Saturday Sight Seeing

Saturday (May 19) was a great day. My friend and colleague from IHG, Justin, who happens to be in Delhi on business this month, picked me and Andrew up and we headed out for some sight-seeing. Our first stop was Connaught Place. It was a big market, similar to the Delhi hut but bigger and more crowded. It was pretty loud and chaotic. Lots of merchants kept yelling to try to lure us into their shops. We didn’t spend much time there.

We moved on to Chandni Chowk, which is a huge market/conglomeration of shops in Old Delhi. It is composed of tons of narrow, winding streets that are totally packed. We decided to take cycle rickshaws through the market. We passed through several different sections of the market and the driver would turn around and explain when we moved from one section to another. For example, there was a “Silver Market” and a “Wedding Market,” as well as a “Saree Market.” The streets aren’t all that well paved so it was a pretty bumpy ride. Every once in a while we would get caught in a little traffic jam with one of the wheels stuck in a pothole. 

When this happened the driver had to get down and pull the rickshaw out and then keep driving. It was a good experience. I definitely want to go back there again and walk through it, but it was probably for the best that we did the cycle rickshaw for our first time. It was pretty exhausting already and I’m sure that going through on foot would have been even more so.

Our rickshaw drivers made a detour at the Red Fort. The Red Fort, itself is huge and pretty cool. But the most memorable part of our time there was when some of the other people there wanted to take pictures of us. Justin noticed a guy trying to sneakily take our picture, so Justin approached him and asked politely, “Do you want a picture with me?” The two of them got a picture together. Then a few other people approached us. Andrew and I each took turns taking pictures with another guy. We definitely stood out in the crowd as foreigners and turned lots of heads, but I never felt like anyone was being disrespectful or aggressive. Outside of the Red Fort we went back to our cycle rickshaws. Before we could climb back in for the return trip, Andrew spotted a snake charmer. The guy was holding a cobra on this little platter. He let Andrew hold the platter and then we snagged a group photo of me, Andrew, the snake, the snake charmer, one of our rickshaw pullers, and then a few other random guys.

Our time in the heat at Chandni Chowk and at the Red Fort was exhausting. I don’t know what the temperature was on that exact day, but I can give you an idea by saying that it’s been around 107 degrees Fahrenheit from day to day the last few times I’ve checked. So we decided to get out of the city center and head to the mall in Gurgoan (which is sort of like a suburb of Delhi where there are tons of huge malls).

We went to a huge mall called Ambience. It has seven floors. Inside, near the food court there are lots of rides for kids. The sixth floor has an ice skating rink! The fifth floor has a fun house. There is also a movie theater where we had planned to see Avengers but the timing didn’t work out in the end. I guess they really need to have a place INDOORS where you can enjoy leisure activities with air conditioning here. We refreshed ourselves by going out for a late lunch at Pizza Hut (it was a restaurant-style Pizza Hut with LOTS of options on the menu). It was a calm, contemporary atmosphere. It actually reminded me of going to a restaurant in Salt Lake City. The contrast between this mall and Chandni Chowk was huge and I could hardly believe we were still in the same city as before. I went shopping and got some more colorful, cool Indian outfits. We topped the day off with a round of McFlurries!

I should also mention that I felt much better by Saturday. I’m still coughing and stuff, but I feel great overall.