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After a good nights sleep we had our complimentary breakfast at the hotel and set off with our tuktuk driver to see Old Delhi. Id completely forgotten how crazy it is to sit in the back of a tuktuk with cars, bikes and animals whizzing past from every direction, but managed to survive and first stop was the red fort. We refused the many tour guide offers, and wondered round by ourselves reading some of the signs so we knew a little bit of what was going on. Although very good for our self esteems, the amount of photos we were asked for by groups of people...usually individual ones so we would have stand whilst each member of the group took their turn to stand for one, became slightely tiring. It was fun taking photos with the women in their colourful Sari's though as we asked for photos on our cameras to which they seemed pleased about!
Once we'd finished walking around the fort our tuktuk driver took us to a Buddhist temple which also housed a bird hospital. We did not go into the temple itself but did go through a door downstairs which said meditation room, and which led us into these two rooms which were completely beautiful. As you walked through the door the walls are lined with bamboo and theres a sloping waterfall, then both the meditation rooms are like small caves. There are paintings on the walls, mats on the floor and in the second room was a small bridge going over a tiny stream.
The bird hospital was amazing but also slightely weird, as you have to walk around with no shoes on staring at seriously ill birds wondering what these birds have that you might be stepping in! A few of the birds had twisted necks, so were walking round their cages constantly looking up...really mean but also slightely amusing :s
Around the corner from the Buddhist temple was a Hindi temple which we also looked around. This was not quite as impressive after seeing the meditation rooms but did have lots of beautiful statues.
Next, after a short walk we braved the markets of Old Delhi which although appearing completely unorganised and chaotic was actually quite structured. Each couple of streets would have stalls all selling similar things and they all had different names. We ate street food in a small market cafe for lunch, which our driver promised us would not upset our bellies (will let you know tomorrow!), and it was really tasty. We had about 5 different dishes on a plate and some sort of rice in bread which was my favourite...so I had two! The spice market although not open was pretty amazing. Mr Sameer (our tuktuk driver) took us up a dodgy staircase so we could see it from a balcony above, and walk past the millions of hessein bags filled with chillis!
We managed to walk the whole of the market and were then only a short distance from the largest mosque in India so we paid that a visit to. We were too stingy to pay for a tour guide here as well, but luckily we met an Indian who was also travelling and he told us as much as he could.
Final stop was Ghandis cremation memorial site and the Ghandi museum. Both were really interesting and intrigued me and laura so much that we wikipediad him when we got back to the hotel lol.
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