Delhi Belly

Luckily the next morning I was feeling much better (thanks to the dose of Cipro I brought with me) and well enough to tour the city with Susan. Rahul's mother had helped us plan the itinerary and supplied the car and driver, so we were able to see a lot - starting with the Bahai Temple (beautiful in the shape of a lotus flower and reminded me a bit of the Sydney Opera House) and an ancient Muslim tower (which was being visited by a group of scouts, some of whom requested a photo shoot with us and then took ages setting up the shot). The first few minutes at the tower were also funny, as the driver didn't speak enough English to tell us where we were and we didn't realize it was on our itinerary. The ticket counter only listed the prices, not where we were. So we didn't know what we were seeing until after we had bought the tickets and entered the gate, where there was finally a sign and could look it up in our guidebook.

After that we visited Connaught Place for yummy South Indian food (I nibbled and watched Susan ooh and aah over the meal with jealousy) and bought some shirts and shawls at the local market before meeting Aileen for the trip back home for dinner. Unfortunately she was also sick with the Delhi Belly so it was a quiet night.

Saturday Aileen was still out for the count, so Susan and I went exploring again, this time in Old Delhi. We visited the Red Fort, an amazing complex of buildings used by former emperors. Then more shopping, of course. The shopping areas here are all tiny, winding, back lanes. We especially enjoyed the spice market. Susan would ask the vendors if she could take their pictures and they would pose proudly, ususally asking to see the photo afterwards. In one instance a nut vendor then asked for a photo of him and Susan together! We dashed back in time to pick up a much improved Aileen as well as Rahul and Xochi to visit Akshardham temple. This is a very new, massive temple that has a whole sound and light show and boat ride through the history of India. The builders have definitely visited at least one of the Disney parks. The only difference is the ride didn't end in a gift shop. We all tried to keep a straight face through the ride as much as possible, but it was difficult. As the narrator worked his way through history we learned that India discovered gravity and the number zero, is the founder of democracy, built the first hospitals, performed the first plastic surgery and developed geometry thousands of years before Pythagoras. They even built the first airplanes and spaceships, over two thousand years ago. Who knew!

The sound and light show was a pleasant surprise. It was very well done with lit up fountains and was just the right amount of time. The temple itself was unbelievably gorgeous and very impressive. We were lucky to see so much of it so quickly. When we had arrived, Aileen asked at the information counter how we could do the boat ride and see the sound and light show without visiting the IMAX show and museum (yes, there was much more propaganda!). One of the gentlemen at the desk happily whisked us off, buying the tickets for us, taking us to the boat ride, meeting us afterwards and escorting us to the best seat for the show. Without him we could only have seen one or the other. We felt like super VIPs! We're not sure why we got such great treatment (they hadn't seen Xochi, so that wasn't the reason this time) but I think he was probably just bored and happy to find something to do. Speaking of Xochi, as soon as we arrived at the temple dozens of hands thrust out and tried to touch her. Even Aileen had never seen anything like it. Xochi, getting used to such things, was a real trooper and acted as if nothing had happened. Later on our way inside the temple, a woman kept following us asking Aileen if she could hold Xochi and if not, if she could kiss her. Sheesh!

We rounded off the evening with a dinner at the local Chinese restaurant. The family was off to their farm early the next morning for a big party, so Susan and I were on our own again the next day. We decided to spend it mostly shopping, not having gotten our fill yet.

Sunday started off a bit crazy as we had a new driver who had no idea how to take us to the park where we were supposed to start the day. After he asked a number of taxi drivers, we finally called Rahul and his driver explained it to him. Apparently it would be like a driver in Paris not knowing how to find the Champs Elysees. Eventually we did get there, but couldn't spend much time there before heading off to Dilli Haat, an outdoor bazaar that is very well run by the government. We bought a LOT of stuff there and enjoyed sampling the food as well, as there are food stalls from all the different regions of India. We attempted to stop at an internet cafe afterwards, but they were all closed on Sunday, hence me being so far behind on this blog. Our final stop of the day was to Humanyun's tomb, but unfortunately our driver didn't know how to find that either, so Susan sat in the front seat and guided him from our map. Once we got onto the street where it was, we figured we were ok, but then he dropped us in front of a building that looked to small to be this massive tomb. We walked around it for a while, greeted by enthusiastic staff who seemed incredibly happy to see us, and then found out it was a mosque and that we were about a mile from the tomb. We were given materials about the Sikh religion and then we headed off to see the amazing tomb that is along the lines of the Taj Mahal, although not QUITE as impressive. Then home again early as we had to be up by 4:45am Monday morning for our train ride to Jaipur!

(By the way, more pictures are on their way... there have been some technical difficulties lately with that!)