Tag: Travel

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Out of India

I forgot to mention in the last post that I got an email from the US State Department informing me of communal unrest and a state of emergency in Sri Lanka. When I travel I register with STEP, which is the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, where you notify the state dept of your travel plans and they will update you with info on problems, disasters, dangers and so on, it also lets the embassy know you are in the country in case you need help. Anyway I’d forgotten I didn’t put an exit date when I registered for Sri Lanka (we were still waiting for our Indian visas at the time I registered), so they sent me the info even though I’d left already.

There are riots and violence in Kandy, and the army has been deployed to restore order and a curfew instituted. We were in Kandy just a week ago. According to Wikipedia the problems actually started while we were there, but didn’t escalate until we left. I didn’t notice any signs of trouble.

Anyway after a short stay in India we are moving on. India doesn’t work well with a multi country itinerary like ours. It is too huge. I think you really need to plan a dedicated trip and plan on visiting several cities and regions. We got a taste of India anyway, and no diarrhea!

Next stop, we’re keeping the left hand driving streak alive. Can you guess it?

David

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Delhi 3

I’ve come down with another cold, which sucks. Yesterday I started sneezing and had a headache. I was hoping it was just a reaction to the pollution, but unfortunately it has developed into a full blown sinus cold. Ugh. Second one on this trip.

Anyway, Yanmei wanted to go shopping and we heard about Dilli Haat which is an open air market. We took the metro to get there, and it was 100 rupees entrance fee (for foreigners). They should probably let foreigners in for free since I suspect we end up overpaying for everything we buy. Actually they should let everyone in free, because the place was a ghost town.

Maybe the problem was that even though they had 100s of shops there was very little variety. There were ten different shops, repeated a dozen times right down to having the same signs, same patterns on materials, etc. The shops were: dresses, scarves, rugs, shoes, fabrics, jewelry, art (same “hand painted” pictures in each one), brass statues, purses, and wood boxes and bowls.

Caught the guy modeling a dress for Yanmei, hehehe. They were pretty desperate to make sales, offering “first customer of the day” discounts. Overall it was disappointing, I’m sure there are lots of better places to shop in Delhi, I’m not sure why it has a good rating on TripAdvisor.

After Dilli Haat we went to Qutub Minar. This is one of the most famous sites in Delhi. If you’ve heard of the Iron pillar of Delhi that doesn’t rust, that is at Qutub Minar. The main attraction it the Qutub Minar itself which is a victory tower built in the 12th century.

The site happens to be on the approach to the airport, so there are a lot of planes flying over.

The Iron pillar was thought to be miraculous for many years because it is wrought iron, yet doesn’t rust or corrode even though it has been exposed to the elements for centuries. It is now understood how it works, an explanation is in the link above. It is estimated to be over 1600 years old so it significantly predates Qutub Minar and was moved there at some point.

Qutub Minar was definitely worth visiting.

After that we headed back to our hotel.

David

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Delhi 2

We had a little errand to run and wanted to take it a bit easy after the long Taj Mahal day. We walked to Khan market, which was like a strip mall but had some interesting shops.

After that we walked through Lodhi Garden, which is a free park in the middle Delhi that is full of 500+ year old ruins and tombs. It would be like if Golden Gate Park in SF was full of ruins, very cool. It was quiet and not busy at all, which was surprising given how nice a park it is. I also think it is a romance park, there were a lot of young couples sitting close together on benches talking quietly.

We’ve traveled so much that I think we’re getting jaded to sites. It is difficult to get interested about another museum or temple or palace. I found this park really interesting though, it’s something unique in my experience.

After that we went to Khanna market where we had a late lunch.

Then we headed back to the hotel.

David