically got on Wikipedia to recap everything. Anyway, we decided we'd let him speak English to see if he was any better, and he wasn't (how this person was a tour guide employed by the Indian Tourist Board we could not comprehend). So once he was done, we spread out, took pictures, and moved on.
Anyway, the Qutb Minar is a beautiful historic location due to being the site of Muslim rule in South Asia, the Delhi Sultanate being formed in the 12-13th centuries on top of Hindu temples. The minar itself is the tallest freestanding brick minaret in the world, and the mosque itself lies in ruins. There are plumeria/frangipani trees everywhere, and it's just spectacular. Apparently, at one point (according to Wikipedia), it had a higher visitation than the Taj Mahal.
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| Remains of the old Hindu temple at Lal Kot. The minar/minaret can be seen in the background. |
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| Inscriptions from the Qur'an on the minaret. |
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| Frangipani (plumeria) tree |
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| The minar from the ruins of the mosque |
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| Mihrab, or prayer nook, in the Tomb of Iltutmish |
After spending a decent amount of time here, we got back on the bus, stopped for lunch, and took off for the
Bahá'i Temple (Lotus Temple).
I'm not really going to go too much into the temple itself. It's a house of worship for the Bahá'i religion, which focuses on interconnectivity and the unity of all religions and people. The building itself is open for everyone regardless of creed, and there's no religious iconography anywhere as it's meant to be open for anyone and everyone. You just have to remain silent, contemplative, and take your shoes off upon entering. The building itself is incredibly impressive, as it's perfectly symmetrical and in the shape of a lotus flower with 27 "petals". The gardens are particularly breathtaking.
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| Temple from the gardens. |
After the temple, where everyone was seriously starting to complain about the heat and humidity (we're talking 98 F and 42 C with 98% humidity), we jumped back on the bus loaded with glucose and protein, as well as water, and headed to the final stop of the day.
I don't have any pictures of
Akshardham since no cameras are permitted into the complex. It's a modern (in the sense that it was built within the last 15 years) Hindu temple located on the outskirts of Delhi. You can check out pictures from the Wikipedia article I linked at the beginning of the paragraph. What I thought was most incredible was how, in the days of modern technology, the only thing modern about this complex is that it was put together in modern ways, but with ancient regulations and structure. That is, this complex was put together completely by hand (every sculpture was hand-carved by trained artisans, and there were no cranes or modern machines, though there were some modern techniques used in the actual construction, at least in terms that even if it was built to specifications dictated centuries ago, it's impossible that it was done
completely "in the old way"). I wish more modern architects would think this way, even if I do enjoy a beautifully designed modern building like the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. I think that's why the Sagrada Família in Barcelona is such an attraction. It's a new building, but it's still "old" in a way, since it's been under construction for so long and was designed at a time when modern machinery and architecture as we know it simply didn't exist.
At the end of the day, while I am strong (or at least like to think I am) in my own belief system, I had a wonderful time getting to be a part of and experience how different people see the world, and I believe that ultimately that's what we all should be doing. Appreciating others' backgrounds and roles in the world, and understanding we are not alone, that no man is an island (to quote John Donne), and that we really do need to be able to work with and learn from other people,
especially when they believe different things than we do.
So that's my soapbox speech for the day.
Itinerary for the day:
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| Just thought I'd mention that the straight lines are from where I put my phone on airplane mode, because even though I had 1 GB of data to use for the day on the SIM card I got, I wasn't about to use all my juice on the bus. The monument on the bottom left would be Qutb Minar, Block E would be where we stopped for lunch, Shambhu Dayal Bagh would be near the Lotus Temple. |
August 9.
Our final day in New Delhi, we headed off to the Red Fort. We'd fired our guide the night before because he really didn't want to take us to Akshardham (seriously, I do not understand how these people can be government employees, I really don't). We decided we'd go it on our own, using Wikipedia as needed and just doing our own thing. We pulled up into the entry gate, only to find it closed off and barricaded. Turned out that due to India's upcoming 75th anniversary of independence the next week, they were closing off the Red Fort to fortify (fortify a fort...) the place as it's where the President gives a huge speech, and given that it's India, they're assuming looming terrorist threats and to prevent anything, they closed off the fort for three weeks in advance. Of course my best friend and her husband were pissed, as the tour plan they'd been given included the Red Fort in the itinerary (and these were Indians who'd made up the plan), and it meant an entire half-day, or even full day, was completely off-limits to us,
and they really should have known about this, shouldn't they?
