Advertisement
Published: December 28th 2017
Last Day in India Day 28. Thursday 28
th December
Ate breakfast in the garden at our hotel, it was that or eat in our rooms as there is no restaurant here!
This is supposedly a 3* Hotel – The Indira International Inn. But they put us in double rooms, no extra bed as requested (and paid for) so Reedies were all squashed up. We then found that although we are supposed to get free breakfasts, that only applies to one person per room! And then only up to Rs150, barely enough for an egg & coffee. We asked for an extra bed to be put in the Reedies room for tonight but no bed was there when we returned in the evening! I’ll be having wiords with Agoda when I get home and getting a credit card refund for the lack of an extra bed.
This may sound trivial compared to the leech & mice at Hotel Kamal in Agra, but we really liked them and they did give us a great discount. This place is quite pricey in comparison.
Enough hotel ranting! We grabbed 2
auto-rickshaws to Qutb Minar as you do, great fun racing each other through the streets and arrived 20mins later. Huge queue to get in but I found the tourist booth with no one queuing so went straight to the desk, same at the entrance where there were seperate lines for men & women and scanners etc. But we were waved through without a hitch, although the kids had to duck beneath the barriers. We didn’t feel too guilty as we paid over 20 times what Indians pay for entry so you expect some perks. Inside were the remains of various mosques and tombs to Muslim invaders, and the famous tower built to commemorate Qutb-ud-din’s defeat of the Hindu army when he invaded back in 1193. The tower is very impressive rising through 5 stories to 73m (yards) high. Qutb-ud-din only completed 1 story befor he was impailed in the saddle whilst playing polo (some Karma involved ther methinks). His successors competed the job and kept up it’s maintainance. But what I really wanted to see was the Iron Pillar erected in 400AD outside a Vishnu monument. The size and quality of the iron has had archeologists baffled as it is
so pure and large for that era, it does not rust and is about 22’ high (7m). It is unknown how they could cast something this big at the time.
When I visited here 40 years ago, I arrived by horse cart from Old Delhi and Qutb Minar was way out in the countryside, we only saw 2 others here then. Now all is swallowed up by the ever expanding Delhi sprawl, and the large coach park tells how popular it is with Indian tourists.
We saw loads of school kids here who seemed to be unattended although a security guard armed with a whistle & stick kept them under control. Rocco saw them jumping over some flooded grass & sometimes falling in, so he wanted a go. When they asked his name I made the mistake of saying “Rocco – like in the boxer film” but they then though he was a boxer and were lining up their fighters to take him on! We finally got through though and he made a successful jump. Esmee had similar problems when she did a cartwheel, they obviously don’t do them here and she had to
keep repeating them for quite a while.
We then headedout of the park and found a cafe for a drink & bite to eat. Found a posh Indian cafe, beside a Subway and had pizza’s (all Reedies), milky drinks with cream & chocolate (Esmee), samosa’s & grenadine (me).
We then took 2 auto-ricks to the nearby Garden of 5 Senses (Rs50 entry – we didn’t argue our pensioner status which would make it Rs15). Nice gardens, some parts new, some quite delapidated. There was a zip-wire under construction. There was what looked like an old electric tram system run by solar power, but most panels were grown over and some even bent by tree trunks, so not used for a long time. Many pretty places though and obviously where lovers come a smooching as nearly every bush had a couple under it and also park benches etc, so much smooching! Shirl needed the loo and found a very posh cafe which we stopped for a drink at and were shocked at the prices. Even by home prices this was expensive. They were doing Turkey dinners with trimmings for about Rs2000, plum pudding for Rs1500
and a glass of mulled wine for Rs1200. So the full works would cost Rs4,700 (£55).
We got 2 more auto-ricks back to our hotel and started packing bags for tomorrow’s early start (7am taxi booked for airport). Shirl not feeling well after train meal yesterday, hope it’s short lived! So she didn’t join us for evening meal in the garden. The kids playing with the kids from next door although there was a language problem. I ended up as a go-between in mime skills (I’m not good) but they soon got along without words. Early night now and Blighty tomorrow…. I think I’ll be glad to get home, it’s all been quite a whirl.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.125s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0978s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Amy Friedman
non-member comment
SO soon?
You are going home? What will I read now? No more travel sagas, detailed menus, and wonderful motorcycle pics? It's been such a swell vacation with youse guys in India!