Day 02 - Delhi

Today we will start with New Delhi again, but actually, today’s Delhi is the result of a union of 7 cities and 25 villages. The part visited first in the morning belongs to the Imperial City, one of the oldest 4 situated in the South, and it is called Qutab Minar.

Pictures:
1. Qutab Minar
2. Koran engravings on the minaret
3. Minaret’s sculptures
4. Detail of old wall on temple ruins

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The Qutab Minar refers to the 73 meter-high minaret itself, but in fact it is a complex of ruins of ancient temples of the first Muslim’s domination. The place provides nice pictures from different angles, and again, the sandstone with high rates of iron metal gives the colorful contrast amongst the blue sky, the stones and the people and the birds.

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It is not difficult to spot the parakeets hanging on the tall walls remaining from the destroyed buildings. The strong green tones of the parakeet are almost hypnotic when it rests against the reddish patterns of sandstone. The monuments and the minaret present lots of mosaics and Koran’s writings carved in the stone, covering almost 100% of the surface. A really stunning piece of architecture.

Pictures:
5. Parakeet hanging
6. Parakeet on ruins walls

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There is also an iron pillar made of iron but that have never got rusted despite its age of 1600 years. This is explained by the fact that the pillar has a rate of 98% of iron in its composition. The pillar is the single remaining artifact of the original Hindi temples that existed at that place before the Muslim invasion – all the Hindi temples have been destroyed to give place to mosques and the minaret.

Pictures:
7. Qutab Minar ruins and the Iron Pillar
8. The Iron Pillar

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From there we just passed by the Lotus Temple. A Hindi temple with the format of a lotus flower. It was really crowded since it was Sunday, and then we just stopped for a quick look before continuing the guided tour.

Picture:
9. The Lotus Temple

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From there we went to the Humayun’s Tomb, is a mausoleum built in a style very similar to the Taj Mahal. The gardens are beautiful, with the water channels, typically noticed in the Persian garden style.

10. Humayoun’s Tomb entrance view
11. The Humayun’s Tomb with the fountains at the garden
12. Gurdwara (Sikh Temple)
13. Tomb’s side view from the garden

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The monument is very photogenic, due to the gardens and the stone colors. The area is surrounded by other monuments, as this Sikh Temple (Gurdwara, or “Home of the Guru”).

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This was our last point to visit in Delhi. We went to Connaught Place again to go the the Veda’s Restaurant, where we had a very spicy vegetable tandoori plate (“tandoori” means grilled), and where we said goodbye to our guide.
Pictures:
14. Sweeper woman at the Humayun’s gardens
15. Squirrel at the gardens

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Johnson drove us back to the Lutyen’s Bungalows to pick up our luggage and go straight to the Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station where we were supposed to take our first train leg in this trip. Gondwana Express, departing at 15:25. Destination: Katni, the closest village to the Bandhavgarh National Park.

Pictures:
16. Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station
17. Waiting for the train departure to Katni

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We were in Johnson’s hands to find the right platform and the wagon designated in our tickets. The train station is a real mess. We couldn’t make it without his help – the boarding procedure became more familiar along the journey, but for this first time his help was simply essential.

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Then we have got our places in a private cabinet (first class berths) and a 14 hour long journey to Katni. I cannot complain of the 1st class berths, but you have to open your mind and allow adjustments to your concepts of cleanness and comfort. Fair enough!

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

Day 01 - Delhi - Part 2

Just after the our morning visit to the Old Delhi, we head back to the New Delhi area where in the afternoon we will visit some other interesting places.

Pictures:
1. Raj Ghat (Gandhi Memorial)
2. Rajpath Avenue

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We cross the city reasonably fast given the traffic of tuc-tucs, bicycles, motorbikes, cows and people, a lot of people. We followed a big wide avenue called Rajpath where there is a reunion of Government Buildings and in the beginning of the avenue there is the India Gate, an Indian version of the Arc du Triomphe, built in memory of the “Immortal Soldier” in honor of the Indian soldiers killed in the WWI. Aligned with the Indian Gate, seen from the Rajpath avenue, a Chatri (kind of hut very frequently used in Indian architecture as a shelter) gets framed by the Gate.

Pictures:
3. India’s Champs-Elysées
4. The India Gate framing the Chatri

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There is who compares the Rajpath with the Champs-Elysées. I admit this scene rings a bell.

The buildings of the Secretariat are seen along the Rajpath and the Government Palace called Rashtrapati Bhawan are the main samples of city’s architecture which escape from the hindi-persian style. The Rashtrapati Bhawan is inaccessible behind a tall fence and gate, but interesting things happen just in front in the gardens.

Pictures:
5. Secretariat Building
6. Monkeys and Canons
7. Elephant-crowned columns of the Rashtrapati Bhawan palace

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Rhesus macaques family plays around the canons and take the big sandstone columns crowned with elephant statues as vantage points to extend the range of surveillance of their territory.

