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Well leisurely start today and surprisingly enough I had omelet and Rob had two fried eggs. Don't know what the girls had but they just have no staying power.
Into the bus and back along the motorway to Delhi. This is a big 6 lane motorway through area of big high rises being built. Just hope their economy keeps growing and doesn't crash like the Spanish economy. Also passed through large tracks of land given over to local brick production with it all being dug by hand then fired in mounds in locally built kilns.
Arrived back in Delhi and got dropped at Kashmir carpet centre. These where all hand knotted and looked gorgeous, but managed to resist temptation, with the practicality of getting them home.
Went on to Connaught place, this was a big shopping area built in 1910. It looked like it would have been very impressive at the height of the Empire but all looked a bit tired now. Found a little book shop cum cafe to have lunch. Julie ordered a tea cake, yes it was a cake that you have with tea but not what was expected. The rest of us went native and ordered things we didn't know what they were but were certainly delicious.
Checked in and a bit of a rest before dashing out in a taxi across town again to another world heritage site, the Qutb Complex. This is India's oldest mosque which was built by demoliting 27 Hindu temples. This didn't make the ruler too popular and he was deposed later. There is also a 1500 year old iron pole that doesn't rust. The whole site looked a scene out of Indiana Jones and was very interesting.
Back into our taxi and despite him trying to persuade us to go all sorts of different places we went off to eat.
Now those who know me, know about Tripadvisor which most of the time works and sometimes doesn't. I had spotted as we were driving along a restaurant that was down as no 7 out of 1700 restaurants in Delhi. It was down as the Hauz Kauz Social. This turned out to be a whole area of shops, bars and restaurants. We walked all the way along and failed to find the bar but did find a really nice park at the end of the road with an abandoned temple/palace over looking a lake with fountains in it. After an enjoyable wonder around we headed back down the road and down a side street I spotted the Social sign. It looked extremely dodgy with the entrance down a borrow dimly lit tunnel with security guard types loling around, but persevered and eventually enters a nice looking bar, on entering we were asked if we wanted inside or roof top terrace. We went with roof top and were greeted with a spectacular view of the city beyond the lake and a Forrest with the temple floodlit off to one side.
The food and beer were absolutely top dollar and we are and drank well beyond our fill for £50. Back down and the usual haggling with taxi drivers and saved the group another 50P.
Back to the hotel and no IPL and beer tonight as up at 4:45 tomorrow AM.
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