Day 31, Sept. 10

The day before, under the direction of Anthony Arulraj, I bought a ticket to see the sights of Delhi. The tour was run by the City of Delhi’s Tourism department. It was only $5.00 plus admissions for a full day’s trip from 8:00 to 5:30.
The day didn’t start out too well. The morning was soaking wet with deep puddles making it hard to even walk the three or so blocks to the tourist center. When I got there barely on time, I found out the guide was late because she was tied up in traffic. Over a half hour later, they decided to meet the guide at the first site. At the Hindu temple, there was still no report on the guide. One of the six of us, a Hindu, led us and tried to answer questions. None of the people at the Temple could speak English. Finally, the guide did show up and we went to the site of Gandhi’s death. It had served as his ashram. It is also a good children’s museum. We had an 8 year old with us and she enjoyed herself. Following tht we saw and briefly prayed in the Lotus shaped temple of the Bahai faith.
At lunch time we came near to where we started. We were dumped off in front of a cafeteria serving local food. However, the 8 yea old girl from Sicily wanted either pasta or McDonald’s. There were no pasta houses. So, on to Mickey D’s. I couldn’t let the mother and daughter go it alone only guessing where the place was. So, I guided them to the place and had my first non-Indian meal since arriving. Actually, McDonalds serves no be in India; but it does have a vegetable concoction on a bun that is an Indian creation. It was pretty good.
Back to the tour. The remaining stops were:
the Qutub Minar which is a 72 meter tower built in three stages over 5 centuries. I didn’t think I wanted to pay an admission until I saw it. It is impressive as were the structures around it. They gave a good historical background of Mughal rule which most locals don’t like to remember.
the Rajghat, where Gandhi was cremated and revered
the Red Fort, built by the same man who built the Taj Mahal
Humayun’s tomb, an impressive area and monument that may have been the prototype of the Taj.
After all that bedraggled and soaked we finished the tour. I don’t hve pictures of most of it because my good camera wouldn’t work and I brought the wrong disc fo my back-up. Hence, after getting back I looked for and found a photo shop and bought a 2 gig SD card for $10.00 and returned to the CBCI center tired but happy.
The conversation at table that evening was more open and enjoyable s I felt more accepted. The visiting bishop was still there and I asked him some criticl questions and got back the answers I wanted to hear.