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Published: February 23rd 2019
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India Gate
Couldn't get close because of demonstration India, Days 2 - 4 Thursday to Saturday
Reasonably refreshing night's sleep. It may be very noisy and manic outside during the day but overnight, from 9ish onwards, it is pretty quiet outside. Nor does it get noisy very early in the morning, thankfully.
Breakfast, though, is a bit of a wipe out. Cornflakes, but only hot milk on the table. Had to get them to fetch cold by special request. Toast, but spread not butter, and a jam which we decided the flavour of was 'bubble gum'. Unsure that it had seen any hint of fruit. No 'normal' tea, which is astonishing for India! Just a ginger tea. Instant coffee and hot milk, no hot water. Weird!
Our aim for the first couple of days here, before the Explore trip starts, is to go to some sights that aren't on the Explore itinerary. So Thursday we headed for the Red Fort, just on the outskirts of Old Delhi.
Built by/for Shah Jahan in 1639-1648, it covers about 125 acres, but the internal buildings are in need of some tlc. Copper has gone from the domes, British soldiers looted out the silver wall panelling and much of
the sandstone is crumbling. Still pretty impressive though, and a good audio guide for the walk around.
3 or 4 museums inside, one dedicated to a massacre in Amritsar. It is always fascinating to get a local perspective on British atrocities, and we have read about plenty in our travels.
In 1919, in Amritsar, there was a religious festival gathering - Baisakhi - marking the Sikh New Year. A few thousand people had assembled in a square/garden to which there was only one entry/exit. Shortly before this the British rulers had passed an Act forbidding gatherings, but this wasn't widely known at the time amongst the locals.
A British Colonel Dyer, ordered his troops to fire upon the crowd, which the did until they ran out of ammo. The British claim around about 379 died, the Sikhs reckon up to 1000. The official, British enquiry was a bit whitewash, but in 1920 attitudes towards the massacre hardened and, following a House of Commons debate Dyer was removed from his appointment, passed over for promotion and removed from further employment in India. The massacre caused a re-evaluation of the army's role in which the new policy became 'minimum
force', and the army was retrained. Some historians consider the episode to be a decisive step towards the end of British rule in India. This 'minimum force' policy was therefore enacted not long before Ghandi appeared on the Indian political scene with his various policies of passive resistance.
We are in Amritsar later in this trip and may try to see more on the massacre.
We moved on to a tea shop. That is a shop which specialises in selling tea, not a tea and cake place. We were able to taste, free, 4 different teas, which was quite refreshing in the hustle and bustle. We bought two types to bring home.
Paul remarked that recently he had read an article debating the merits of whether milk should be added with the tea 'bag' in the cup before or after the hot water. He had been tempted to write in to say 'No' the correct way is tea leaves into a tea pot first! We don't use tea bags at home. Can't stand the dusty things and are always on the lookout for decent, loose leaf tea which is becoming increasingly more difficult to buy other than
Indian chipmonk
Red Fort was teeming with them at specialist merchants in the UK.
We then finished at the Gandhi Museum. This was worthy enough but in dire need of modernisation.
Whilst out we also passed a rat colony, an area about 2 cricket squares in length backing onto a bus stop.
Paul said he was just 1 mallet short of playing a live version of 'Splat the rat' ?
Friday we firstly headed for another Gandhi location, the Gandhi Smriti Museum located at Birla house. This businessman's mansion is where Gandhi spent the last 144 days of his life, and where on 30th January 1948 he was assassinated by a gunman whilst walking to his daily place of devotion.
This was a much better memorial than the Ghandi Museum we saw Thursday.
We then moved on and through 3 locations in reasonably rapid order.
Firstly a major Sikh temple, Gurudwara Bangla Sahib - Sikh, built in 1783. Headscarves on and shoes/socks off for both of us. The marble floor was, mostly, soothing in the warmth.
On to Jantar Mantar Observatory, built 1723/24 as part of the task of revising the calendar and astronomical tables, and to predict the times
and movements of the sun, moon and planets.
Finally the Ugrasen Ki Baoli Stepwell, the only stepwell remaining in Delhi. Original date unknown but rebuilt in the 14th Century.
Today, Saturday, we were due to start the Explore tour in the afternoon, so we stayed local for the morning, visiting the Lotus Temple. This is one of 8 around the world dedicated to the Baha'i faith which was started in Persia by a (self)anointed man in the early 1800s.
The Temple here is a new building - 1980s - and whilst the outside is quite wonderful with its lotus flower shape, the inside is almost totally unadorned. Just bare concrete, the lower reaches having a marble covering, and a couple of large flower arrangements.
A few thoughts on getting from A to B in Delhi. There are pavements but they are not for walking on. It is an obstacle course designed to test the most intrepid traveller. Cars, vans and motorcycles are parked & double parked everywhere. Or space is taken by street food sellers cooking at pavement level. Or dogs lying in the sunshine. Oh so many dogs! And so also so much dogs***! And
rubbish. Lots of sweeping of rubbish but just moving it from one plot to another. No sign of it being gathered up and taken away.
We've had a pretty full-on 6 hours or so with the start of the Explore trip so we'll leave thathe for the next blog.
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