New Delhi, India, 26th to 29th October 2011

After a quick one night stop over in Kuala Lumpur we caught our early morning flight to Gandhi airport in Delhi. As usual I was slightly nervous about flying and the fact that there where at least a hundred Muslims (we have had amazing experiences with Muslims in Asia) in full Burk ha on the flight, plus add the fact some people starting yelling in Arabic at the back of the plane as we where taking off! I was not full of confidence at this point. Having said that the flight was really smooth and we landed in Delhi ahead of time which was nice.
We had landed on the day of Diwali, this is basically the biggest Hindu Festival of the year
(kind of their version of Christmas), we arrived at our hotel near the main bazaar and the streets where already completely full of people getting ready to start the celebrations and people exchanged gifts with each other on the streets. We decided to go for a walk to get our bearings and it was so busy that it was a little uncomfortable at first (we had heard some horror stories about Indian streets and pick pockets- which are false) so we decided to head to the roof restaurant of our hotel to escape the hustle and bustle. Once on the roof the full extent of the celebrations unfolded before our eyes - the streets had people partying and celebrating and on the skyline as far as we could see there where fireworks erupting and lighting up the sky - it was a truly special evening and we where lucky to be a part of it. Also that night we saw a few men taking their monkeys for walks on leads around the streets!

After a good nights rest and a great Indian breakfast we hit the streets and explored all the little ally ways around the bazaar. We had heard that India can be difficult to travel independently so we decided to see if a travel agent could offer us a decent tour or package and we didn't have to go far before every man and his dog was offering us a tour! We opted for a government approved travel agent to save any hassle and after some bargaining and discussions we got a decent deal for a private car with a driver and tours and hotels for Rajhastan for 8 days- plus a tour of the ancient sights of Old Delhi. pleased with ourselves we headed for an amazing lunch we both had Thali for 1 pound 20 pence and wandered the streets for the rest of the day.

A day later we headed on our tour of Old Delhi, but no matter where we went we could not escape the heat or dusty haze of the day (which is partly from the desert and partly pollution) but we headed out and the first stop was the giant mosque where we had to cover up and wear clothing given to us by officials (we also had to pay for somebody to watch our flip flops which we where not to happy about, but we got over it. The Mosque was huge and we noticed Delhi's homeless problem right in our faces as people where constantly begging - even when we returned to the car kids would tap on the windows at traffic lights and beg for money! On the way to our next destination the 'Red Fort' we noticed that India is quite old fashioned as all advertisements are hand painted and there are no neon signs on shops but the biggest difference was that the rubbish problem here is huge.

Later we went to Gandhi's resting place and memorial garden before heading to Humayun's Tomb who was a Persian who had a kingdom in and around Delhi about 600 years ago - his tomb was a nice oasis in the middle of the Delhi Chaos.

Later we visited an 800 year old temple complex which was really cool before our final stop at the Lotus Temple. This as you might of guessed is a giant lotus shaped temple, it is also unique as it is open to every faith, which means people can go and pray to which ever God they believe in without prejudice or segregation - which was nice.

We hit the Delhi food scene once again before heading back to pack our stuff for our Rahjastan adventure - our next stop is Pushkar.

To see the pictures from our trip to Delhi please click on the link below;
https://picasaweb.google.com/112941139607408893724/NewDelhiIndia26thTo30thOctober2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCN_Tg5mi_ZzBTA#