Of the things I noticed while in Delhi, there are a few that stood out very strongly at first. Delhi is hot, in more way than one. I was greeted by a blast of searing humidity air as I stepped off the plane onto the pavement; Delhi temperatures frequently pass 40c, 104f. Since it is the monsoon season there were occasional rains, but they weren't accompanied by wind or cooler weather, so they did little other than disguise the sweat streaks on the back of my shirt. The other hotness in Delhi is the girls. Indian women in general are pretty good looking, but northern Indians are dis-proportionally good looking! I don't know if it was a change in facial shape, eyes, complexion, or what, but I'm positive that there was a statistically significant increase in beautiful women in Delhi. Chase and I have started using the phrase "north-Indian" as code for great looking girls.
Boodu, a member in New Delhi and our guide for the weekend, picked us up from the airport and took us to drop our bags off at Bro. Nobels' house. We then headed out directly to see the sites of Old Delhi. We saw a very recently built Hindu Temple, covered in elephants acting out parts of different stories. The Gandhi Memorial was in a large park inside the city, where he was buried near his daughter and grandson, all victims of the Gandhi family tradition of assassination. Mahatma Gandhi was buried in a walled garden, with an eternal flame burning. His grandson, Rajiv, had a large flat monument overseeing a lake, with a Vietnam memorial-like wall alongside it. Indira, considered a tyrannical ruler by many, had a big rock with a rope around it, not quite on-par with the others put to rest in the park. We then headed over to the red fort, where Indian Independence from Britain was announced. Jumped on the metro (where I got some smiles from a very north-Indian girl) to get to a massive underground market to find a leather bag I've been hunting for, which I have yet to locate. Think Indian Jones, that's the kinda bag I have in mind. We went to Karims, a restaurant that gained popularity over a hundred years ago, and has continued cooking the same recipes for a century. Their roti, a flat-bread, was flattened out from a ball, and placed in an underground pot to be cooked. We ate it with a dal, along side mutton kebab rolls, and a chetni sauce, all of which was incredible.
The next morning we were up at 6:00 to start on the road to Agra, a 4-hour journey. We had a little bit of car problems. The car was having as difficult a time in the heat as we were, but fortunately we arrived in Agra without any serious delay. If you have seen Slumdog Millionaire you probably noticed the crowd of guides offering to take people through the Taj Mahal, it's not an exaggeration. We had barely stepped from the car before getting accosted by a troupe of guides, offering to help us get through the queues and "go over The Taj with a fine-toothed comb." On Boodu's suggestion, we enlisted the help of one of the guides, Emron, to get us through the line. Tickets to enter The Taj were 20/- for Indian nationals, and 750/- for foreigners. After buying our tickets, Emron asked 300/- of us to bribe the officer at the gate. If we hadn't already paid 40x the price for a ticket of everyone in eh 2 1/2 hour line, my conscience may have grated me a little. To get in through the "VIP Entrance" we took a detour around the side of the Taj, walking around back alleyways and up shadowy stairs, I was half convinced we were going to be the victims of some kind of organ-harvesting scheme. Once we arrived at the gate, kidneys securely in place, we had no problem in getting through the gate. Emron told us some interesting facts about the Taj Mahal; it took 22 years to build it, and along with the gardens on either side, the monument is perfectly symmetrical with the burial site of the third wife of Shah Jahan directly in the middle. Gems are embedded in the marble of the building, flush with the surface. The marble is translucent and supposedly glows slightly in the moonlight. The four minarets around the central building are angled 2 degrees out from the middle, so in case of an earthquake the towers will fall safely away from the monument, rather than crush the resting place of Jahan and his wife. After Jahan built it, he intended to build a second, smaller twin monument on the opposite side of Yumana river. His son disapproved of the expenditure, and locked Shah Jahan in the Agra Fort, where he lived the rest of his life.
The Agra Red Fort isn't a bad place to be locked away. Overlooking the city and across the Yumana from the Taj, the Fort has a central field which would be fantastic for some Ultimate Frisbee, dozens of good-sized rooms, and a massive stone bathtub. Mosques are found around the Fort, where shoe removal is required. This was very typical of many places we went during this weekend. We didn't have our shoes on, or had shoe-covers on, for most of the Gandhi Memorial, the Taj Mahal, the mosques in the Fort, and another mosque we crossed through to Karims.
Sunday morning we attended the creation of the New Delhi 4th Branch, which was split off from the first and third branches. The church has rented the basement, 3rd floor, and roof of a building in Delhi, and refurnished it for church use; well, mostly refurnished. The roof still has a stage and a bar, and could work for some really great branch activities. After church we crossed off a few final things in Delhi, such as the Bahai Lotus Temple and the Presidents House. Although it is called "The Presidents House" a different name, like "The Presidents Compound" may be more fitting. The parliament building is visible from the complex, where the two primary parties, Congress and BJP resolve their differences, sometimes in words and occasionally in blows. With August approaching, preparations are being made for the traditional military march from the Presidents Home to the Red Fort commemorating the declaration of Independence on August 15th, 1947.
There was some turbulence on the way back, but our plane got us back in BGL on time in spite of circumnavigating a large storm, and I crashed into bed at 2:00 this morning, glad to have kicked back one layer of residence, and a short 2 weeks away from the next kick. These upcoming weeks are going to have a lot of activity, with something going on almost every day. I have a lot of pictures from Delhi & Agra, which I'll be uploading soon, so watch that little slideshow on the right.
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