Our guide, Sunil, arrives at the hotel at 10 AM, then goes looking for his driver, who is probably off smoking while he can. Our first stop is the Jama Masjid, the largest Moslem mosque in India. We take our shoes off at the gate, pay 200 rupees ($4.75) for the privelege of taking our cameras in, and 20 rupees to have the Shoe Guy guard our shoes. Everywhere we went in India there was a fee for video cameras, but seldom for still cameras. This will change once they realize there is a disappearing line between cameras, phones, ipods and video cameras.
The Jama Masjid was built in 1656 by the emperor Shah Jahan, also the builder of the Red Fort and the Taj Mahal, thus making him single handedly responsible for a good portion of Indian tourism. It's a very imposing building, with a courtyard that will hold thousands of prostrate worshipers, but not nearly as striking as some of the structures we will be seeing later in the trip.
Once we leave the JM, we get on cycle rickshaws (they're not allowed in New Delhi and man-pulled rickshaws have recently been banned in the only city in the world that had still allowed them - Calcutta.) We start off on what seems to be streets teeming with humanity and vehicles, including wheelbarrows, cars, bullocks pulling carts, bicycles, motorcycles - you name it. Then it got interesting.
We wheeled off into side streets and then lanes. The teeming humanity became gridlock humanity that managed to ooze past each other in peristaltic movements. On streets that were barely 10 feet wide, often with people selling things from a staked out portion of the road, adding to the difficulty of progressing. Yet progress we did, with no one complaining when the bicycle rickshaw scraped against whatever was going in the opposite direction, or bumped over a piece of merchandise being displayed on the road serface. It was like a drive-thru mall. We could literally have shopped for anything India offers, from the comfort of our rickshaw as it passed tiny stalls selling saris, appliances, food for every taste, hubcaps....well, you get the whole idea.
Overhead, the sky was criss-crossed with the most amazing electrical arrangements you could imagine, a black tangle of spaghetti thrown against what little of the daylight you could see in the urban jungle we were moving thru. Call me cynical, but I suspect there may have been an illegal hook-up somewhere in the mess. For some people, this is their world. I can't imagine.
Back in the Toyota, we are taken for the obligatory carpet/crafts stop at a "government emporium". Sunil tells us the Indian government has asked all guides to do this to help out with the Tibetan refugees. I don't believe a word of it, and we spend a token few minutes B4 heading out.
Lunch is at the Chor Bizarre, a well-respected Old Delhi restaurant. Sunil explains that "Chor" means "tea". I always thought "chai" meant "tea" in India, but I don't argue, because "bizarre" definitely doesn't mean "bazarre" either. Sunil tells us "People like this name very much" It reminds Max and I of the sign in Seoul Korea - "Bevery Hills".
Food was OK, but not hot enough. I get into a discussion with Sunil about whether I'm supposed to buy him lunch. I have no problem with this, I just want to know the protocol. He tells me guides eat and stay free wherever they take people. I ask what nationalities he likes to work with. Naturally, he says Americans are the best (he hasn't received my tip yet) because they don't question the itinerary and says Germans and Dutch are the worst because they do. Japanese are easy, because they don't speak Hindi or English and can be taken anywhere and they won't know the difference. I thought Sunil probably should have omitted this last. It told me too much about him.
We stopped briefly at the largest Hindu Temple in India. Sunil is Hindu and was mildly pissed off that almost every site we were scheduled to see was Muslim. He started the tour explaining that there were only 3 gods in the Hindu religion, then went on to explain the several other gods we encountered in the tour who were reincarnations or other forms of these gods. Subsequent guides have just gone with the 33,000 god figure.
Last stop was Humayun's tomb, built by a relieved widow in 1565 and used as an inspiration for the gates to the Taj.
Back at the hotel, I overtip Sunil and the driver and we settle in for the night early - the jet lag thing. We're interrupted twice B4 we finally get to sleep. once for our laundry delivery and once for the delivery of the Salwar Kameez Max had made for her yesterday.
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