India Gate

We had some time this morning to explore the area around our hotel, and the India Gate was only a 10 minute walk away.

The India Gate stands as a memorial to 84,000 soldiers of the British Indian Army who died between 1914 and 1921 in the First World War, in France, Flanders, Mesopotamia, Persia, East Africa, Gallipoli and elsewhere in the Near and the Far East, and the Third Anglo-Afghan War. 13,300 servicemen's names, including some soldiers and officers from the United Kingdom, are inscribed on the gate. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the gate is often compared to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It is pretty spectacular.

A few interesting things happened when we were there.

There were throngs of school kids on organized tours there. That in itself wasn’t notable. What was fascinating to me is the fact that I must have been asked to pose for a selfie with middle school boys about 10 times. Must be the blond hair. This place will be great for my ego.

We also met one of the workers at our hotel who had served us breakfast earlier that morning. He was on his break and was also walking around the neighborhood. He noticed us and was very friendly and talked about his sister who lives in Buffalo and how cold it was there last week. He kept telling us he didn’t want anything from us, which was nice. And he kept suggesting we should go and visit the Art Market, which he said had nice handicrafts from all across India. No need to buy anything, he said. Just nice to look.

Joe was skeptical. But Miss Friendly Pants (me) said yes, yes, let’s go because I didn’t want to refuse his hospitality and it sounded interesting and we had some time on our hands. So off we went. We started walking and then climbed into a nice auto rickshaw that he offered to pay for and headed to the famous Art Market.

Which turned out to be a highly organized scheme where local guys con foreigners to come into a shop and buy stuff. I had noticed that on the way there he was on his phone a few times. I thought maybe he was telling his wife how he met people who knew where Buffalo was.

Turns out he must have been prepping the horde of salespeople at the shop who were waiting like hyenas to sell us everything from tailored suits to pashminas to jewelry to tea and spices to carved elephants.

Joe says now he could see it all unfolding and knew we were going to get fleeced. I now have a very nice set of pearl earrings and matching necklace that I really hope were truly made in Rajasthan. For not so bad a price, a portion of which likely went into our friend’s pocket.

And we got a free auto rickshaw ride out of it. So there’s that.Read more