Day 17 - Saturday, March 9 Delhi Tour (Did you miss us? This was posted after two days in Napal Tiger Temple Lodge with no internet service)
Now for the second largest city in India, Delhi, the capitol, with 20 million people…16 million official and 4 million unofficial. It is considered a state much like Washington, DC, is its own district. Our city guide, Vichash, is an 'unofficial' Delhi resident because he's registered to vote in his hometown. The history of the city goes back perhaps 10 centuries, but as the capital of India, only since the English moved their government here in 1911 from Calcutta. It's located on the same river as Agra and the Taj, so travel was easy between the two cities. By the way, in the 12th century a woman Sultan headed the country. How about that? Unfortunately, someone killed her in a coup.
Our guide takes us to the oldest, tallest, free standing stone tower in the world, the Qutb (Axis) Minar. We suspect all the other Mosque Towers are called Minarets because none are even half this size. Construction began in 1199 AD by one Sultan, then more sections were built by his son-in-law. Over the years many others made repairs due to age and earthquake damage.
Not to be outdone, another Sultan started a tower nearby, designed to be double the size, but it was not finished. Major case of tower envy.
In this area of India, the original Hindu monuments were 'stomped and ground down' by the invading Mughals and they used the material to build these Mosques, tombs, palaces and towers. This platform originally had about 26 Hindu temples on it. They used the Hindu craftsmen to rebuild, however, so the Hindu style shows in architecture and decorations. Our guide points out how the two very different religion's styles are blended here. Really hard to select the best of our 244 photos of just Delhi. Each temple, tower, palace, and carving seems more astounding than the last.
Also on this property we see ruins of a 14th century college, a Mosque and a king's residence. We see a Fourth Century 23 foot tall iron pillar that was moved to this site in the 10th century. It originally had an eagle on it but the muslims took it off so they could use the pillar. (They use only geometric forms, no nature.)
The Taj Mahal was designed in the style of Humayun's Tomb, our next site. (We pronounced it 'Who MY you 'n.) Not as well preserved as the Taj, it was built about 60 years before and is the first building of this style. The white trim marble is inlaid in the red sandstone. It's held up pretty well for 450 years.
We have lunch at an English Pub with old cars and pretend English food. They served a fixed menu, bringing small servings of fish, chicken and lamb, plus 7 bowls of various veggie-bean things to put over rice. Pretty good.
On our full tummies they took us out for a Rickshaw ride through old Delhi market's narrow streets and insane traffic. We couldn't get far enough away from anything to take a picture of what that was like… the honking, the near bumps, inches away from the motor bikes and cars, vendors, walkers… ending in a first class everybody-drive-to-the-center-and-honk traffic jam. Nobody backs off. Luckily, we're not still there. They told us the air is much improved here in the heart of the city because all vehicles use compressed natural gas, CNG, which only emits water and CO2. Can't imagine what it used to be like.
To round out the day we stopped at the memorial site of Gandhi's cremation… eternal flame, flowers, landscaping, etc. We take off our shoes and join the many other tour groups and families visiting here. His ashes were distributed in every major river in the world. We then drive by the Parliament, other government buildings and beautifully landscaped Embassy Row. We say goodbye to Vijay, our IE guide, who will take a train back to his home tonight. At dinner we were the only customers in the restaurant in the Trident Hotel. Maybe it was the Indian music accompanying the meal?
This has been a long post and barely covers the adventure of this sensational city.
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