So we pooled our brains and decided we'd walk a kilometer down the road to the
Jama Masjid, one of the largest mosques in India. We split into groups as we weren't allowed to bring in any handbags, cameras (unless you paid), camerabags, or anything bigger than a wristwatch into the mosque itself, so someone needed to stay behind to watch the stuff, and it might as well be half of us. Right as the first group was coming out, it started to downpour. And I mean downpour. As in torrential, monsoon-worthy downpour. We're talking more rain than I've ever seen in my life at once downpour. For a full hour. We thought it was bad our first day in Delhi, turned out we'd only gotten baby rains compared to this. It. Was. Bad. I'm huddled under the archway along with everyone else who hadn't gotten into the complex yet with my best friend, and we're just in awe of the downpour.
The mosque itself was massively gorgeous, and once the rain stopped I went up to the top of one of the minarets to see over the entire city, or most of it anyway, considering the haze and smog (New Delhi is one of the most polluted cities in the world). It was absolutely incredible to grasp the immensity of this city, so immense and with the added haze that it legitimately felt infinite. I could barely see past the Old City where we were.
For lunch we headed to a place a block from the mosque that still serves traditional Mughal food and it's probably one of the few times I didn't feel like I needed to drink all the milk to keep my insides from ulcerating.
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| The alleyway/street outside the restaurant, facing the Jama Masjid. Also a Western electrician's nightmare. |
We needed to head back to the bus, but took the long way, so we wandered through the Chandni Chowk, or Moon Bazaar, making a round-about trip. I will say this. I can handle most things, and I'm willing to try most things, and I like to think I can stretch my comfort zone while in another country because it's not about me anymore and I'm just a guest and a visitor in their home and culture. But I still get agoraphobic, and that trip through the bazaar almost had me breathing into a bag to calm down, and my heart was pounding something awful. I was borderline having a nervous breakdown, and thankfully my best friend's mom is an amazing person who knows me super well, and she saw I was struggling and grabbed my arm and told me "We're in this together. You'll be okay." And held my hand and me closer as we made our way through alleyways no wider than five feet, six at
most, till we made it out of there. It was sad because I wanted to enjoy the sights and sounds and smells of the market and everything that goes with it, but I just couldn't. By the time we reached a more open area I had to sit down and catch my breath a few times before I could even speak again, I was such a mess.
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| This was the least crowded bit of the Chandni Chowk. No joke. |
We ended up right outside one of the major Sikh temples in New Delhi (not the Bangla Sahib Gurudwara, but another one), and my best friend's husband managed to wrangle someone up to show us around. And honestly, I can respect Sikhism. This is a religion that came about in the 17th century during some serious Muslim conquests in the Punjab regions of what is now both India and Pakistan, as a reaction against the forced conversion of Islam as well as the strict regulations of Hinduism (Sikhism has no caste system, though culturally it's still a thing in some ways and some circles). Each
gurudwara, or Sikh temple, holds a daily soup kitchen, where anyone, regardless of social status (i.e. caste), income level, religion, sex, or ethnicity can come and get a free meal. It's completely volunteer-based, completely vegetarian (as the vast majority of Indians are vegetarians, and in the case of the Jains, even more restrictive than even that, though neither of them are vegans). We even got to help make some
roti and help out in the kitchen.
After the kitchen, our guide (who it turned out was just a Sikh gentleman who was willing to give us a tour of his house of worship and not a spokesman or anything like that, just an ordinary guy who spoke English and was eager and enthusiastic about showing a group of Europeans around his "home", as it were) took us around the
gurudwara and explained the intricacies of the Sikh religion and let us take pictures inside. My best friend actually asked him if she could take a picture of the main room, and he insisted that we
must take pictures, as it's a not at all a lack of respect and rather an appreciation. Which I thought was beautiful.
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| Chandlier inside the gurudwara. |
We headed out, towards the Red Fort where we'd meet the bus, and our Sikh guide insisted on leading us out of the Chandni Chowk, as even though we were on a main road now and not in the cramped (and agora/claustrophobia-inducing) alleyways, there was a lot of hustle and bustle to get through and he was going to make sure we made it out safely. Once we got to the main artery outside the Fort, he went back to his duties at the Temple and we continued on our merry way.
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| I didn't get to go inside the Red Fort, but I could still take pictures of it. |
It was beautiful to see that even with all the commotion and insanity that is everyday life in New Delhi, there are still people who will go out of their way to help you. It was incredibly humbling, really.
To close off New Delhi, here's a picture of a hawk we saw outside while eating breakfast on our last day.
Itinerary:
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| Also thought I'd mention, in case it hasn't been figured out, that my Google is set to Catalan, hence "Fort Vermell" for "Red Fort". |
Next stop: Agra.
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