Delhi 25th - 27th September

---

Listening to stories about Delhi, it didn’t sound that much fun. Supposedly it’s a huge and dusty city. But since I’m now a fan of the Mughal Empire, I though there must be some incredible places to visit, as Old Delhi was the Mughal capital as Agra once was. The Red Fort and the Great Mosque were a must do on my list, but in the end I only managed to visit the Red Fort. I found it a bit disappointing as I’ve seen the Agra Fort, which was far more impressive. The British occupied the Red Fort during their regiment and in some ways destroyed the beauty of it by building some Victorian style houses on one side in the court. In addition the restoration of the Fort only started recently - it will take some time till it’s in its original beauty.

Otherwise Delhi is, as everyone told me, huge and dusty. Everywhere you go construction work is going on.
It’s best to use the metro these days than a rickshaw. One thing Delhi can be proud of is the metro. Unlike the London tube, the Delhi metro has air-con and the carriages are enormous. The only downside is that it hasn’t yet been developed for tourist use. There aren’t any helping hints like ‘Green Park for Buckingham Palace’, so you keep on asking people for help.

Thank god I knew Gautam Nijjar from Vipassana who again invited me to stay with his family - a modern Sikh family and again very friendly and compassionate people. So I spent a day with Aalam visiting India Gate after chatting and chatting till late the night before with the whole family about Sikhism and Indian culture - way too much to write to put it in a blog. They introduced me to the funniest thing ever, the matrimonial newspaper. So girls in the west, if you ever need a quick husband that’s the newspaper you want. Select your husband by job, height, wealth, education and most important your family won’t even have to provide a dowry. A dowry is very common in an Indian marriage - the bride’s family gives presents to the groom’s family, like money, TV, car, etc. So girls get in touch with me and I will arrange it for you. :-)

---