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Moving back to the hotel area, we decide to look for some gifts and art pieces to take as souvenir from our first trip to India, so we go to the Connaught Place, a ring of stores and restaurants and other businesses, and the guide tooked us to an emporium where we could find some nice handcrafts and tissues, écharpes, etc, and next we left the packets in the hotel and finally the driver left us by the entrance of the Lodhi Gardens.

This city park remains from the 15th Century and has a green garden with pathways where the locals stroll and take their time when the day cools down. There are some ancient buildings, Mohammed Shah’s Tomb and the tombs of other unknown families, the Bara Gumbad and Sheesh Gumbad, where we appreciated the sunset just before having a dinner at the Garden Restaurant inside the park. It was a very nice place with a verandah in the second floor where we have our first spicy meal (the first of an endless series). Oddly the light went off (apparently a frequent issue in India), and we just stayed there with the candle lights, while we finished and observed some people settle a party in the restaurant’s front garden, and then live music started on that party…a final touch for our first night.

Pictures:
8. Lodhi Gardens by Night
9. Sheesh Gumbad

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Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page

Day 01 – Delhi - Part 1

09:30am. After 14-hours flight from Sao Paulo to Dubai, 5 hours waiting for transfer to Delhi and more 4.5-hours flight from Dubai do Delhi, we finally arrive in Delhi. The long trip and the +08:30 time gap between India and home left us as zombies, but we were very excited the trip was just beginning, so after immigration proceedings we went exchange some money (“some money” indeed is not appropriate since the dollar-rupees rate produced a huge pile of 100 rupees bills) and next were already searching for Mrs. Daljeet, our local agent from India Safaris. We have been in contact for so much time planning the trip that we were truly anxious to meet her personally.

Everything was ready, the driver, Johnson, took us for our hotel in Delhi (The Luthyens Bungalows) – a very simple guesthouse located in the embassies regions, called Imperial City. The place has a country-side style (not so well-conserved to be honest), but fair enough for a couple o nights as the main objective of this trip was not in Delhi.

We have quickly got installed and have been briefed by Daljeet about the plans, trains tickets, vouchers and everything, and after a late-breakfast we have soon departed for the first part of the visit to Delhi. Actually, Delhi has surprised us with a quite green-look (not a vertical city with lots of buildings and no trees) and we headed towards the Red Fort for the first ancient site in the list.

Pictures:
1. Tuc-Tucs
2. Parakeet in the hotel backyard

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The Red Fort is located in Old Delhi (for local people Delhi city is only one, there is no Old Delhi or New Delhi, actually the Old Delhi is newer than most part of New Delhi, because the Old/New reference is far behind in India’s history and Old Delhi has been destroyed and rebuilt after Delhi had been already expanded toward New Delhi’s side). Red Fort built in Delhi by the emperor Shah Jahan, has been inspired in the Agra Fort, so that the same architecture and design has moved from Agra to Delhi after Agra lost its post of Mughal Empire capital to Delhi.

Pictures:
3. Main Gate (Lahore Gate)
4. Diwan-i-Aam courtyard view from the throne balcony

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Actually our objective is not to tell the details of the history and architecture (we admit that there is a lot of interesting things we have learned after listening to the guide’s lectures, but we would have to spend dozens of pages just telling the years of stories around the monuments), we would rather share the beautiful pictures taken in these places to give you an idea of them, and let you decide if it is interesting to visit them if you ever get to India.

The Red Fort is all surrounded by a big defense wall and the buildings inside are all made of red sandstone or white marble with all sort of gems inlays. There is a lovely green garden, very pleasant to refrain a bit of the heat of India’s summer.

Pictures:
5. Diwan-i-Aam pavilion columns
6. Lady´s Chamber columns
7. Courtyard with white pavilions in marble

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Out of Red Fort, we’ve met Surya waiting with a rickshaw driver to take us to the mosque of Jama Masjid of Delhi, also located in Old Delhi just a few blocks far from the Red Fort. The rickshaw ride is really crazy because the driver find his way through the narrow streets of the Chandni Chowk amongst other rickshaws, tuc-tucs, cows, buses, people, dogs, cars, bikes, scooters, motorbikes, unbelievably without shocking with anybody or anything in the middle of the way. It is a good opportunity to see the alleys where the small businesses dedicated to selling the tissues, saris and brocades for the colorful Indian wedding clothes.

Pictures:
8. Rickshaw ride staring point
9. Chadni Chowk market stores

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The rickshaw dropped us at the entrance of Jama Masjid mosque (Friday’s Mosque), where we had to leave our shoes by the door and Alessandra had to wear a Muslim’s dress over her clothes before entering. The building is a mosque (what else to say…), it is a huge massive mosque also built mostly on red sandstone – the time of the day was not so good for pictures since we had the sun shining hard at noon time when we were there, but we have selected some interesting angles to give a slight glance of it for you.

Pictures:
10. Jama Masjid main façade
11. Jama Masjid main entrance from inside
12. Jama Masjid ornaments

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After this session, we started heading back to New Delhi area again, where we have started to see the second part of the first day in the city.

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page