The major kindly lent me a driver for the middle-of-the-night airport pickup, making it much easier than coordinating two overpriced taxis. And this time, I waited on the INSIDE of the airport.
Monday morning, following our mango juice, was a day of firsts.
– First autorickshaw ride for the rest of my family
– First time I had ever ridden up front in an auto-rickshaw with the driver
…and…
– First time I had attempted to visit Akshardham on a Monday
Akshardham-it
The auto driver had tried to warn us, but we had not understood until we saw the empty parking lot. The good news: Akshardham is right on the metro line. So for another first of the day:
– First time riding the Delhi Metro for the rest of my family (but no more ladies car…)
We took the blue line to Rajiv Chowk, the main central stop, and bought refreshments at the station’s underground CCD (Cafe Coffee Day), an important cultural stop. Then we hopped on the yellow line to one of the most famous Delhi landmarks, but one that I had yet to visit: Qutab Minar.
Qutab Minar is one of the oldest standing Delhi monuments. It was built in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In short, it is a complex of really old Islamic structures, the main feature being the tower (the “minar”, or “minaret”), one of the tallest structures of that purpose in the world, all the more impressive because of its age (and that it’s brick).
Disappointingly, we were not able to climb the tower. Apparently, you used to be able to or that there are certain times it is still open to the public, but this was not one of those times.
Qutab Minar
The weather was sunny and pleasant, a nice time to wander the park. We saw a fair number of other tourists, both Indian and Western, and even a school group.
We came upon this ruin which was apparently intended to be a tower even taller than Qutab, but construction ceased and now the base is all that is left.
Alai Almost-a-Minar
One thing I did not expect was the stunning detail on so many of the structures. Even though much of it has long since eroded, there is plenty of evidence of how amazing this place once was. I can see why this is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (There are a lot of sites in India under this title and most appear to deserve it, but not all. This one definitely does.)
Qutab Minar Complex details
Qutab Minar is a bit of a walk from the metro station, 30 minutes or so, so we thought we’d take an autorickshaw back. But another place to see was just one metro stop up. So instead of bothering with two modes of transportation, we paid slightly more for one of the touts outside Qutab Minar to drive us there.
The funny thing – he told us that his taxi was the same price as the autorickshaw! We didn’t believe it, but it turned out to be true. So we piled in his little taxi-van and the driver took us to the quiet Chhatarpur Temple complex, nearby in south Delhi.
Chhatarpur is on very few tourist agendas, but I’m not sure why. Besides that it is the second largest temple complex in Delhi, some interesting structures and temples are located here, including one of South Indian style rarely seen this far north. Though with plenty of the North India style as well
Chhatarpur Temple Complex
(North Indian style, taken from the main temple)
Chhatarpur Temple
(South Indian style)
The stacked square tower rising up in levels is textbook South Indian style (and I love it!) The triple tower with a rounded pope-hat shape in the top photo are the more typical northern style. Also very neat.
We were practically the only people in the entire complex. Inside the temple was almost empty except for the man inside taking donations and giving a red dot on your forehead in return. My sister got a red dot.
Across the street were more temples and a giant, pink statue with the monkey face (who was in just the wrong location for the light to make a decent photo.) But we did find a giant lock in need of a giant key…
(A hard-to-lose key?)
We hopped on the metro to Saket and walked to the gigantic mall for an early dinner. Bit of a longer walk than expected on this random thoroughfare in India but my (slow) phone GPS assured us we were walking the right direction.
I had a notion to take my family to Barbecue Nation. Amazingly, I found it. But it had not opened yet!
Five in the afternoon is way too early for dinner in India.
A lady was standing outside the nearby (and newly-opened) Pollo Tropical, trying to entice customers inside. We privately guessed the reason was that no one in India would know what Pollo meant. But we went inside anyway and had a chickeny dinner.
We took an auto to the metro back, everyone now completely in the hang of hailing and riding in the great auto rickshaw.
We Get Autorickshawing