The fun really starts today - the real India (albeit slightly sheltered with an organised tour). After a bit of lie in, & breakfast in the hotel (Sam's second omlette of the trip!) - we decided to venture outside the confines of the hotel. We were not meeting up with the other 2 families until 1.30pm, so we had a few hours to kill. The hotel was quite close to Connaught Place (CP) which is a well-known tourist area with lots going on, restaurants, shops etc. However, being Sunday, everything was shut! Bit of a nightmare, as we drove around in a taxi looking for some activity it soon became clear that this was a bit of a futile exercise. If in doubt - de-camp at McDonlalds! We got out of the cab and (having got some smaller change at McDs - the cabbie "didn't have any change") went in for a cappucino and and ice cream for Sam. A quick reference to the Lonely Planet did not save the outing - we found out about the shops/restaurants of the area, all of which were closed. So we had a quick walk around the central park area, and then having had no joy in rescuing our little excursion, decided to catch a tuk tuk back to the hotel. Easier said than done...
I decided we should go with an elderly tuk tuk driver, on the basis that we might get back to the hotel in one piece, gave him the destination as "Hans Plaza" (the old name for the hotel), negotiated a price of 100 rupees and we were off - in the wrong direction! After 5-10 minutes of deliberating if he knew where we were going, we stopped him and explained that the hotel was near CP, we had the lightbulb moment and we were heading back in the right direction (having gone round a roundabout the wrong way!). Back at the hotel, slightly relieved to be still in one piece, we headed for the bar. The bar man expalined that the tuk tuk driver would have heard "Hansel Plaza", another place in Delhi.
We met up with the 2 other families soon after, Bill, Jill & Phoebe (8) from Wiltshire, and David, Di & Beth (12) from Braintree. After the pointless briefing from Ved, we had lunch, but to his credit Ved managed to get us moved into a suite which was really nice. As we have essentially paid for 2 rooms each night, but we would prefer to have the kids in the same room as us, he us trying to get us in a larger room at each hotel, so we''ll have to see how successful he is!
We headed out onto air air-conditioned bus for the afternoon tour. First we went to Jama Masjid, the largest muslim mosque in Asia. I had to wear a sheet/skirt to cover my legs as I was wearing shorts. The market scenes on the way to the mosque were quite mad. We then went to see the major government buildings - the presidential palace, ministry of defence, and finally India Gate where we got ain ice cream and seemed to be more of an attraction to the thousands of Indians than the gate itself!
After a quick shower, we made our way to the nearby Parikrama rotating restaurant on the 24th floor of a nearby building. Really nice meal, seeing Delhi via 360 degrees. In bed by 9.30, because we have a 4.45 am wake up call - yes 4.45! We are catching the 06.15 Shatabdi Express to Agra. This is apparently the fastest, newest train in India - we'll wait and see....
I decided we should go with an elderly tuk tuk driver, on the basis that we might get back to the hotel in one piece, gave him the destination as "Hans Plaza" (the old name for the hotel), negotiated a price of 100 rupees and we were off - in the wrong direction! After 5-10 minutes of deliberating if he knew where we were going, we stopped him and explained that the hotel was near CP, we had the lightbulb moment and we were heading back in the right direction (having gone round a roundabout the wrong way!). Back at the hotel, slightly relieved to be still in one piece, we headed for the bar. The bar man expalined that the tuk tuk driver would have heard "Hansel Plaza", another place in Delhi.
We met up with the 2 other families soon after, Bill, Jill & Phoebe (8) from Wiltshire, and David, Di & Beth (12) from Braintree. After the pointless briefing from Ved, we had lunch, but to his credit Ved managed to get us moved into a suite which was really nice. As we have essentially paid for 2 rooms each night, but we would prefer to have the kids in the same room as us, he us trying to get us in a larger room at each hotel, so we''ll have to see how successful he is!
We headed out onto air air-conditioned bus for the afternoon tour. First we went to Jama Masjid, the largest muslim mosque in Asia. I had to wear a sheet/skirt to cover my legs as I was wearing shorts. The market scenes on the way to the mosque were quite mad. We then went to see the major government buildings - the presidential palace, ministry of defence, and finally India Gate where we got ain ice cream and seemed to be more of an attraction to the thousands of Indians than the gate itself!
After a quick shower, we made our way to the nearby Parikrama rotating restaurant on the 24th floor of a nearby building. Really nice meal, seeing Delhi via 360 degrees. In bed by 9.30, because we have a 4.45 am wake up call - yes 4.45! We are catching the 06.15 Shatabdi Express to Agra. This is apparently the fastest, newest train in India - we'll wait and see....
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