Old Delhi

Today was an incredible experience of another culture, two actually; one historic and one very much alive. We start with a visit to the Qutub Minar mosque complex. Built starting in the 1100’s from older Hindu and Jain temples. The most imposing structure is a 5 story minaret. Impossibly tall tower, calls up images of the Tower of Babel racing to the sky.

The Qutub Minar

We visit a shop with crafts from the Kashmir area, particularly rugs. Susan finds a beautiful Tree of Life patterned prayer rug and breaks out her mad money to assure it will find a place in our home.

We go on to visit the  old Red Fort of Delhi and the Red Mosque there. This large structure from the 1200’s could hold 25,000 people at prayer. 

The women in our group had to wear borrowed robes.

A pedicab ride sounds relaxing but turns out to be the wildest activity so far. We ride through the streets of Old Delhi. Snarling traffic, constant horns, a traffic jam that just pretends to flow. We weave through narrow streets our senses assaulted with every kind of image, smell, sound and physically bouncing ride. We narrowly miss hitting people, animals, vehicles so many times it sometimes seems like a Road Runner cartoon. But this is real, a slice of everyday life in Old Delhi.

And this wasn't the narrowest street!

We return to our hotel, over stimulated and exhausted. We gather for dinner and cannot come up with a way to describe the ride we have been on. Fortunately we have each other to recount the narrow misses and wonder of it all. What more could lies ahead?