Delhi Baby Delhi

Molly has arrived in India! She arrived early on the morning of the 18th. We had fun in Pune for about a day, and then we hopped on a plane to New Delhi. Today, is part one of our adventures through Northern India.

Delhi is an absolutely beautiful city. Needless to say, it is much different than Pune. Paul and I fell in love with its charm, but not its weather. The average temperature was at least 10 degrees Celsius higher than the temperature in Pune. (On average 98 degrees Fahrenheit with 98% humidity, in addition to a blazing hot Indian sun.)

We started the day off at the Red Fort. This structure was built by Shah Jahan (who also built the Taj Mahal). The sheer size of the building is magnificent, not to mention the architectural design and special attention to details on columns and other portions of the building.

Here Molly and I are standing outside the Red Fort on the way to the entrance . . .

Here is the actual entrance to the Red Fort . . .

Paul and Molly stop to smile after passing through the first gate . . . (There will be more photos of the actual fort soon, we have to try to recover the data from my camera disk as it crashed at the end of today.)

While we are wandering around the grounds, we saw quite a few chipmunks playing. They were so sweet, we thought we would take a photo of this little guy scampering about . . .

After leaving the Red Fort, we walked down the street to the Meena Bazaar to find the small lane that led us to the Jama Masjid (Friday Mosque). This is the largest mosque in India. Yes, we removed our shoes and covered our shoulders to enter this sacred place.

We climbed 120 steps up this minaret to see the Old Delhi landscape . . .

Of course, between the heat, humidity, and exercise we were glowing from our trek . . .

Here is a view of Old Delhi from the minaret . . .

We climbed down the minaret, and exited Jama Masjid. This is the another view of Old Delhi from the steps of the mosque.

On our way out, we saw some boys playing cricket on the grounds of the mosque.

Many different bazaars surround the mosque, here is a photo of the meat bazaar. These men are selling chickens to people passing by their stand . . .

We hailed a rickshaw and headed over to Connaught Place to go shopping. All around India, you will see women covering their faces and mouths with scarves. Molly and I are doing this to keep the smell and pollution out while riding around town on the rickshaw.

After shopping and a coffee at United Coffee House, I made Molly go into McDonald's. I am literally obsessed with checking out McDonald's menus all over the world. We decided to split a Maharaja Mac, their version of the Big Mac sans the beef.

After Connaught Place, we hopped in a rickshaw to head over to the Rashtrapati, home to India's president. We walked the 2 mile road called the Rajpath that is similar to "The Mall" in Washington D.C. The Rajpath leads from the Rashtrapati to the India Gate. Here Molly and I are standing at the "top" of the street and if you look close you may see the India Gate in the background.

Paul and I stand at the Rashtrapati Bhavan (the entrance to the President's House) . . .

Here is the India Gate commemorating Indian soldiers that fought and died in World War I. The flame that is beneath the arch honors those who fought in the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971.
We then headed over to Humayun's Tomb from the India Gate. After this last landmark, we went back to our hotel to freshen up for dinner at Chor Bizarre for Kashmiri food. It consisted of many kebabs, which we found to be quite yummy. Then, we went back to the hotel completely exhausted, but excited for our adventure to Agra the following day.