Touring Around Delhi

The day started off today pretty late. We woke up at 9 and were out of the hotel within an hour. We had made our plans of places to visit and had our map of Delhi with us and everything was set. The plan was to visit the farthest place on our map and then come back for the rest later. So we headed off to the Lotus Temple.

Our means of transportation to get there were the Delhi

metro and then a 40 minute ride on a bus. The metro ride was, well let this picture speak instead. Thats dad in the hat if you did not meet him before.

The bus ride was not bad though it did get crowded by the time we reached Nehru Place, the area where the Temple

is located.

After a five minute walk, we reached the Lotus Temple. I must say this is one of the most beautiful buildings I have seen. The Lotus Temple is actually a place of worship for the Bha'i religion.

I learnt a lot about this religion and its really interesting and not as small as I thought it was. The Bha'i religion has a

p After a good 30 minute walk around the area, we headed off to our next destination, having lunch.

We took a rikshaw to drop us to a Mc donalds we saw on our way to the temple. I know that most of you must be saying that I should be trying local food, but the problem is that dad does not trust their food at all, and I think you all should not too. More on the local food topic later.

After our tummies were full, we headed back to the bus stop and took a bus to India Gate. I personally thought India Gate was pretty impressive but dad had a different opinion. He said, " you got me all the way here to see this! ".

Love you dad. India gate was actually built to remember all the Indian soldiers that died during WW1. Pretty cool.

After taking all the touristy pictures near India Gate,we took another rikshaw to drop us to the President's residence area or as it is called in Hindi, Rashtrapati Bhawan. We could not get inside ( obviously!) so we took pictures outside. Now the rikshaw guy, a Sikh punjabi offered to take us around 4 or 5 tourist places for 750 INR (16 $) and drop us back to the metro.

We thought it was a good idea since we wanted to be back home early to watch the Germany vs Argentina game and we were tired. However, being Arabs, we didn't agree for the price he gave us. We bargained with him until we got it down to 600 INR (12 $) and minus one museum. I believe we could have done a better job at bargaining but dad was loosing his patience and just wanted to get going. So we started our journey with our Sikh Punjabi rikshaw driver and went off to Mahatma Ghandi's museum.

It turned out that it was also the place where he was assassinated at. I loved the museum. I now know why all Indians love this man. He united the Indians of all faiths under one name, India. Thats me with a huge statue of Ghandi in his museum.

After snapping some photos over there, we got back into our rikshaw and went to Lodi Garden. It had the tombs of some of the Muslim leaders of India. I honestly did not find this building as impressive as the one we saw next. Humayun's Tomb was the best part of the day for me. I loved the building and the whole atmosphere around it.

Another strike to my amazing Urdu (Hindi) speaking skills was when I went to buy the tickets for Humayun's Tomb. I read on the board, Indians = 10 Rs, Foreigners = 250 Rs. Seeing that ridiculous number, I told dad to step aside and let me go buy the tickets. I took exactly 20 Rs and went in with full confidence and asked the ticket guy for two tickets ( in Urdu).

The man did not even hesitate to ask where I am from and gave me the tickets. However, the security man at the gate asked us where we are from. I said I was from UP (Uttar Pradesh), and dont ask why! Dad on the other hand said Kerla ( again, dont ask why! very random). The security man was a bit suspicious about dad being Indian but when he said Kerla, the doubts were cleared!. If you are not a desi, you wont get this. So let me say in one senstence, people from Kerla usually don't speak Hindi, they speak their own local language.

Now, Humayun's Tomb was an amazing building to see and take pictures off. I

felt it was very photogenic and had a lot to give. The walk from the gate to the Tomb itself was a bit tiring so dad left half way and decided to go out and wait for me near the entrance. I went up and down the building taking pictures from every angle possible. I loved this building. The two Pictures on the side and the bottom are of Humayun's Tomb. I had to put two pictures of this place, its amazing.

The last stop in our journey with the Sikh driver was a Sikh temple. He wanted to show us one very badly. The Sikh temple we saw was not that impressive but it was something I haven't seen before. There was not much to see inside so we just took a few pictures (and my memory card was full) and left back to the metro station.

A quick ride back on the metro and we were back in our hotel room. After chilling in the hotel and watching the Germany vs Argentina game, we went out in search of dinner. Now as I said, my dad does not trust the food over here. He decided to go out in the first place ( we used to have food at the hotel before today) because he was sick and tired of the hotel food. After searching for about 15 minutes for a good place to eat, we had chicken korma and butter naan followed by a not so good mango juice for me and a pomegranate juice for dad.

Tomorrow, we have an early start at 6am when the cab will come to pick us up to go to Agra and see the Taj Mahal. Why we are taking a cab instead of a train?wait till you know tomorrow. Its a good story!