Our backpacking trip: Dia 275 / Day 275

Llegamos a New Delhi en la mañana y tomamos un taxi que nos llevara a conocer los principales sitios de interes de la ciudad.

Primero estuvimos en la Puerta de India, luego visitamos Qutb Minar un sitio patrimonio de la UNESCO. Despues fuimos al Templo Lotus, que pertenece a la religion Bahai. Luego fuimos a la tumba Humayun, tambien un patrimonio de la UNESCO; este lugar inspiro la construccion del Taj Mahal.

Luego visitamos el Fuerte Rojo. Este lugar es gigantesco y todavia tiene areas que se utilizan como base military. Aca estuvimos caminando por un par de horas, desafortunadamente no cuenta con los mismos detalles de los otros fuertes o palacios que hemos visitado en Rajasthan.

Finalmente fuimos a visitar la mezquita Jama Masjid; desafortunadamente llegamos a hora de oracion y nos toco esperar. Cuando finalmente nos iban a dejar entrar, llego un payaso que queria que le pagaramos 300 rupees por cada uno mas 300 rupees por la camara. Sabemos que no hay que pagar por entrar a la mezquita, le alegamos pero ya estamos cansados de tanto chachullo que mejor decidimos irnos… los musulmanes que estaban alrededor no lo podian creer que nos estuvieran cobrando, pero nadie intervino para hacer nada al respecto… muy frustrante la experiencia.

Despues de todo un dia por las calles de New Delhi quedamos impresionados con el orden, la limpieza y la organizacion de esta ciudad. Hay zonas donde la gente incluso respeta los semaforos y los limites de velocidad… no lo podiamos creer!

El taxi nos llevo de regreso a la estacion del tren para tomar el tren a Amritsar.

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We arrived in New Delhi in the morning and took a taxi to take us to the most important sites in the city.

First we went to the Gate of India, then we went to Qutb Minar a UNESCO Heritage Site. We then went to Lotus Temple which belongs to the Bahai religion. Later we went to the Humayun tomb, a UNESCO Heritage Site; this place inspired the construction of Taj Mahal.

We then visited the Red Fort. This is huge place and still has several areas that are being used as military base. Here we walked for a couple of hours seeing it all, unfortunately it does not have the same details and beauty as the other forts and palaces that we saw in Rajasthan.

Finally we went to visit Jama Masjid Mosque; unfortunately we arrived at praying time and we had to wait. When they finally decided to let us in some of the clowns at the entrance pulled out of his pocket some tickets and demanded 300 rupees for each of us and 300 rupees for the camera. We knew we did not have to pay to get into the mosque, so we argued with him but we are tired of so many scams that we decided to leave… the muslims around could not believe that there was somebody charging us and even had tickets (home made) to sell, but nobody intervene or did anything to help us out… very frustrating experience.

After a full day around the streets of New Delhi we were impressed of how clean and organize this place is. There are zones where people even respect the traffic lights and speed limits… we could not believe it!

The taxi took us back to the train station to take our train to Amritsar.