NEW DELHI (India). March 28
Trip Start
Feb 18, 2008
1
23
25
Trip End
Apr 01, 2008
Delhi, India
Friday, March 28, 2008
At the exit, a myriad of taxi drivers, make you gesture to let you zoom,they ask you which hotel you are staying and and they will swear they are sent to pick you up, until you discover that the real driver has a sign with your name written.
At night, the first contact with the city can not be more depressing, on the sidewalks in small sheds, on gnawed mattresses, the less fortunate in the hard ground, mixed waste, bicycles and old things, sleep a lot of people ragged without bothering to them the smoke, noise and no beeps from cars. We crossed the doorstep and returned to normal, wondering if the street had been a bad dream own so late at night.
The next day we woke up early at 8 because of the sleep cycle changed. I am recovered yet, the fever has disappeared. We negotiate the excursions with Madan Pai, owner of clean and recommended Hotel Grand Park Inn and we get, for a little more expensive, a taxi with air conditioning and our total availability
The driver turned out to be an honest and friendly person and he did not lead us to sites as commissioners, except to a store that by our will we agreed to visit and that gave him a tiket for gasoline.
The visit began in the new part of town with the India Gate, which resembles the Arc de Triomphe París.Después the President's Residence, a building with 340 rooms where he lived the Viceroy. From here we went to the House Museum and Indira Gandhi Memorial, parents of Indian independence.
After crossing the city with a huge traffic rickshaws, motorbikes, bicycles and rickety cars, we headed south of Delhi to visit the ruins and Minaret of Qutab Minar, the remains of a beautiful mosque, where the tower stands of 72 m. height, the mosque and a curious iron column was placed in the fifth century and has not been corroded to date.
We ate wonderfully and almost given away, in a restaurant recommended by the driver, if this is not reliable, best done on the hotel. We proceed to the Lotus Temple, a temple in the shape of a giant lotus flower, where various religions come together under one roof.
Again between traffic and whistles (the drivers are constantly on the whistle hand, in a good way) we turn to the north through the city center to visit the Red Fort, with yours impressives stone walls that color and other buildings of great beauty in her Mughal interior of the XVII century. Nor could they miss the craft shops, where you have to haggle to sack, to bring you a souvenir cheaply wooden handicrafts, mainly Buddhas and elephants, as all visitors to doto and show off to our brother-in-law that we have been visiting India
The day was ending, to visit the nearby Jama Masjid mosque, we took a ciclorickhaw (bike with three wheels) that moved a malnourished pariah, this class must be lifelong servants, hey may never consider, or be self-employed traders, for the simple fact of having inherited the condition from their parents, as a prince is the son of the king. We almost get off for the titanic effort he made, but he begged us not because we did was in sight of boss which controlled more than 19 others like exclave. We gave him a tip and the por man did not know how grateful.
As traffic was enormous, especially occupied by carts hauled by more pariahs, he took a shortcut down an alley full of homeless people and healers, which showed us the true reality of New Delhi. We know depressed areas of South America, but poverty as the one here we have not seen anywhere.
The mosque of Jama Masjid is the largest in India, in its huge courtyard can hold up to 25,000 worshipers and is dominated by two minarets of 70 m. high, one of them you can visit this, cof course, from you before per cash, as elsewhere, but we'll leave that for others more athletes than we do, these are nothing less that 122 steps! Oh, and hide the camera, if you do not want to blow you 250 rupees, we had to pay for naive, then I realized that nobody took care of his control!
You'll find more pictures and Delhi Guide at this link. Use the Google translator top of
the page: http://mundoporlibre.com/2008/07/nueva-delhi-india-da-29-de-marzo-08.html
