We heard on the news a few days ago that smog in New Delhi was so bad that you couldn't go outside.  It said that New Delhi was the worst city in the world.  We were so lucky that during the ten day trip to India we had a great weather every day.  Smog was bad but we didn't have any problem. 

The City of Agra and Taj Mahal was only a few hours driving from New Delhi.  We hire a taxi for two days.  Hiring a taxi for a day (8 hours) is about R2000 ($40cnd).  It is the easiest way to go sightseeing.   

 

A drive-in service area on the highway to Agra.  We had a breakfast there.

 





 

The white marble tomb of the third wife, Taj Mahal.  It is a well-known story so I'm not going to talk about the history.  It was a huge building, but it's a tomb.  I didn't feel humanity or warmth from the building.  It’s a large stone object.

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We flew to Amritsar in Punjab to visit the Golden Temple, the most significant Temple in Sikhism.  There were many guest houses and stores surrounding the temple.

 

 You have to cover your head in the temple.

 The temple is the most important pilgrimage sit.  There were so many people that took us one hour to go into the temple.  Sikhism welcome everyone (people of any religion) to their temple including this one. 

  The temple serves free meal all day.  Going into a huge building, receive a plate and sit and wait, then few kinds of curry and roti were served.  The meal was not great but it means a lot to Sikh people.

One of the reason we visited India was to attend our daughter in-law's cousin's wedding.  Wedding in India goes on for two weeks.  We only attended one of three wedding receptions.    Congratulations!!😄😄

 Indian people sure like to dance.  I'm sure that disco started in India.

The Safari restaurant in Delhi, where we went twice was very good.  A restaurant we went in Agra was great but I didn't take photo.  I like curry so we never have problems with food.  We ate curry twice a day everyday but never had a same curry twice.   

Most of food in local eateries were reasonable.  Foods were well cooked and safe, but do not drink tap water.  Locals don't drink either.  Use bottled water.  It's cheap.  On the other hand beer was so expensive, I don't know who drinks beer in India.  A bottle of beer in a restaurant was around $10.

The guest house (business hotel) we stayed was reasonable: $45 per night for a room with two bed.  I understand that this place charges $100 per night for foreigners.  This level of hotel in North America is about $60, therefore it would be very expensive in Indian standard.  This is a common practise in India.  Wherever you go there was a separate gate or ticket booth for foreigners and paying 20 time more for admission.

 

From our experience in India overall impression was not great.  It was a interesting place with many disappointment due to my unrealistic image of India.  My image of India before the trip was energetic growing country with smart people and a great history.   My image now is smog filled cities of tired people most of them were over worked.  There was no social rules.  A large number of poor people have no education and no hope.   I think India takes many many years to catch up with other Southeast Asian countries.

 

 





Trip to India

The beginning of October my wife and I had a chance to visit India for ten days.  Temperature was around 37 C every day.  It was very hot during the day.  I posted some photos with my impressions of India.
We spent most of the time in New Delhi.  Delhi is a smog filled dirty city.  I have been to many Southeast Asian countries, but this is the worst.  And people looked tired and unhappy.  In the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand there were some poor people but they were happy and smiling.  Many people were enjoying life on streets day and night.  Not in India.

These photos are typical street of Delhi.  You have to watch your steps for things stick out on the ground, cables and cow pies.   

 It seems the city doesn't allow to remove trees growing in the middle of street.  This is a common seen.  I'm taking photo from taxi.  Taxi and little tricycle were cheap but foreigners were likely endup in paying four times more than local.  Caching taxi at the airport and go to my hotel, you pay over 1000 Rupee, but ask hotel to call taxi to the airport was R300 ($6). 

 So many cars on the road the takes long time to go from A to B.  Yet there is no effective public transit system. 

 Many IT companies have office in Delhi.  Most call centres in the world are located in India. 

 

Small size cars such as Suzuki are most common and traffic was terrible.  No one seems to obey the traffic rules.  You can go against One-way traffic. You can go up a freeway exit and make a U-turn to get on the freeway.  Red light means honk and go if not busy.  No police no enforcement.   

 There was a shopping mall but everything there was so expensive that I can buy the same thing cheaper in Canada.  There must be some rich people using these stores.

 Typical traffic.  Traffic lanes?  What is that?

I thought India was an old country with many historical sites.  But I was wrong.  More historical sites in southern India but not around Delhi.  This India gate was relatively new and built after WW II in the Government centre. 

 Red Fort was built in 17th Century.

 Tombs and Mosques were built in 15th Century.  Most of large buildings were built during the India was an Islamic state.