Delhi sight seeing
And as planned we met at the Delhi airport, got a pre-paid taxi (Meru Cabs) from the airport and headed towards Timarpur, South Delhi, where our stay was arranged. Timarpur is near Vidhan Sabha, the nearest metro station being Viswa Vidhyalaya (Will talk about our metro experience later..). We saw a lot of metro work is happening around (means a lot of progress that Delhi can be proud of). One thing we could not help but notice the dent behind all cars.. Even latest BMWs or Mercedes had.. It looked like one style statement..:) ) After crawling through the traffic, we reached our room by around 12. This drive left us blinking and at same time thinking because the traffic was heavy, that too even at midnight and the driving in Delhi, oh god!!! Very rash. Till date we had believed that Chennai and Bangalore traffic was bad…now we knew there even worse cases! Extra travel time had to be allotted ! - point noted!!. Well, we were very excited for the next day so without wasting much time we rushed to our beds to get a good night’s sleep.
Day 1 : This was the day of local sightseeing.. Now What all in Delhi,1 day for local sight seeing,1 day for Agra..and hey gals, we forced the men to give us one whole day for shopping!!!(3 days in Delhi),For local sight seeing, we had checked options from different packagers and travels. We had in fact booked with Panicker's travels for local sight seeing. Also we got to know, many places are not open on Sundays/Mondays. We did a study and figured out another 100 bucks per head, we can aaramse visit all places of OUR interest, take as many pictures and spend as much time as WE want in each location. We listed out all places to be visited, from reviews, blogs, distance from Google maps and polls we put an order of visit. For Agra we booked in Panicker's, they have a Volvo bus that goes every day at a cost of 750/- per head. Shopping we thought to get to the places by metro.
Our day’s plan included visiting Red fort, Raj Ghat, Akshardham temple, Bahai Lotus Temple, Qutub Minar, Indira Gandhi Memorial, Rashtrapathi Bhavan, Parliament, India Gate, Birla Mandir and Teen Murthi Bhavan.
Temperature was around 41°c. Pretty hot I should say(at least for Bangalore standards). If anyone is planning to visit Delhi during summer, following are some must takes.
1. Bottles of water
Note: juices are not an alternative since they make you thirstier.
2. Cotton clothes
3. Wet Wipes
4. Cap that covers your ears or umbrellas
5. Goggles
6. Socks bcoz some of the tourist spots expect you to remove your shoes.
7. Ladies better cover your face/hands with a good sunscreen. In no time under the scorching sun you will be like the lady in 'Fair & lovely ads' before applying cream!!
We didn’t carry socks on the first day and found ourselves running for shade.(Lessons learned !!) As planned, at 9 am after breakfast, we boarded our Qualis from Panicker's Travels. The order of visit is exactly as listed above except for the last two which we were forced to skip because of the heat and related tiredness.
At Red Fort, we collected our entrance ticket issued by the Archeological Survey Of India (This ticket we purchased at almost all our later destinations including Taj Mahal at a nominal price range of Rs.10 - Rs.20/person) and officially marked the start of our trip. Inside Red Fort, we could recollect scenes from Jodha Akbar and others.We left Red fort by 10.30am. Both well maintained, one should admit, the museum inside Red Fort is also a must see. Note that Red Fort is closed on Monday.Raj Ghat was not far away and we covered it in no time.
We then headed for Akshardham temple by around 11.20 am, crossing the Yamuna river which really yearned for water. After submitting all our belongings including camera, mobile, water bottles, umbrella etc at the free cloak room(Its abs safe there), we went in. Inside the temple the option of using corridors by choosing to perform any poojas at Rs 120 / head is also available but due to lack of time we had to surrender ourselves to the sun. But no regrets, the temple was amazing, its sculptures- marvelous! Every minute detail was covered in the carvings. Uff, fantastic!!
Again guys, Akshardham is closed on Mondays.
It was an enthralling experience to actually ‘see’ our history book pictures and Bollywood song sites
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