DELHI, INDIA

Since Delhi is pretty spread-out and autorickshaw drivers are a pain to deal with, I decided to take the easy way out and go on a cheap all-day guided tour of the city in an air-conditioned bus. The tour was divided into a morning session where we saw the sights of New Delhi, and an afternoon tour of Old Delhi.

The other tourists on the bus seemed to be equally divided between Westerners and vacationing Indians, and during the course of the day I met a number of them, including an Israeli guy who's taking a six-week training course in Delhi, a kid from York, England on a two-week holiday, a backpacking gal from London, and two friendly young Indian guys from Chennai and Mumbai, in town on business. Our guide for the day was a nice guy, too, but he spoke so quickly and with such a strong accent that I had absolutely no idea what he was saying about 90 percent of the time.

We saw a lot of stuff today, so forgive me if I just give a quick sketch of each.

In the morning we toured:

• The Lakshmi Naryan Temple. This is a rather garish-looking large red-and-yellow Hindu temple built in 1938 and open to people of all faiths. Around the temple are a number of quotations from religious texts in Hindi and English, some illustrated with paintings. The most interesting features of this temple to me, though, were the swastikas that adorn the building; they're everywhere! Of course the swastika is an ancient religious symbol of great significance to a number of religions, but it's still a little hard for me to get beyond the Nazi connotation.
• Jantar Mantar. This is an astronomical observatory built in 1724 by Maharaja Jai Singh II, the mathematician and astronomer king of Jaipur. It's actually a park filled with strange round and angular concrete structures which act as giant sextants and other instruments to show the movements of the sun, moon, and stars. The Maharaja apparently built several more of these in other Indian cities, including Jaipur. It kind of looks like a big modern-art playground.
• Qutb Minar. This is a really dramatic victory tower over 70 meters high built in the final years of the 12th Century by Qutb-ud-din, and completed by his successors. It's considered one of the finest examples of early Afghan architecture in India, and it really is unique-looking. The "victory" it celebrates is the coming of Islam to India (and the defeat of the last Hindu kingdom in Delhi), and right beside it stands the mostly-ruined Quwwat-ul-Islam Masjid, the oldest mosque in India, built from the ruins of 27 "idolatrous" Hindu temples. Also in the complex are the remains of even larger column that was to be twice as high(!) as the Qutb Minar, but was abandoned almost immediately after construction began.
• The Bahai "Lotus" Temple. Unlike the previous sights, this is a much more recent religious structure, completed in 1986, and shaped like a giant lotus flower, faced in white marble and surrounded by nine symmetrical pools of water. The architecture is really striking--with its curved white "petals," it reminds me a little of Sydney's famous opera house. The Bahai faith emphasizes the equality of all religions, so everyone is allowed to use the main sanctuary for silent meditation. It is a very calming environment--"the opposite of Delhi," as my Israeli friend noted.

After our morning tour, the bus brought us back to where the tour started, and we were herded into the cafeteria-like restaurant adjoining the tourism bureau for a quick lunch (I had an awesome masala dosa for less than a dollar).

Most of us then got back in the bus and hit the following sights of Old Delhi:

• The Red Fort (Lal Qila). This walled fort (and yep, it's red sandstone), was built from 1638 to 1648 by Shah Jahan, the builder of Taj Mahal. Within the high walls of the fort are gardens and a number of buildings, including an arcade of shops that once served the royal household, Diwan-i-Am, the Hall of Public Audiences, where the emperor would hear petitions of his subjects, Diwan-i-Khas, the Hall of Private Audiences, the Hammans, or Royal Baths, and the Moti Masjid, or the Pearl Mosque, which was solely for the emperor's private use. The buildings here, while spacious, didn't really look too palatial to me. This may be due to the fact that various conquerors over the centuries have looted the place and stripped away the precious stones, gold and jewels that once encrusted the buildings. A real shame.
• Rajghat. This is the simple black marble platform where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated in 1948. There's an eternal flame next to the platform, and it's all set within a nice sunken courtyard. A number of Indians and foreigners were there solemnly paying their respects; some burned incense or left yellow flowers on top of the ghat.
• Humayun's Tomb. This Mughal tomb was built by Humayun's widow Queen Haji Begum in the 16th Century, and is considered the prototype for Taj Mahal. It certainly looks similar, apart from its color (it's mostly red, instead of white). As our tour was running late we arrived there just at sunset--bad for picture-taking, but good for viewing, as the last rays of the setting sun on the marble of the tomb gave everything a beautiful orange glow. After climbing the stairs to the main terrace, we could look out over the four symmetrical gardens surrounding the tomb, where peacocks strutted and raucous green parrots filled the trees--it was like something out of Kipling.

That provided a nice end to the day's sightseeing. After being dropped off by the bus, I then walked to nearby Connaught Place, one of the major retail districts of Delhi, where I had dinner at a Chinese fusion restaurant called Zen. It didn't occur to me until later that eating at a Chinese restaurant in India only a week after leaving China might seem a little strange. But heck, the food was good.