Arrived last night on JetAirways flight from Kathmandu and had arranged a transfer from the airport through the hostel. The male hostel receptionist had us in a deep discussion on love life, “Romeo and Juliet”, during the check in process. He was 23 and two years without Juliet and his family was teasing him. The hostel is good – upmarket for hostels. Free breakfast. No tourist information, so we went off for the day after a couple of brief discussions with girls in the rooms. One is going to study sustainability in India, followed by a yoga course, whilst getting some income managing the social media feed of a USA based company. The modern world!
After breakfast at 8:30, we headed to the metro and then to old Delhi. There were many temples and we got picked up by a one legged man who was a walking tour guide. So he showed us to the Jama Masjid (mosque) and back to the metro. Becky struggled to keep up with him. Jama Masjid is a splendid and very impressive example of Morgul architecture. There are crowded markets everywhere and Alan bought a new watch (A$2) and Becky new bud earphones (A$0.60).
The presidential palace is British architecture and impressive domes, round buildings and plenty of space. It oozes grandeur. Luckily the complex was pedestrian only today. By this time we were hungry and decided on a tuk tuk to India gate. The driver convinced us to visit a restaurant and then tried to get us into a gem store. The restaurant was A$10 per curry, so too expensive. But we did see a wonderful Sikh procession with ritual fighting and the guru gave us a packet of yummy biscuits. The city is alive today with the celebrations (yesterday) for India National day on 26 Jan.
The India Gate was crowded and so another tuk-tuk, past the Gandhi museum (looks interesting) to Humayun’s Tomb. It was seriously impressive and we spent a couple of hours there. The queue for tickets was chaotic, but they did take credit card. As always, the foreigner price is 20x the local price, but the local queue was 100 meters long, whilst the foreigners was only 3 people long.
The metro app said 30 min to get home, but it took 30 min to walk to the nearest metro, one hour on the metro, and 15 min walk home. We bought dinner at the hostel for about $14 for the three of us. Everyone wants an early night after the midnight night last night.
Brake Family Adventures 