Friday, February 5, 2010

Delhi: Day 3

January 5, 2010

I was sitting on the bus on the way to and from the sites for the day on January 5 when the idea to do a blog about each day of the trip exactly a month later started to percolate in my brain. I think it was because I had just purchased a journal the night before and had begun to write down summaries of the days and what was going on and so sharing my experiences was on my mind.

I also started rereading Midnight's Children by Salmun Rushdie on the bus-ride. I had read it before for a class but reading it in India was a completely different experience! When he described what was going on at the Red Fort, I could see it in my head now :). Something I'm really glad that I did was note in the margin whenever I started reading where I was in India at the time. For example, I know that I read 104 pages of the book on January 5 while I was in Delhi and that I continued reading on the 8th in the train station at Agra. Midnight's Children is definitely one of my favorite books now.

Our first destination was a Baha'i temple. The Baha'i faith is a SUPER-modern religion. What I mean by that is that they're tolerant to the point of being ridiculous. They have their own beliefs and religious figureheads but believe that all religions are equally correct and essentially the same. The building itself was beautiful and very reminiscent of the Sydney Opera House:



The temple is patterned after the lotus flower, which is both the national flower of India and a symbol that is inexorably intertwined with religious symbolism in India.



There are nine entrances to the temple. Inside there are a bunch of benches and it's absolutely silent. We went inside and while we were there I prayed for a bit but then also wrote a little bit in my journal. It's terribly melodramatic but I'll share anyways haha:

"We're all sitting here in the lotus Baha'i temple and the silence is deafening. Compared to the cacophonous streets (traffic) and chaotic foot traffic (Old Delhi)...it's so peaceful. Were a pin to actually drop it would most certainly echo again and again-a door handle turning, a cough, a shift in seating even-all reverberate thunderously in the absence of all other noise. ok enough 'artsy' stuff... :)"

Yes, I actually acknowledged how silly that was in the journal itself AND I actually drew a smiley face in there. Aim has left its mark on our entire generation lol.

In between the Baha'i temble and the Qutub Minar (the next set of pictures) we visited Akshardham temple. Akshardham is a Hindu temple that was just recently completed in 2005. It's listed as one of the modern wonders of India. It was built entirely using ancient methods of construction and is just a massive complex. There are over 2000 different statues on the grounds and EVERY single one is unique. For the rest of the trip we referred to it as the "Hindu Disneyland" because there was apparently a theme park right next door but we didn't go because if you wanted to do the theme park you were required to do everything there, which would have taken four hours or so (time that we didn't have).

Our next stop was the aforementioned Qutub Minar, which was the tallest minaret in the world at the time of its completion.



I took a picture of this sign because we weren't drinking tap water at all on the trip, seeing as how that was the quickest and most surefire way to get sick. Kinda funny how the guy looks like he could be blowing chunks instead of drinking water...haha



Just some columns flanking the walkway to the minaret.



A cool archway to the right of those columns in the previous picture.




The base of the Qutub Minar. It's REALLY tall (in case you couldn't tell!)




It keeps going and going and going...



Some of the detail-the writing and carving was so sweet!



Lots of tourists and a mosque in the background.



Qutub and me! It's not really crooked, I just thought that framed the shot better! Zack and I were picture buddies-if either of us saw what we thought would be a cool shot we'd take one of each other.



More of the surrounding structures. Hundreds of years ago the colonnades in the background served as lodgings for pilgrims from far off countries.



Apparently, to this day no one knows what the material that this smaller black pillar is made out of. It hasn't decayed or worn away at all in the years and people just aren't sure what sort of material would work like that.



Some of our group as we "huddled" at the base of the minaret. Everywhere we went, Norbert would call out "huddle" and we'd gather around as he painted a picture of the history and backstory of the places that we visited.



Pretty neat view of the Qutub Minar. It was while visiting this site that it REALLY hit me that we were in India! This was mainly due to the fact that the day before we left we'd had a class session where we were talking about a book we read for the trip and I distinctly remember using the Qutub Minar during a point where I was participating in the discussion and here we were less than a week later standing in the shadow of what had only been something from a book for me! It was a trippy experience.



This is a cenotaph, or the equivalent of a headstone in a cemetery. This isn't the grave itself-merely a marker that denotes someone important buried underneath or nearby.



Another one of the baolis! This one was even larger than the first one that we visited.



Afterwards we went exploring in Delhi. This was later in the afternoon-you can see the Qutub in the distant skyline.



Sunset over Delhi.



A random mosque that we just happened upon as we wove our way through the crowded streets of Delhi again.



For dinner we went to an AMAZING restaurant called Punjabi by Nature. I got the Chicken Shish Kabobs, which were just amazing. This was definitely one of the more expensive meals, but ended up only being around $8.



Naan bread! I could just eat naan forever...it's seriously that good. And they had so many different varieties: plain naan, paneer naan, garlic naan, buttered naan, kashmiri naan...my mouth is literally watering just thinking about naan.



The feast laid out in front of our group after we laid into it.



So that was our third day in Delhi. We only had one more day before moving on to the city of Agra, and that last day was a free day with no set agenda. Zack, Andy, Grayson and I decided to stick together the next day. Tomorrow: our adventures all by ourselves in Delhi! Ghandi, camels, randomly amazing conversations in traffic, and a celebratory dinner!



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