Exploring Delhi

Up and out from our hostel at a good time, and grabbed some breakfast of rotis and chai from street vendors at the metro station nearby. The main reason we'd stayed in this area was because of the metro station - Delhi's metro is pretty modern and efficient, with trains every few minutes and fairly good coverage of the city. It's also extremely middle class, with no beggars or anything like what you see on European metro networks.

It was a bit difficult to manage since we didn't have local SIM cards yet, and a lot of the signs are in Hindi, but we caught a train into the centre of town and then another train to Old Delhi for our first stop - the Red Fort.

Within a minute of emerging from the station, a pushy cyclo driver kept telling us that the Red Fort was closed, and that our best option was to take a rickshaw ride with him. I burst out laughing because it's such an obvious tourist scam, but we walked down the street and found that the Red Fort was indeed, closed! The whole garden area in front was walled off for a festival celebrating the 150th anniversary of Gandhi's birth, and the fort was closed for six days because of it! Ignoring all the touts who kept telling us it was closed and to do a tour with them, I spoke to an older uniformed guard carrying a shotgun who confirmed that yes the closure was legitimate, but the festival was starting at midday and we could come back then.

So we wandered away under constant siege, but found our way to Jama Masjid, a large nearby mosque built of red sandstone. Very impressive. Had an argument with the guy who was "minding shoes", as he wanted 100 rupees ($2) for "minding" our shoes! I explained that I wasn't going to pay anything since he didn't tell me up front, didn't have a sign etc, and put on my shoes and started walking away. Eventually we compromised on 20 rupees - not a big loss but a reminder that everyone in the tourist areas wants money and you have to be constantly vigilant.

We set off walking into the backstreets and alleys of Old Delhi, trying to find the spice market that all the rickshaw drivers kept talking about, but since we didn't have data on our phones we didn't have much luck. It was pretty intense as well, with the noise and the crowding and reckless drivers/riders. Lots of shops selling random Indian stuff like those yellow flower necklaces the Hindus wear, jewellery, etc, but no sign of the spice market.

At midday we went back to the Red Fort and headed into the festival. Wasn't really much for us to see, but there was a bunch of tents set up where each state of India was selling local food. So we grabbed some stuff from the Kerala tent - Kerala is down on the south-west coast and a spot we won't be going to on this trip (though it's well known on the blogger/backpack circuit), so it was good to get a taste for that area.

Got a couple of photos of the fort exterior - not the best World Heritage Site visit we've ever done - and then wandered away in search of a phone store. After quite a bit of searching we managed to find an Airtel store, then after 15 minutes of waiting in queue they told us they were out of tourist SIMs! But there was a Vodafone store across the street, where after a 20 minute wait we were in luck. 225 rupees each (about $4.50 AUD) for a 28-day SIM with 1.4 gigs of data each day. Nice. The whole process took an hour, involving passports, visas, photographs, writing the form out longhand and then replicating the information in the computer. Indian bureaucracy! But at least we were sorted.

Grabbed an Uber down to our second WHS for the day - Humayun's Tomb. This is a large tomb complex for Humayun, one of the early Mughal rulers of India. It's a massive red and white sandstone building with beautiful white domes on top, and is actually a sort of mausoleum for the family - there's apparently ~150 burials in there. It resembles the Taj Mahal though it pre-dates it. And unlike the Taj which was built by the emperor for his dead wife, this was built by a widow for her dead husband the emperor.

Spend a couple of hours wandering around here checking out the complex before getting another Uber back to the hotel. Returned to the same place as last night for dinner, though after our mouth-burning spiciness I was feeling much less adventurous and just settled for some garlic naan instead!Read more