This morning we hired a cab to take us around to the local tourist attractions. We saw the India Gate, Humayan’s Tomb, the Qutub Minar, the Lotus Temple, a Hindu Temple, the president ‘s house, and a fine hand craft symposium that we neither asked to see or stayed at once we were shepherded in.
Even with the cab at our disposal there was plenty of walking. The heat and the sun are quite intense. Six hours into our eight hour hire we were done and asked to be brought back.
We found a nice restaurant to have lunch in. I had a spicy vegetable rice dish and naan. I think enough time has passed that I can safely say, “It was delicious and another fine Indian meal.” Yesterday I had street food, something I said I wouldn’t be doing. It was made of meat and vegetables of unknown names and descriptions wrapped in some kind of dough and deep fried. I only ate it because the owner of the establishment I’m staying in ordered it and bought it for me. It was also spicy and delicious with no adverse effects. I will try to find out before I leave what is was called so that I can get it again.
At several of the tourist sights we visited we were asked to pose for pictures with families and especially mature women in saris and burkas wanted pictures with us.
Saw my first cobra today. We were walking along a narrow sidewalk trying to avoid the hawkers when a man decided to show me his snake. Pulled the cover right off his basket about three feet from my own two feet which pretty much danced past of their own accord. I’ll be much more careful of random baskets on the ground from now on.
I was wondering where 27 million people cold possibly be. Well they seem to be in the marketplace where we are staying or on the road in a car, a motorcycle, a tuk-tuk, a bus, a truck or a wooden pedal-powered cart, six wide on a street painted for two lanes. Personal space exists neither in the marketplace or the road.
