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Our train pulled into one of the outlying New Delhi stations late in the afternoon on Thursday 30 August. The journey was more confortable than we were used to (compared to the SE Asian trains) so we arrived fairly well rested. We managed to get tickets for and find our way onto a local train to New Delhi Station, where we walked up the main bazaar street looking for a place to stay. Even though we had been warned, the constant staring by everyone was already starting to feel a bit creepy - as a foreigner, there are people staring unashamably at you the WHOLE time. We found a pretty cool place and, after lugging our huge bags up to the fourth floor (they're not big on lifts here), we grabbed a shower and went to look for some dinner. We found a tiny local streetside restaurant where we shared another delicious meal and then browsed around some shops before heading back to crash in the room.
Friday we were up early to try and make arrangements to apply for our Schengen Visa through the German Consulate. Turns out they are are closed on Fridays :-/ so we hopped on the metro and went to speak to the VFS agency to see if they could help. The Delhi Metro is crazy - we kept on wondering 'Where did all these people come from?! Where are they going?!' We managed to catch the second train (got pushed off the first one - too many people. literally no space to even move.) and soon afterwards were at the VFS offices where we learned that we had to get in touch with the German consulate directly on Monday. So we had a quick lunch, walked around a bit and then caught the metro to nearby Humayan's Tomb. It was scorching hot and we were pretty much out of water :-/ but nevertheless we paid the 'foreigner price' (always at least 10 times the Indian price) and went in to look at this World Heritage Site and precurser to the Taj Mahal.
We've both been a bit surprised at how many huge, old buildings there are in India - I guess we knew that the major cities would have modern skyscrapers like the rest of the world, but I guess we pictured that most other buildings were just small houses or shacks. We haven't been there yet to look, but I wouldn't be surprised if India has more palaces and forts than all the countries of Europe combined. Humayan's Tomb, built by his widow in the 1500's, is a huge, ornate structure containing at least 100 other graves. After looking around we relaxed for a while in the sprawling landscaped gardens, building up strength for the long walk back to the nearest train station. We spent some time relaxing in our room before heading out for another yummy street dinner :-)
Saturday we slept in a bit. Monique must have slept funny because she woke with a terrible strain in her neck - could barely turn her head at all! So after a late breakfast, she went back up to the room while Kevin ventured out to go and see the Red Fort, the site of the palace of the former Mughal Emperors. The fort is enormous - in those days all the cool kids rode around on elephants, so a lot of things are built with that in mind. The outer walls, for example, are up to 33 meters high in places. These emperors were also fabulously wealthy and spared no expense when building these palaces - such excesive extravagance is difficult to imagine in today's society. When the British took over, they unfortunately demolished many of the buildings to make way for army barracks, but most of the important buildings remain. That evening we wandered down the road to a nearby restaurant for dinner that also made really good mint lime soda's. It was also the first place we'd seen that served beers, so Kevin opted to try one. Quite an interesting experience - the beers list is on a completely separate menu, the bottle arrives covered in a material bag and the mug that you get is also not see-through. Lastly, unless you're pouring, you have to keep the bottle on the floor by your feet :-)
Sunday Monique's neck was still sore we mostly just took it easy - chilled in the room and did some admin. Later in the afternoon we braved the metro again and got ourselves to an area known for it's bazaars. We had a cool time browsing around and then found this tiny restaurant down an alleyway where we decided to have dinner. We were the only customers so the guy gave us somewhat of a food tasting - bringing out a whole bunch of extra stuff for us to try :-) We were so stuffed by the end, and stumbled our way back to the metro station where we caught caught the next train back to our room.
Monday we were both feeling a bit ill - probably some dodgy market food from the night before :-/ So once again we had a pretty chilled day. Did a bit of browsing up and down the street, but otherwise spent the rest of the afternoon doing admin. We had heard back from the German Consulate and arranged for an interview date for 2 weeks, so, wanting to use our time well, we set about planning and booking things for the next leg of our trip. A friend from Cape Town happened to be in town for the night (small world!) so we arraned to meet up for dinner. So again we hopped on the metro and soon we were sharing a delicious meal at a Tibetan restaurant, washed down with some traditional fruit beer. We wished Rod the best of luck for his epic bike ride up around the Himalayas, and then headed back to the room to pack.
Tuesday we were up early to checkout and, after managing to avoid being scammed into paying for an additional night, we trudged down the street in the mud and the rain to New Delhi Station, where we boarded our overnight train to Agra.
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Navneet nicely written i was really imagining streets and lemon soda of delhi