Carol and Harold's India trip: October 29

On Friday, Carol’s little kids made a crown. She told them that it was a Halloween costume – they were all princes and princesses. Since none of them have ever heard of Halloween, it all worked out fine. There were about 30 kids making crowns and surprisingly, they kept them on for the rest of the day.

On Saturday, we left the flat by 9:00 and met some of the newcomers in the office. We were then off on our own. We took a rickshaw to the majestic fortress of Puranan Qila (the Old Fort). Much of the fortress is made up of pleasant lawns and gardens but two very impressive buildings survived from the 1500’s. One of them is said to be SherShah’s finest monument and the other is the octagonal observatory where Humayun died when he fell down the steps (see October 22-24 entry). In 1947, during Partition, Muslim refugees gathered in the fort to await transportation to Pakistan; tens of thousands of them were slaughtered en route. After leaving the fort, we went to the National Zoo. It is spread over 86 hectares of land with some 2000 animal species and lots of greenery. It is the largest zoo in India and one of the largest in Asia. The top attraction is the white Bengal tigers; we saw several. We took another rickshaw ride to Connought Place where we had a wonderful South Indian lunch at Sarvana Bwavan. We had a thali (a tray covered with a banana leaf) with about a dozen small bowls of different foods, plus rice and two kinds of bread. Delicious! A short walk away was the Jantar Mantar which was built in 1725 and is the first open-air observatory designed by the ruler of Jaipur. Huge red and white slanting stone structures looming over palm trees and flowerbeds were used to calculate time, solar and lunar calendars and astrological movements with an admirable degree of accuracy. From there, it was home by subway, dinner, then a walk to the market for an ice cream sundae with some of the new folks.

We were on our way early Sunday for another touring day in Delhi. We took the subway to Safdarjang’s Tomb. Safdarjang was a Moghul governor who died in 1753. From there, it was a nice 45 minute walk to our next stop. The route was along wide boulevards with lots of trees and very posh homes. This area is definitely for the gentry of Delhi. Since we’ve arrived in Delhi, we’ve been amazed at the amount of green lawns, trees and flowers, etc. This isn’t what we pictured when we thought of Delhi. We next toured Gandhi Smriti, the place where Ghandi spent his last days and where he was assassinated. Interactive exhibits inside the house tell more about the life and death of the man regarded by many as the twentieth century’s greatest statesman. For lunch, we travelled to Khan Market where we ate at Mamatogo, which advertises itself as a restaurant for fun Asian food. We had a delicious Thai lunch which was about double the price of Saturday’s lunch. A rickshaw ride brought us to Raj Ghat, the cremation spot of Ghandi. Although we are scheduled to see this spot with our tour group, we realized that President Obama may tour there the same day and security may prevent our tour group and we did not want to miss it. Our last stop of the day was the fortified palace of Firoz Shah Kotla, a crumbling ruin with ornamental gardens. The most distinctive element is a 3rd Century BC polished sandstone Ashokan Pillar, carried down the river to Delhi by raft. After this, we were tomb and fortressed out, so we came home on a subway that was the most crowded one we’ve been on yet and declared it to be our last subway trip.