Day 2 in the land of heat and curry!
Notice the bright red face ... well that aint sunburn my friend thats called its 40 degrees and I climbed a bunch of stairs to end up wearing a cape. Shiny face you saw? thats just a constant flow of sweat!
Today was the first day of our tour, however we did not meet up with the group until midday so Mum and I headed out of the hotel in search of a TukTuk to take us to connaught place and maybe do a little bit of sight seeing and some shopping for the morning.
Yesterday being a public holiday the streets where a little quieter, but this morning we got to experience Delhi
I am so used to Asian traffic conditions and it doesn’t phase me, but it still does amuse me that you can zig zag in and out of any situation.
We get to our destination only to discover that we are a little too early and the shops have not opened yet! I was feeling a little unwell all of a sudden and wasn’t sure if I wanted to sit or stand or walk or throwup. I grabbed a bottle of water and started drinking as we walked around doing some window shopping. There was not much to do, yet I was not feeling well enough to get back into a tuktuk. We find a store that was opening and rushed inside as it was air-conditioned, I make mum try on some clothes in an attempt to stay in the store longer so I could try and feel a little better, it wasn’t too bad as Mum found a nice top to wear so she bought it. We decide to cut our outing short and head back to the hotel so I can have a laydown and try and feel well before the group meeting.
We meet our group, all Aussies and English peoples. Nice enough, although, 1 couple are on their honeymoon, 2 men are seasoned travellers – aka know it alls, 1 girl has turned up bright orange from her fake tan and 2 are primary school PE teachers who after the first 30 minutes have discovered they don’t know how to shut up or say anything intelligent… for example, wow its well hot here, hotter than England (duhhhhhh thanks for that captain obvious I had no idea)
Our guide whose name is Kuldep, pronounced CoolDeep, not deepcool, not coolcan, not coddeep and any other variations the two teachers called him, gathered us all together and we set off to go on a walking tour of Delhi. We hopped aboard the train and set off. Wow that train was packed, we had to change after 3 stations to a different train to get to our destination, thankfully we had some guy in our group who was a giant and thankfully standing next to our guide so we were able to see when to get off by following the giant towering above all the local indians!
Our first destination was the Jama Masjid, Delhis oldest mosque. After walking through the streets in the heat I was happy to get to our destination until I realised that we were standing at the bottom of many many many steps that were going up to the mosque and it occurred to me that this will be the many of giant staircases that I am going to have to endure through this trip. Dammit!
I lumbar up the giant steps and stand at the top trying not to huff and puff too much. We leave our shoes in a group with some local who charges you to look after them, pay a dollar and don’t loose your shoes so you don’t have to walk back to the hotel in bare feet stepping in pee and poo and who knows what other substances … id pay more than a dollar for that! As it was a mosque we had to be fully covered to enter, basically shoulders and arms, legs covered. They had some dress/cloak things for us all to wear. They were kinda hideous and amusing, and what was even better was that I was too big to wear it properly, well .. if I put it on properly I could put my arms down or breath, so they tied it around me cape style. That’s right, I was a superhero.
After the mosque we headed to a Sikh temple to learn about the Sikh religion. This was really interesting, im a big people watcher so I loved sitting down in the temple watching all the peoples. To go in you have to remove your shoes and socks, then you walk through this little section of flowing water to wash your feet and then you go wash your hands before entering .. see you wash your feet but not dry them … and then you walk down marble steps. Yep I slipped, not enough to fall but more than enough to let out a loud yelp and giggle to turn around and see 3 others in my group do exactly the same thing. The Sikh religion are the Men who wear the big turbans on their head and have long beards. As a part of their beliefs they don’t cut any of their hair. Its always fascinated me why people have different sized turbans, its simply to do with how much hair they have. The more hair and the longer the hair then the bigger the turban is there is more to wrap around.
After our exciting afternoon tour we braved the train system once more and headed back to our hotel for a little rest before meeting to go to dinner. Dinner was at a yummmmmmy place called crossroads. I ordered another potato dish, it was potato and cumin seeds, it was super yummy but it was a little spicy for me, but I ate it all and just let my lips go all numb and tingly from the heat!
Your superhero look is nearly as good as mine!
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