Day 26: Delhi

We had a full day at Delhi, a bus took us to different monuments, mosques, tombs, all the names confuse me and they do not add anything to the blog. So I will not mention them.

16th Century precursor of the Taj Mahal, it had not reached the perfection yet.Stone cutters working along the same traditional way to repair some of the monuments

A Sikh Temple

I left the group to visit the National Museum that is at the image of India, some magnificent piece of art in a museum where half the rooms are closed for repair and most of the shelves lack correct lighting.
However today we had our first real lunch of real Indian food. Usually we have no time for lunch or we eat at a little joint on the road where we have rice and some fried chicken. On evening we arrive late and we have the buffet consisting mostly in international dishes which, while being reasonably good, do not deserve a picture or a description. Today was real Indian food, as good as what we eat in Arlington…

Day 25: Agra - Delhi

Since the distance to Delhi from Agra was relatively short, we spent our morning to visit the Taj Mahal and the Red Castle.
Like everyone else, I had seen the Taj many times on picture, movie, TV etc... so it was another visit of something known. Well, when I saw it, it was a complete aesthetic shock; this monument must be the most beautiful on earth. It is the ultimate masterpiece; it is for architecture what Mona Lisa is for painting. It is perfection. I think that in spite of all the talent of the architect, it took also some luck to obtain the exact proportions that are so pleasing to the eyes. Again only this visit was worth the whole trip.

The Taj Mahal early in the morning
Early after noon following the steps that Claudine left 39 years ago, I went to Fatepur Sikrit to visit the palace of one of the Moghol King and the one he built for each of his three official wife’s, he had several hundreds of concubines too, hard life. We were lucky, it was the end of a Muslim festival and the 16th century Mosque was full of colorful people and women in multicolor saris.

The Fatepur Sicrit Mosque

Mullahs preparing for their homely.

A faithful one
Then we drove to Delhi that we reached by 7 pm. That was the good part of the day. Then the nightmare started. It was night; we were caught in a massive traffic jam. Two hours to progress 10 meters. The temperature in the car was 43 C (112 F). The cars overheated and out of the three cars travelling together, two broke down. Not mine, then I got separated, I was alone in the car, Jacques being in the organizer car for this “short” leg. The right road being blocked, I went off-track and I could not find the hotel. No taxi to help, no one that I asked new it. After going in circle, I found an Ibis hotel and the French manager offered me his driver to lead me to our hotel that I reached after midnight. The lesson, no more trips like this without a GPS. It would have given me, at least, the distance and the direction of the point of arrival. (By the way the two other cars restarted and we arrived all at the hotel at almost the same time).