Incredible India - Day 7: Looking for the Old & New in Delhi

 Took us a while to wake up on our seventh day in India. Well, we had to wake up at 4.30AM, maybe that's why... After a short night and another busride, we arrived at the Jalandhar train station to take the 6.30AM train to New Delhi! 

Doors do open while driving

Jalandhar Train Station

Italians, all too much for this world

It took us a full five hours train ride to do 370kms and I must admit that we actually were a bit disappointed by it. Although the view was amazing, the quality of the train was absolutely not at all what we had expected, in a good way... We feared (well, I was hoping for it actually) to be packed up in a train with people on top of the train, like everyone has seen once... but it was a proper train with great seats and friendly personnel etc. Appareantly we had booked the 'first class', which is probably why it was so good. 

Once we got to New Delhi it was again: terrible traffic and people everywhere. Our first experience in a TukTuk was going fro the train station straight to Hotel Krishna, where we would stay for the last two nights of the trip. After we had checked-in and freshed up, the whole group got in a bus for a very touristical visit of the city. With very touristical I mean: sitting in the bus, driving to some hotspot, getting out of the bust, the guide explains why this hotspot is a hotspot, the guide needs to be corrected a couple of times by us/other Indians as she is wrong, take five group pictures and getting back on the bus. I felt such a tourist that it wasn't nice anymore, but in this way we got to see the most hotspots possible in only one afternoon. 

We ended up visiting: 

• India Gate: a big gate. It actually really looks like the Arc de Triomphe, but smaller. and it's not in Paris.
• Humayun's Tomb: some tomb for some dead princess, built by a dead king in the middle of the city
• Lotus Temple: a temple, only built in the 1980's, in the form of a lotus-flower. Kind of reminds people of the Sydney Theatre and attracts tons of Indiand & foreign visitors each year. When we got there, there was a +2hr line. As we did not want to wait, some of us tried to take a picture from a far. Rajat (our Indian guide) and me had the brilliant idea -as we like to think out of the box- to try and get in via the exit. So acting all casual and stuff, Rajat being my guide and me being the wealthy white tourist, we simply went in via the exit. We huried our way through the immense gardens and took some great shots from the temple. As the others were waiting for us, we did not go inside the temple though. 
• Red Fort: a big fort, where the emperors used to live and rule. If you were wondering why it's called the Red Fort, it's red.

What I noticed during this visit is that New Delhi is actually the 'new' part of Delhi. And there's an 'Old Delhi' too, which is where most of the older monuments are located. It still intrigues me why we, in Belgium, call it New Delhi and not just Delhi, just like Indians do. 

Visiting these places took us almost all afternoon and evening and it was already late when we got back to the hotel. After some more waisted time waiting, doubting and talking bullshit, it was almost 10PM when we got to the nice looking Parikrama rotating bar and restaurant. We had some beers and something to eat before we headed back to our hotel and enjoyed a midnight snack on our rooftop (5th floor) terrace. A great way to end this touristical day!

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India Gate: Belgium represented!

Tomb

Lotus Temple

Travelling is tiring, at Red Fort

Does the red matches my eyes? 

Sun going down over a Delhi palace

Mind you, only few real souvenirs could be bought at these hotspots. So be sure to try and visit a good Bazar (we did not do this unfortunately) where, it is said, great stuff can be found!