WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 26TH – DELHI DAY
Delhi is an interesting city because it is far more modern than any other place we’ve been – I suppose it’s the Paris of India – yet it still has many of the same characteristics that make it India. When we arrived we immediately saw the wide boulevards and majestic buildings and knew we were in a different kind of city. Yet we’ve flown through Delhi many times and every time it has been shrouded in a haze of (what?) smoke or pollution; I’m not sure. The locals call it “smoke”. We saw the pollution control vehicles. Delhi is preparing for the 2010 Commonwealth Games so I suspect they’ll be on a program to clean the air like Beijing did this year.
We headed off to “old” Delhi in the morning and stopped at the Jama Masjid, a lovely mosque built by our friend Shah Jahan (completed in 1658). Just outside the mosque was a lively market area, so we hired pedal rickshaws to maneuver us through the impossibly crowded and narrow streets. We saw shops selling items for weddings, general textiles, sarees, stationery and other paper goods, food, shoes – just about everything. It was a blast and again I tried to video what I saw because no on photo can possibly capture it.
We also visited the Qutb Minar, a lovely tower built to proclaim the arrival of Islam. Did I mention that India is filled with lovely green parrots? They were everywhere at this site.
In the evening we took a taxi to a posh restaurant for dinner. We knew it would be unusual when they brought us enormous bibs and told us there would be no utensils for eating – just fingers. The best part was the taxi ride home where Cliff was joking around with the driver and he tried to convince him that Ferris, Cathy and I were his three wives. The driver kept saying to Cliff and laughing – “you CRAZY man”. That about sums it up. Cliff you are "crazy man".
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